Some of them Witches

Chapter 20

In a room with no windows, it was hard to tell time. Marianne tried to focus on the positives. At Least it's not a cell. They haven't even cuffed you. The concrete walls of the interrogation room did nothing to soothe her nerves.

She had already given her statement. What could they even charge me with? She counted down the items in her head. Not helping.

There was a buzz and the door was opening onto an argument, "And if I find you've violated any of my client's rights--"

"Now, Ms. --", the detective was interrupting.

"Jane!" Marianne burst out, standing. At the moment, her face was the most welcome sight in the world to her.

St. Jane placed a hand on her shoulder. "Are you alright?" She shrugged and winced a little. "She's injured," said Jane, impatience lacing her tone at the detective. "It's not hard to see, she's practically covered in blood, has she even received medical attention?"

Marianne looked at the detective who finally seemed to notice her cuts and scrapes, which despite Jane's obvious over-exaggeration were numerous and visible on the skin left bare by her teal maxi dress.

"I'll see to it." He left them alone in the little room.

Jane pulled up the chair from the other side of the table to sit next to her. "Don't worry, they're not going to charge you with anything."

"Sure doesn't look like it."

"I've already spoken to the person in charge. There's a ton of videos online of what happened from a lot of different angles and on every single one, it shows you did nothing wrong. I emailed him a few links before calling." Jane gave her shoulder a reaffirming squeeze. "Don't worry."

"Do you know anything about Miller? The guy I was with, is he okay? What about the girls?"

"I'm sorry, I'm not sure about your friend but the girls are alright. Petra called me in a frenzy and I rushed over as soon as I found out where they'd taken you."

Shortly afterward a police officer came in to thank them for their time and to escort them out.

Marianne was happy to have her phone back, even as St. Jane was insisting she go to a hospital to document her wounds. She assured her she felt mostly fine, just tired, settling on visiting an emergency clinic instead.

There were several text notifications from Lily and Violet asking where she was but none from Miller. Missed calls were listed from Nathan, four of them in the last two hours. Only one voicemail, "Please let me know you're okay."

She didn't want to call while she was with St. Jane so she sent a text. I'm okay. Is Miller okay? Got held up by the police. I'll call when I get home. Her phone died shortly after without a response.

When they arrived at the house, Violet and Lily were waiting outside on the porch with Nathan. They got out of the car and Huckleberry ran over to jump on Jane's legs excitedly. Lily quickly intervened, picking him up as Violet hugged Marianne.

"We were so worried!" She released her, looking her up and down, "Are you okay?"

"Just a couple scrapes. Jane took me to a doctor, I'm good." Marianne looked to Nathan who was standing further back. "How's Miller?"

"He's got two broken ribs and some bruises, but he'll be alright."

Marianne's eyes watered with relief as she nodded. "Mom may never let him leave the house again so I came to check on you."

Lily was at her side now. "You should have come with us," she said, lightly pushing Marianne's shoulder. "You practically handed yourself over to the cops. Your video's going viral, though."