27

27

Sidney staggered down the concrete steps, clutching the metal railing. The interior of the police station had become too familiar, haunting her dreams after all these successive visits. It felt like she had never left after Kendra’s death, and even as she stumbled out now, part of her lingered back in the drab room where she was questioned.

Her face hurt. Her cheeks stretched taut over the swelling. Her eyelids were puffy, cumbersome when she blinked. Her eyeballs themselves felt raw and exhausted, the same as every cell in her body. Her skeleton was heavy to move, like it would be better placed somewhere dark and final.

Her mind did not form thoughts. It could not. The echoes of the police inquiries orbited around Seth’s slumped body in the backroom of the store. The lines of questions reached back and arched into concentric circles, running laps around all the terrible things that had happened. All the events at which she had been the center. Why had she been in the middl