The folder stayed open between us, its pages lying flat like something already decided. My pulse drummed through my wrists, steady at first, then climbing. The room felt too quiet, the kind of quiet that waits for someone to unravel.
I took a breath I couldn't feel reach my lungs. "Why are you asking me about Harry?"
Rowan didn't answer right away. He looked at me as if measuring how tightly I was holding myself together. When he finally spoke, his tone was soft, almost patient.
"You'll know when the time is right."
A chill crept through my spine, subtle at first, then colder when he added, "So tell us more… The people around you always seem so misfortunate, Hugo. What's up with that?"
I stared at him. "What do you mean?"
Rowan flipped a page in the folder as though it meant nothing. "Every single person linked to you is doomed somehow. Your father is in prison. Your mother vanished completely. Even the people you met on the street—Riley committed suicide, Edgard is dead—"
I jerked forward. The words slammed against me too sharply.
"What?" My voice cracked. "Eddie is dead?" Heat knifed up my neck, then vanished. The room thinned, edges dimming, as if someone had lowered the oxygen by a quiet, deliberate percentage.
Rowan blinked once, slow, almost curious at my reaction. "Apparently, yeah. You didn't know? How come?"
My breath stuttered. "I—I haven't spoken to Eddie for so long… I—"
I choked on the next word and fought to steady myself. "I… I demand a lawyer."
Rowan leaned back, exasperation slipping through. "You keep talking, then demand a lawyer, then talk, then lawyer again. Hugo, make up your mind."
"Easy on him, Rowan," Marcus said quietly, but it didn't soften anything.
My throat tightened until speaking felt like dragging something broken through my chest. "I want a lawyer," I managed. My voice shook, and I hated how audible it was. "I won't say another word unless I have a lawyer. I never agreed to talk to you, you keep talking to me—"
My breath shivered, escaping in fragments. "Stop. I want a lawyer."
The last word cracked apart as it left me. It wasn't loud. Just raw. And final. I kept my eyes on the gouges in the tabletop and didn't answer another syllable
I pressed my hands together under the table so they wouldn't see them trembling, but the tremor moved anyway — through my arms, up my jaw, into something deeper I couldn't calm.
Rowan's expression flattened into procedure. He closed the folder without looking at me. "We're suspending the interview until counsel is present."
Marcus stood first, wordless, and opened the door.
"Your lawyer will be sent in as soon as he arrives," he said.
They left without another word.
The door shut so quietly I didn't notice when they left. The HVAC hummed like a faraway ocean. Fluorescents ticked, a thin insect chorus. My chair creaked once and the sound felt indecently loud.
One moment Rowan's stare was fixed on me, sharp with intention, and the next I was alone with the interrogation table, alone with the echo of Eddie's name tearing through my head like a blade dragged in a slow, deliberate line.
Dead. Eddie was dead.
The room didn't tilt, didn't spin — it simply pressed inward, narrowing around me until the air tasted thin. My breath wouldn't settle. Every inhale scraped along my throat, too quick, too shallow. I rested my elbows on the table, dropping my forehead to my palms, trying to hold myself together, but the thought kept circling, relentless.
My chest tightened. I tried to breathe around it.
Who killed him? Did someone kill him? Was it an accident? Was it punishment for something I didn't know about?
I shut my eyes, but the darkness didn't help. I kept seeing Eddie's face, the last day I saw him, the way he tugged on his hoodie strings when he got nervous. The way he said don't forget me now that you're getting big, half joking, half afraid. I told him I wouldn't.
And then I never checked in again.
My stomach twisted. I ran a hand over my face, trying to ground myself, but the stillness of the room made it worse. The lights overhead buzzed softly. The camera blinked. The walls held their breath.
Time in an interrogation room wasn't real time. It stretched. It warped. It made you forget what hour you were in. The silence grew thicker until it became a second skin.
Two hours passed. Maybe more. I stopped trying to track it.
My thoughts spun in slow, suffocating circles.
Rowan wasn't wrong. Everyone around me was gone, broken, missing, imprisoned, or buried. The thought dug into me like a needle pressed too deep. I squeezed my hands until my nails left marks across my palms.
Just when I felt I might tear at my own skin to escape the pressure in my chest, the door clicked open.
A man stepped in. A clean wool smell preceded him—rain, paper, a trace of coffee gone cold.
He wasn't wearing a suit like the detectives. No badge. Just a long black coat draped over shoulders that looked like they carried more responsibilities than hours in the day. His posture was relaxed, hands tucked into his pockets as he surveyed the room with the calm of someone who had stepped into scenes like this many times before.
I lifted my head.
His hair fell slightly over his forehead, dark and neatly kept, and his eyes held a steady clarity that didn't waver when they met mine. His expression wasn't cold— more weary, as if he had seen the worst of people and still bothered to keep a piece of himself untouched by it. His jaw was sharp, his features composed, the kind of presence that made the room feel less chaotic just by entering it.
He stepped closer to the table with measured pacing, his coat shifting behind him in a quiet sweep.
"You're Hugo Hollands," he said. His voice was calm, smooth, but not dismissive. A voice built for difficult rooms.
