Reckless

Reckless - Chapter Thirty-Eight

So contrary to what I said, I haven't actually had Internet for the past week - sorry 'bout that.  

R E C K L E S S . . . 

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT 

"Tell me what happened again," the police officer demanded, pacing back and forth in front of me with a sort of frenzied energy. 

I was sat in a chair in front of him, my eyes trained on his face as he paced, watching his bristly, black moustache quiver as he talked. 

It was hardly an hour since Alexis had attacked me in the hallway and already I was being asked all about it. I hadn't even had enough time to get my wound looked at properly. My hand reached up to my neck to feel the thin cut that Alexis's knife had made, still not covered. The school nurse had stopped the bleeding, but the cut still ached like hell. 

"I've told you already," I replied slowly, trying to quell the impulse to roll my eyes. "I was trying to find my friend's dormitory when I must've been hit-" 

"How?" 

"How would I know how they hit me? They did it from behind so I had no way of telling who or what did it." 

"There must've been something you can tell me. Did you see anyone before the attack? Were there signs of anything suspicious going on?" 

I sighed. I was tired of the same old questions that were posed to me every time I talked to the police, or anyone else for that matter. Everybody thought that they alone could get the answers from me - teachers, friends, family, police; even people I barely knew and had nothing to do with the situation had decided that they needed to get the story directly from the source. 

"I saw two girls from my year and my friend George in the corridors before the attack, but they would hardly be classified as suspicious - they'd never do something that terrible to me." I wasn't exactly sure if I could call George a friend anymore, seeing as I'd broken up with him and he'd as good as said he didn't want to be friends when we'd spoken barely an hour ago. Although seeing as the story I was telling the police officer wasn't exactly accurate in the first place I decided it didn't matter much anyway what I called him.  

"Was there any reason why this George fellow would be angry with you?" 

I paused, my eyes squeezing shut in pained acknowledgement. "Well, we sort of had a fight." He'll be even angrier with me now, I thought glumly. He'd hated being questioned by the police, and now they'd suspect him as my attacker. 

The policeman smiled smugly. "So he could've played a part in the attack." 

"No," I said immediately. I wished I hadn't said anything about him, just the thought of his downcast face as he'd told me about being questioned brought up a wave of regret for even uttering his name to this man. "He was a bit mad at me, true, but he would never get out of control like that. Ask anyone here and they'll tell you what he's like - he wouldn't hurt a fly. However strained a relationship is he'd never, ever hurt one of his friends." 

"Miss Forbes," he said gently. "That doesn't mean that he can't be a murderer. Some of the worst criminals have been the nicest, gentlest people ordinarily. Nobody could suspect it was them, least of all the ones closest to them. Are you sure you're not just making up this perfect image of George to mask your doubts about him?" 

I fixed him with an icy glare. "You're calling a sixteen year old boy a murderer." 

He met my gaze levelly, seemingly undeterred by the disbelief and loathing in my voice. "Much, much worse has happened, believe me. You're sixteen, aren't you? But you're not as innocent as you seem, I'll bet, and you're caught up in this mess."