Chapter 4 Mia

Mia

The following days are blurry.

Not gone, exactly. I remember them in pieces.

Red and blue lights flashing against brick walls. Someone wrapping a blanket around my shoulders even though I could not stop shaking. A paramedic asking if any of the blood was mine. Me staring down at my hands and realizing I did not know how to answer fast enough.

The ambulance takes me to the hospital.

I remember the smell first. Antiseptic. Coffee. Plastic. The sharp, too-clean scent of places where terrible things happen and everyone pretends the lights are not too bright.

They make me sit on a bed. They check me for injuries. They ask if I hit my head, if I lost consciousness, if the man touched me, if I know whose blood is on my dress.

No.

No.

No.

I don’t know.

The police come after that.

Two officers at first, then a detective. A woman with tired eyes and a voice gentle enough that it almost makes me cry every time she asks me to start again.

So I start again.

I tell them about the club. Kaitlyn and Isabel getting into the Uber. The walk to my car. The wrong turn. The alley.

The man on the ground.

The blood.

The knife.

The voice.

I tell them everything I can remember, even though every word feels like another step closer to ruining my own life.

Because he told me not to.

He told me what would happen if I told anyone.

I sit there in a hospital room, wrapped in a scratchy blanket, my hair smelling like smoke and sweat and the club, and I do the exact thing the man with the knife told me not to do.

I talk.

I talk until my throat hurts. I talk until the detective’s pen stops moving. I talk until the sun starts rising somewhere beyond the small rectangular window.

“What did he look like?” she asks.

“I don’t know.”

“Could you see his face?”

“No.”

“Anything distinctive?”

“He was in the shadows.”

“His voice?”

I swallow.

“Fake,” I whisper. “Or... changed. Like he was making it deeper on purpose.”

She writes that down.

My hands start shaking again.

They drive me home once the hospital clears me.

The officer opens the back door of the police car, and I step out in borrowed sweatpants, a sweatshirt, and shoes that are not mine. My dress is gone. Evidence, they said, before sealing it in a bag.

Evidence.

Like I am part of the crime now.

The house looks wrong when I get there.

Too big. Too bright. Too perfect.

The gates open before the police car even reaches them, and my stomach turns at the sight of the long driveway, the manicured hedges, the stone steps, the huge windows glowing warm in the early morning light.

My parents are waiting inside.

My mother cries the second she sees me.

Not movie-star crying, not beautiful crying, not the kind she does in interviews when someone asks her about motherhood and she says it changed everything. Real crying. Messy. Panicked. Her robe is tied crooked, and her hair is loose around her face, and for one awful second she looks less like my mother and more like a woman who has just remembered she has a daughter.

“Mia,” she whispers.

Then she has me in her arms.

My father comes next. He wraps himself around both of us, and I stand there between them, stiff and cold, not knowing what to do with the sudden closeness.

They love me.

I know that.

They have always loved me in their way. From trailers and airports and hotel rooms. Through gifts delivered by assistants and birthday calls between scenes. Through flowers after exams, voice notes from premieres, postcards from countries they only visited long enough to be photographed in.

They love me.

They just do not know what to do when love requires staying.

The police come inside. We sit in the living room, and I hold a mug of tea I never drink while they explain what happened to my parents.

Or what might happen next.

“She may want to go away for a while,” the detective says carefully. “At least until we have more information. Until we know who did this.”

I blink at her. “What?”

My mother’s hand tightens around mine.

“No,” I say. “No, I’m not going away.”

“Mia,” my father says.

“I have a life here.”

The detective looks at me gently. “We understand that.”

“No, I don’t think you do. I have school. I have my friends. I volunteer at the animal shelter.”

“You can take time off,” my mother says, like it is that simple.

Like school is a nail appointment. Like the shelter is brunch. Like the only life I have built outside this house can be paused because everyone has suddenly decided I am too breakable to exist alone.

“I don’t want to take time off,” I say.

The detective leans forward slightly. “Miss Brooke, this is a serious matter.”

I know it is serious.

There is still dried blood at the edges of my cuticles no matter how hard the nurse scrubbed.

“The good news,” she continues, “is that the killer likely cannot trace anything back to you directly.”

“Likely,” I repeat.

Her expression does not change. “Your phone was taken, but it’s been flagged. We are working on that. As far as we know, he does not know who you are.”

As far as we know.

That does not make me feel better.

“But we can’t make guarantees,” she says. “If you choose not to leave, then you need to be cautious. No going out alone. No walking by yourself at night. Stay in public places. Keep your parents informed of where you are. Call us immediately if anything feels wrong.”

My father makes a sound under his breath.

My mother turns pale.

I nod too fast. “Okay. Fine. I can do that.”

“You can do that?” my father asks.

I look at him. “Yes.”

“You were walking alone downtown at two in the morning.”

My face burns. “I know.”

“And now a man is dead.”

The room goes silent.

My mother says his name sharply. My father closes his eyes, like he knows he should not have said it that way.

But he did.

And the worst part is that he is right.

A man is dead.

A man is dead because someone killed him, and I saw it, and now everyone is looking at me like I am next.