Still trying to help, even now.
I shook my head slowly.
“Nothing going on.”
I looked at the cops, smiling.
“I just wanted to see if my bomb worked. If it
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“Officer, I confessed. Anything else?”
“You monster!”
The cop yelled, like he wanted to strangle me.
I stared him down. He wouldn’t touch me.
“Plenty of evidence. I kept the receipts for the
gunpowder. What’s the problem?”
“Why isn’t this case closed?”
The door swung open. A powerful man
walked in.
He sat at the table, staring straight at me.
I straightened up, looking at him.
“You must be the boss. What else is there to
talk about? I confessed.”
He was serious.
“I’m Detective Harding, lead detective. I’m
taking over the interrogation.”
His eyes were like a hawk’s, sharp enough to
cut me.
I nodded.
“Ask away.”
“Why kill them? Your principal and counselor
say Mrs. Davies and your classmates were
good to you. You had no reason. What are
you hiding?”
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“Nothing to hide. I already told you. I wanted
to test my bomb.”
“They were good to me.”
“How so?”
He pressed.
I counted on my fingers.
“They brought me breakfast, helped me study,
got me to school. They even chipped in for
my tuition.”
“Mrs. Davies gave the most.”
“So, you blew up Mrs. Davies‘ whole family?”
་་
to be lonclu !!
<
“Yeah. I didn’t want her to be lonely.”
The cop taking notes snapped his pen.
“Detective, she’s a sociopath! She’s a psycho!
Don’t waste time on her. Close the case.”
Detective Harding shot him a look.
“That’s your attitude towards a case?”
“If you can’t dig deeper, don’t be a cop.”
He said coldly.
Harding had real authority. The cop shut up
fast.
I sat up a little straighter, facing Harding.
L
Harding called Dr. Evans back in.
“She saw her for counseling, right?”
Dr. Evans glanced at me, looking scared.
I smiled softly. I couldn’t blame her.
Who wouldn’t be scared of a mass murderer?
“Yes. She seemed healthy. I detected no
sociopathic tendencies.”
“We have a system to deal with students with
those tendencies. We don’t have them at our
school.”
Harding frowned, looking at me.
“Then why?”
L
“Then why?”
“Ashley, tell the truth. If something happened,
it might help your sentence.”
“Help my sentence?”
I laughed.
“Since when do mass murderers get light
sentences? I killed forty people. Help my
sentence?”
“Detective Harding, I’m not stupid. Don’t lie to
me.”
Dr. Evans looked at me, desperate.
“Ashley, you’re smart. Why would you do
“Tell us the truth. Maybe there’s hope.”
I shook my head.
“I don’t need hope.”
“If I did, I wouldn’t have built the bomb in the
first place.”
Harding gritted his teeth, staring hard at me.
“What happened that day? Something made
you light that fuse.”
“You’re human. I don’t believe you can do this
without feeling something.”
I frowned, thinking.
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