Based on the song "Life on Mars" by David Bowie...
Someone is killing girls in the little town of Nowhere, South Dakota and they all look like Fiona Mars.
Fiona has a secret she can't quite remember. A secret her father, the Sheriff, is trying hard...
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There's a fractured second when a choice stops being a backseat passenger and becomes the driver. At which point that choice has grown up and flourished—like clematis on a porch rail or a kid leaving kindergarten—into a decision. But my decisions aren't like that. They're not children crossing the bridge into adolescents. They're not flowers in full bloom. They're hijackers. Seizing control and accelerating away from that long bridge and off a cliff, instead. One moment, I'm debating what sits on my right and left shoulder and the next I've got a gun (which wasn't sitting on either shoulder) and there's blood on the rug and I'm pointing it at someone I've known my whole life.
Such is my confusion.
I made it to the car and slid into the front seat. My hands were still bound by a clear electrical wire, the kind that plugs the phone into the wall. Inside the copper filaments pulsed like veins, large as train tunnels. I flinched because everything I touched sent warning signals across my body, shocking me.
I started the engine of Bithell's cruiser and remembered:
"Lucky."
My shoulder lobbed open the door and I popped the trunk. I hadn't thought, I just did. My hands grabbed for the gun box. I had the keys from the cruiser and I undid the lock. Gun. Bullets. Load. Ready. Walk. Door.
I never once thought, "Fiona, now is a good time to be a hero."
I'm not a hero. But I'm not crazy, either.
The flat white door bent backward on its spine. I marched in, waving the gun, and halted.
Lucky stood beside Janet, smoking a cigarette. He wasn't tied. He was bruised but from my dad. I hadn't wasted time wondering how Janet of all fucking women could have overpowered a six-foot-tall young man. But now I was.
"Well shit," Lucky said around his cigarette. "You came back. Catch her Mom, we ain't done yet. I want my turn."
The ember tip on his Lucky Strike reddened, puffing angrily.
I'd known her my whole life, but when Janet moved, I pulled the trigger.
