Thump!
Detective Miller's fist collided with the steel table, the clang ricocheting off the cold, concrete walls. "Oh well…" he hissed, his voice cracking under frustration. "I thought detectives knew how to control their anger—guess I was wrong."
Xwen didn't flinch. He tilted his head slightly, lips quirking upward in a mockery of a smile. It didn't reach his eyes.
The metal door slammed behind Miller as he exited, leaving behind a vacuum of silence so thick it vibrated in Xwen's eardrums.
"You will speak up!" Miller's voice roared through the hallway before another door slammed, the echo bouncing back into the tiny room like a cruel reminder.
Xwen chuckled — sharp and forced. "Huh?" he murmured to himself, leaning back in the stiff chair as if lounging in a café and not a sterile interrogation room. His fingers tapped lightly on the steel tabletop, rhythm erratic.
'I'll make you do!' he mimicked in his mind, rolling his eyes.
"Good luck with that," he muttered, a faint pulse flickering in his jawline. His face remained casual — too casual.
The one-way mirror across the room glinted under flickering fluorescent lights. He could feel their stares, faceless but intrusive, watching for cracks.
Third detective in less than two hours. All bark. No bite.
He exhaled through his nose. "Cheers. What an accomplishment." His voice, though cocky, felt like it was holding something down. He whispered to himself, the silence of the room amplifying his words. "I guess this X-City Police Department lacks professionals. Lucky me."
A buzzing sound — faint but insistent — leaked from a faulty ceiling vent, merging with the dull hum of the building's broken HVAC system. The air was thick, dry, and smelled faintly of bleach and metal.
Tap. Tap. Tap. His fingers moved again — faster now.
'Stay composed, Xwen,' he told himself.
But the mirror made him feel like he was splitting in two — the boy he performed, and the boy they were here for.
He glanced at the one-way mirror, a prickle of awareness that unseen eyes were scrutinizing his every move. He smirked, a tight, insincere expression. Let them watch.
The door creaked open again.
He stilled.
Black boots, a neat gray suit, hair tied into a practical bun — she walked in with deliberate calm.
"You've got to be kidding me," Xwen muttered, the sarcasm a bit too rushed. "Let me guess—Detective 'D'? Just working down the alphabet?"
She didn't answer. She just sat.
"Is there a line of you out there, waiting for your turn? Should I hand out tickets?"
Still nothing.
Her silence scraped against him harder than Miller's yelling ever could.
Xwen straightened. "Ma'am? Do I look like a fucking joke to you?"
Her face was unreadable — too unreadable. But something cold flickered in her eyes. She slid her badge forward.
"Detective B. X-City Police Department."
She crossed her legs. No notepad. No recording. Just her eyes, boring straight into him like scalpels.
He was about to say something else when she finally spoke.
"You know, Xwen..." Her voice was calm, each syllable deliberate. "We found something interesting. A detail overlooked — but not by her."
Xwen's posture stiffened. "Her?"
She leaned forward, elbows resting lightly on the table. "Her diary."
There it was.
"It talked about a 'window' of opportunity. A way out. The fear she felt. The way you and your friends —" she paused, letting the word decay in the air, "— made her feel hunted. Trapped. Humiliated."
Xwen's smirk twitched. "Diaries aren't evidence. Girls write fantasy shit all the time."
Detective B smiled — not kindly, not even smugly. It was surgical. "Her fantasies were… painfully consistent with what your friends confessed."
His throat constricted.
"Confessed?"
"They told us everything. Each of them." Her voice dipped lower, more intimate. "The bullying. The video. The blackmail. The night at the window."
He looked away, jaw tightening. "They're trying to pin it on me. Cowards."
Detective B's tone sharpened, a controlled blade. "They said you led it. That you cornered her. That you pushed her too far."
Xwen stood up suddenly — the chair screeched. "This is bullshit!"
She didn't move. She slid a photo across the table.
His eyes flickered down.
It was an old woman. Tubes. Monitors. Lifeless eyes.
His breath caught. "Nana…"
"Dr. Nnenna. Stroke. Brought on by stress after your arrest," she said quietly. "She keeps asking for you."
Silence.
Real silence.
All the false swagger dropped like glass.
Xwen collapsed back into the chair.
"She raised you, didn't she?" Detective B asked, her tone softer now — laced with something dangerously close to empathy. "She kept you afloat when your dad fell apart. She believed in you. Called you her miracle."
A tight noise escaped his throat.
"We found her hairs on your shoes," she added, almost gently. "Not much — but enough."
He closed his eyes.
"You staged her suicide. But you were sloppy."
His hands trembled.
"You strangled her," she said. Flat. Undeniable. "Threw her through the window — thought she was dead. But she wasn't."
The word "window" exploded in his skull.
He remembered the sound. That crack. Not the fall, but the shattering of something inside him.
"She threatened to talk," the detective continued. "And you panicked. The nudes, the threats — your final attempts to bury her."
He pressed his palms against his eyes. "I didn't… mean to."
"What happened, Xwen?" her voice turned soft again, like a hand pulling a splinter. "You were a bright kid. What turned you into this?"
He could no longer hold it in. The words spilled out — fragmented, tangled, poisoned.
The party. The pressure. The crowd egging him on.
The fear in her eyes.
The scream.
The laughter that wasn't his.
The crack of the windowpane.
And then the silence after.
He remembered standing over her, breath ragged, fingers numb. Remembered the horror crawling over his skin like insects.
His voice cracked. "I thought I killed her. I thought she died."
"And so you tried to make sure."
His silence was its own confession.
The overhead lights buzzed louder, as if the room itself were listening. The mirror gleamed like an open wound.
Outside, a siren wailed and faded. Inside, the silence thickened.
The performance was over.
Detective B stood.
Xwen's voice — now small, desperate — followed her like a shadow.
"Will Nana… recover?"
No answer.
She opened the door.
But just before she stepped out, she turned.
"One last thing," she said. "The window she mentioned… it wasn't just glass."
He blinked, confused.
"She wrote that 'the window he pushed me through never closed again. Now… he sees things too.'"
The door shut behind her.
And in the silence that returned, something else stirred — a flicker of motion in the mirror. Not a reflection. Not his own.
Something watching.