The Tiyanak

The Guilty

Alicia struggled to catch her breath, her heart was racing so fast that she thought it was going to burst. Her fingers had gone numb and her legs seemed to have gone to sleep. The surge of adrenaline that ran through her body had all but burned out, replaced with a cold sweat. Each breath she took felt like poison, and the exhales she gave to clear it did little. Her head pounded, her vision dizzy. It was as if her body was about to crumble like a centuries old skeleton that was finally let out to the real world after so many years locked away from the light. Alicia was able to get some feeling back into her fingers and she grabbed her jeans as hard as she could, nearly breaking a fingernail. The panic and terror that she had been supressing came rushing upwards, like a drowning man rushing to the surface for air. She coughed a couple of times, feeling as though the bile within her would burst forth in one explosion, but she kept it together as best she could.

She looked up as the door clicked open. In stepped PC Colburn, the lines of his freshly shaved goatee standing course underneath his kindly smile. He had been very kind to her during the interview, allowing her to take her time and saying whatever she wanted. "All right," Colburn said in his kindly-grandfatherly way, "we've decided to release you, pending further investigation. However, I must make clear that you are not free. Given the circumstances, we're treating you as an accessory to murder. Therefore, you are forbidden from leaving the city until the day of your trial. Do you understand?"

Alicia nodded, struggling to keep her tears back.

"All right," Colburn said, "we will be in touch soon."

"Wait," Alicia said. "What about... Matt?"

"Who?"

"Matt, my friend... will he... be all right?"

"That's not for me to decide," Colburn told her very matter-of-factly, "that's down to a jury."

"He's innocent."

"Like I said," Colburn said, his smile dropping as he held the door open, "that's not for me to decide."