There's something wrong with Phoebe

20 - Phoebe

I’d messed up big time. Jack was going to be so disappointed in me. What if I’d ruined everything? What if they found him? I counted my sit ups as I did them, reaching my target of five hundred and continuing. My stomach trembled and screamed out in pain, but I deserved this for what I’d done. I’d killed all those who had loved me, except for a disconnected father, a boy who would never love me again and a man who may now be thrown in prison if found. It still had not sunk in that my sister, Kayla, my adorable brother, Thomas and my beautiful mother along with the rest of my family had left this Earth. Their bodies were scarred with motionless hearts. Their blood was cold and their eyes and mouths would never open again.

The door to my cell swung open and a policeman came in, hands placed on his hips as his eyes bore into me. “It’s time for your trial,” he said. I stood, head bowed, and walked willingly where he wanted me to.  I entered a room that I knew was the court room, and was sat down on the left side with a woman called Melanie Greene who was supposed to be my lawyer but I refused to tell her anything to help my situation. I stood as the judge entered, and within seconds, I was called up to the stand. I swore to tell the truth on the bible but I’d never been religious and I’d stopped telling the truth a long time ago anyway.

“Miss Gold, would you like to tell us why you bombed your local town hall, with your family inside?” said a black man dressed in a suit. I shrugged. “Did this have anything to do with your kidnapping?”

“So what if it did?” I replied, folding my arms.

“So it does?”

“No, I’m not saying that. I’m asking what a difference that would make if I told you it had happened because of my kidnapping.”

“It would mean there was perhaps just cause for your actions.” I smiled.

“So if it’s today with my kidnapping, it’s just?”

“It could be.”

“OK,” I said. “Well it wasn’t anyway.”

“I think, Miss Gold, from what you have just said, we are led to believe the cause had something to do with your kidnapping.”

“You can choose to believe that,” I said. “If that makes everything just.”

“Miss Gold, do you know of your abductor’s whereabouts?”

“He didn’t abduct me, I went with him,” I muttered.

“What was that?”

“Shit,” I said under my breath. I hope they hadn’t heard.

“Did you say you willingly went with your abductor?”

“No,” I replied, bluntly.

“You did,” said the man. “Miss Gold, did you know this man before the 16th December, 2005?”

“No,” I said, shaking my head, but I knew I’d given it away.

“You did.”

“Fine, we met at a fair when I was five and he said he’d come back for me one day. We met again in the woods and I remembered him and went with him.”

“That’s not the story she told me!” piped up Eliza, standing up in her seat. I glared at her.

“Miss Gold, was the story you told Detective Sherman a lie?”

“Perhaps,” I said.

“And why did you tell a lie?”

“Because I was supposed to.”