Blame

The Police Station

It turned out that Elizabeth wasn't wrong in thinking she'd get reported to the cops.

The very morning after the attack she found herself in the local police station, trying very hard to not start fidgeting or engage in any of her numerous nervous habits.

Sitting before her were two men that had introduced themselves as Burke and Dunn.

They both silently stared down her for a long time before they said anything else. It took all of Elizabeth's willpower to squirm uncomfortably under their gazes.

Looking people directly in the eyes already made her uncomfortable, and it certainly wasn't any better when she was being looked at the way those two officers were looking at her.

Which, of course, was probably the point.

She knew this was the time to be careful with her words, to remain calm and keep her composure.

But with Elizabeth being Elizabeth, that was going to really be a challenge.

"So," Burke leaned forward and placed his hands on the table between them, "how long have you known Laura Dumont, Elizabeth?"

A simple question. Not threatening. Not accusative. Probably just there to establish her baseline reactions.

Elizabeth told him that she had known her since she was fourteen, when she first joined Afton's circus.

Dunn asked her what she thought of her.

She told him that she thought Laura was a really sweet and kind woman because that was just the truth.

And of course, they asked her what she was doing between the span of time that Laura exited the tent and everybody started to search for her.

Elizabeth easily recounted what she had been doing.

She was asked if there was anybody she knew that she thought might be the culprit.

She said no.

This went on for quite a while.

At one point, they just started asking her multiple variations of the same few questions and she started to function on autopilot.

And then, eventually, they both left her alone in the room.

They were gone for what felt like an eternity.

Elizabeth could hear talking outside of the room, but she couldn't understand any of it.

Too muffled.

When they finally returned, they just...let her leave.

So she did.

Rather quickly.

It was bitter cold outside, but it was far better than being in the small, stuffy, rundown police station.

Elizabeth took about five steps across the cracked concrete before stopping.

She suddenly felt the unpleasant, shudder-inducing tingle she often got when people touched her unexpectedly.

But it was odd, because there was nobody standing even remotely close enough to her to invade her personal bubble.

And when she impulsively looked over her shoulder, that was only further confirmed.

Elizabeth probably would have spent more time thinking about how strange that was, had somebody not called her name.

Jumping slightly, she turned to find two individuals approaching her from the sidewalk on the opposite side of the street.

She waited until they were much closer to her before saying anything in response.

"Mister Afton. Jesse. Wh-what are y-y-you doing here?"

"Well, I wanted to make sure that my performer wasn't going to be arrested," Mister Afton explained casually.

"Same," Jesse said. "But replace performer with friend."

"Oh... alright."

"Plus, we're going to see Laura and figured you'd want to come with."

That grabbed her interest.

"She's fully conscious now?"

"Yes. They're letting her leave tomorrow morning, but nobody wants to wait that long to talk to her." Mister Afton spared a glance at his wristwatch. "Everybody else already went a while ago, so they might have started to disperse by now. Come with me."

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A/N: I am aware that in real life you should probably consult a lawyer before saying anything during police questioning like this, regardless of whether or not you are innocent. But I'm really bad at writing legal stuff, so we're just going to pretend that's not the case.