Earlier, at the house, she felt calm. Even with the screams and the blood, the same questions over and over, she had a sweet sense of being stripped back to her most basic form. She was aware of her fingers, her toes. She traced her ribs and clutched her kneecaps. Things that usually hustled for her attention were gone, and nothing mattered except for the slow beat of her heart.

But now ripples of shock rake painfully over her body, each wave crushing another part of her. Lungs, liver, heart.

The detective said she’d only be a moment, but it feels like she’s been gone for hours. Alex looks around the small room: plain walls that were once white but now carry a beige tinge, scuffed grey lino, a square table made of some nondescript substance, a mirrored rectangle along the wall in front of her. A bit like a cell. Maybe it’s intentional, an attempt to ease occupants into the idea of gaol. Alex rubs her eyes and looks at her reflection. Presumably people are watching her from the other side like they do in the movies—talking about her, judging her, wondering how the nice-looking girl could have killed her best friend. Vomit surges in Alex’s throat, and she grips the side of the table, swallowing desperately. The acid taste is putrid, and she sips water from the glass the detective gave her.

Despite her winter coat and boots, she’s freezing. Cold from the inside out. Bones and heart of ice.

Maybe she should have stayed in the hospital—the young doctor with the kind eyes had encouraged it—but after being examined, her body scraped for evidence and photographed like a corpse, all Alex wanted was to get the police interview over and done with.

‘Am I under arrest?’ she asked the officer with her at the hospital, after she’d finally been allowed to shower. Her hair was wet and combed, her face scrubbed clean of make-up and blood.

The cop was young, probably not much older than Alex. His features were too sharp to be handsome, and a thin white scar from the corner of his mouth to the middle of his left cheek gave him the impression of a hooked fish that had put up a fight. Clearly, he was guarding her, hovering in the periphery as she was guided through various examinations, her body scoured for clues. ‘Not at this stage,’ he replied stiffly, avoiding eye contact.

A flutter of something stirred then, the oddness of the situation so intense that Alex wanted to laugh. To scream. To rot into the earth, all traces of her existence erased.