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Chapter 1
Avery
"Ring around the rosie. A pocket full of posies. Ashes… Ashes… We all fall down…"
Do I tremble in fear? Laugh hysterically? Cry and scream until my lungs are torn to pieces?
What's the appropriate reaction to being framed for murder? It's one thing to be rightfully accused but another to be framed. What type of sick, ironic joke is this?
My wrist is red raw from the handcuff, the metal pulling and rubbing against my delicate skin. I'm chained to a desk in a cold, pale-gray room; an obvious two-way mirror in front of me.
I look like shit.
As I stare at my own reflection, mesmerized by my pathetic appearance, I can't help but wonder what my viewers think of me too. I feel like a circus animal, chained and put out for show.
Come one, come all. Hear the echoes of my hauntings.
I'm innocent—for once. But who is going to believe me? I'm the woman who murdered her father after all.
I start laughing, slowly at first, before it gets maniacally louder. On the outside, they must think I'm insane. I guess I am.But the truth is I'm haunted by misery. The ghosts of my past hold on to me, pulling me down. I tried to fight because I didn't want to drown. But maybe it's my destiny.
I should have diedthatday. But for a brief moment in time, I had actually started to believe that I survived for a reason. Now, I realize it was hopeless, wishful thinking. Because people like me don't get second chances. We're designed to live through torture, built to be the fallen and forgotten.
Well, it was nice while it was short lived.
At least for a short period, I got to experience happiness again and to some extent, freedom. I'm grateful for that.
Sing-song voices echo in the distance outside the room, and I'm not sure if I'm imagining them or if people are locked in the cells down the hall. All I know is that I'm alone, being watched like I'm a science experiment.
Are they waiting for me to break? Confess my sins?
Or maybe, worse still, they have forgotten me. I spent my whole life as an afterthought—if I was even lucky to be that. The irony of being forgotten after being arrested on the accusation of murder is one for the ages.
Time stands frozen, the clock on the wall broken. But even the clock is still right twice a day. Everything in this room mocks me—the clock, the metal chain around my wrist, my own reflection.
Finally, an officer comes through the door. In his forties, his gray stubble is neatly trimmed, while his blue eyes scan my bound frame. He sits across from me, chair legs scraping along the ground, sounding like nails on a blackboard. I flinch, and again, when his beige folder hits the table with a smack.
"Ms. White," he starts, observing my face carefully. "Do you know why you were detained?"
I shrug. "Constable Lennon said I was under arrest for murder."
It crosses my mind that he used the worddetainedrather than arrested. But I don't read too much into it. There's no hope here, after all.
"I'm Detective Vernon," he says, sounding bored. "As you are aware, a body was found earlier today at Lilydale Foundation Center. I'm told you knew the deceased." He pauses, checking his notes. "Samuel Hallman."
Flashbacks come in waves from the day I was arrested for Dad's murder. I've been here before, I know this line of questioning.
I know how this ends.
"Yeah," I answer. I'm not sure what else to say. I obviously knew him, and for whatever reason, they suspect that I killed him. It's not looking good—witnesses saw us fighting. People know he was put into the hospital after a brutal attack. It's so easy to point it back to me that I can understand why they assume it.
But I can't understand how the staff access card got into my pocket.
"I'm told that you and the deceased had a volatile relationship at the center."
I can't stop the cringe appearing on my face as shutters rack my body. Volatile is correct, but defining us as having some type of relationship—that's crossing boundaries.
For whatever reason, Sam hated me. He made my existence at Lilydale a living nightmare. Worst of all, he tried to hurt me. Who knows how far he would have gone if Theo hadn't stepped in and saved me.
