tag you're it // heathers au

eleven // beaten

Dr. Cohen left Chloe alone in the interview room. Detective Kelly walked up to Dr. Cohen.

"Was she cooperative?" Detective Kelly asked.

"Extremely so." Dr. Cohen answered.

"How does it look?" Detective Kelly asked, referring to Chloe's mental health.

"In all honesty, I think she can plead not guilty by reason of mental illness or defect." Dr. Cohen replied. "Just by meeting with her for that short time, I already have multiple ideas of what she could be suffering from. It's probably a combination of them."

"Okay, thank you Dr. Cohen." Detective Kelly asked, surprised to see JD storming over to her, Veronica trailing behind him meekly. Her eyes were red from crying.

"You interviewed her without a lawyer?" JD asked angrily.

"Yes, I made it clear that she could choose to have a lawyer present. She chose to cooperate with Dr. Cohen and myself." Detective Kelly replied.

"She's fifteen!" JD yelled.

"Mr. Dean, if Chloe continues to cooperate, we can get her a good deal." Detective Kelly said.

"What do you mean?" Veronica asked, a lot calmer than her husband.

"I don't think Chloe did this in a malicious way. She was convinced that multiple lives would be in jeopardy if she didn't kill Jesse. And she didn't act alone." Detective Kelly began to explain.

"Who helped her?" JD asked, his voice gravelly and angered.

"Chloe says that her boyfriend convinced her she had to do it. She planned it with him and her friends. She said he was the one planning. That night, she told him she didn't want to do it. He told her that she wouldn't be hurting Jesse, she'd be saving lives." Detective Kelly continued.

"Jesus Christ." Veronica mumbled. She felt horrified that Chloe was being manipulated in a way too similar to JD's tactics.

"Can we speak to her?" JD asked.

"Yes." Detective Kelly said, leading JD and Veronica to the interview room Chloe was in.

"I'm so sorry!" Chloe cried the second she saw her parents.

"It's okay, we know you didn't want to." JD told her as Veronica rushed to hug Chloe, sitting beside her and comforting her.

"He was going to kill me if I didn't kill him first!" Chloe insisted.

"We know." JD repeated. He felt awful that Veronica had convinced him to let Jesse stay,

"If you all don't mind, I want to discuss the best path of dealing with this." Detective Kelly said.

"What is it?" JD asked, annoyed that Detective Kelly was interrupting him calming down his daughter.

"The best choice for Chloe is to plead not guilty by reason of mental illness or defect."

"Why is that the best choice?" JD asked.

"Because she can get that plea. She will probably be sentenced to a few years in a hospital. The judge and a jury would find sympathy with her because of the things Jesse did when she was younger. And because her boyfriend was so persuasive with how he got her to go along with his plan, and how he got her to shoot the gun." Detective Kelly continued.

"How did he get you to shoot the gun?" Veronica asked, feeling queasy at the look of shame on Chloe's face. She said her daughter's name at her reluctance to speak up.

"He hit me." Chloe mumbled, holding her head down. Her head shot up all of a sudden, not even registering the shocked expressions of her parents as she could hear Finn's voice screaming her name over and over again. She stood up, fearfully trying to go to him. She could tell he was close but her parents and Detective Kelly wouldn't let her leave.

"Stay with her, I have to go interview Finn." Detective Kelly told JD and Veronica, who sighed at Finn's name. Sighed at how sad their daughter look that she couldn't explain herself.

Detective Kelly left the interview room that Chloe and her parents were in. She noticed her partner, Detective Hubert, holding the arm of a very angry boy. He was a good deal taller than Chloe, who was already pretty tall. He was still calling for Chloe as Detective Kelly walked over.

"You must be Finn Cromwell." She said to the teenage boy.

"Where the fuck is Chloe?" He hissed, but Detective Kelly didn't answer. "Tell me where she is!" He screamed at Detective Kelly.

"No." Detective Kelly replied.

"I need to talk to her." He added.

"That's too bad." Detective Kelly said, before turning to Detective Hubert and telling him to take Finn to one of the interview rooms.