I nodded, swallowing hard.
He offered a polite, almost reassuring tilt of his head. "Logan Carrey," he said. "Public defender."
Public defender. The words landed like a single drop of water on a blistered surface.
He pulled out the chair opposite me and sat down, leaning forward just enough to show engagement, not enough to crowd me. His eyes stayed on mine, patient, waiting.
"They're done with you for now. They'll start the formal procedures next. Stay quiet. I'll be back once they let me access the preliminary report."
He stood, adjusted his coat, and looked me straight in the eyes. "Don't speak to anyone but me."
Then he left the room. And the officers returned.
They took me from the interrogation room without saying a word. No tone, no expression, just a gesture from Rowan toward the door and an officer waiting outside who didn't meet my eyes. The hall looked different now, longer somehow, stretched by dread and the slow rhythm of my steps. Every sound echoed as though the walls wanted to memorize me.
The officer walked ahead of me at an even pace. I followed.
The station smelled like old paper and something dry in the vents, a scent that reminded me too much of hospitals. I tried to steady my breathing, but the effort only made it worse. My chest rose too fast. My hands wouldn't stop shaking. I kept them tucked into the sleeves of my coat even though I knew they'd take that too.
We turned into a small room with a low ceiling. A camera watched from the corner. Another officer stood behind a desk, gloves on, bored in a way that made me feel less like a person and more like a routine.
"Stand there," he said, pointing to a marked line on the floor.
I stepped onto it. The light above buzzed softly. My shadow fell in a thin slice behind me.
He lifted a small device. "Fingerprinting."
I held out my hands, palms up. He took my fingers one by one, pressing them onto a scanner. The glass was cold. His grip was firm, efficient, lacking any hesitation. He rolled each finger across the glass; the screen bloomed with ridges and whorls, residue-less and permanent.
I tried not to think of Eddie. I failed.
The officer pushed a form across the desk. "Confirm your information."
My name stared back at me in printed ink. Hugo Hollands. Not Verran. Not the person the world thought I was.
My signature shook.
They took my coat next.
When I looked up, the officer was studying me in a way I didn't like — a slow, contemplative stare that held too long.
"Turn," he said.
I did. He photographed me from the front, the side, then again from the other angle. The flash stung.
I blinked through the spots, my throat tightening.
Nothing about this felt real. I felt like I was watching myself from somewhere outside my body, trapped behind the glass of a version of myself I didn't recognize.
They led me into another hallway. Quieter. Dimmer.
This one didn't echo. It consumed sound.
The officer stopped beside a heavy door with a narrow rectangular window. He unlocked it with a card swipe, then held it open.
"In here."
I stepped into the holding cell.
It wasn't large — a bench against one wall, a sink in the corner, gray tiles with scratches where people had dragged their feet. The door closed behind me with a thick, padded thud. The kind designed to swallow noise.
I sat.
Time folded strangely inside the holding cell. Minutes slipped by without shape, stretching into something that felt neither brief nor long, just heavy. I sat with my back against the wall, knees drawn in slightly, trying to anchor myself to the cold tile beneath me. It didn't work. My thoughts kept circling the same brutal questions — Eddie's death, Harry's name, the fire I couldn't remember — until the inside of my head felt scraped raw.
At some point, footsteps approached. Slow. Purposeful.
A shadow crossed the narrow window in the door before a key slid into the lock. The door opened with a controlled swing, no rush, no aggression, just the steady motion of someone following orders already carved into stone.
"Hugo Hollands," the officer said, voice low but carrying across the room. "Your lawyer is requesting another meeting."
He didn't step inside. He didn't look curious or sympathetic. Just waiting, as if this was the part of the night where things began to shift.
I pushed myself to stand, legs unsteady from sitting too long. The air outside the cell felt different — denser, as if whatever waited for me was larger than the hallway holding it.
The officer gestured for me to follow. I took one step forward, then another.
Somewhere past these walls, Logan had learned something new. And the weight of it was already pressing against the air.
The hallway felt narrower the second time around, as if the building had spent the last hours breathing in, lungs full, ribcage tight. Each step echoed differently now, more hollow, more revealing. The officer ahead of me didn't look back, just walked with the steady rhythm of someone escorting a man toward the next blow. A custodial cart squeaked somewhere unseen, the wheel's limp rubber making a soft, wounded rhythm. I matched my breathing to it and still couldn't keep up.
We stopped outside the interrogation room. Not the same one as before — the door was darker, heavier, and the light above it flickered once before holding steady. My pulse stuttered at the memory of the first room, Rowan's voice, Eddie's name, the slow unraveling. I drew a breath that did nothing to steady me.
The officer opened the door.
Logan sat at the table already, the tablet placed neatly in front of him, coat draped over the back of his chair. He didn't look up right away; he was reading something on the screen, brow drawn, posture tense enough that it touched the air like static.
When his eyes finally lifted to mine, the shift in his expression said everything. He wasn't surprised to see me. But he was worried.
"Come in," he said, calm but firmer than before.
The officer stepped aside and closed the door behind me. The click settled through the room like a pin dropped into water, quiet but absolute. I moved toward the chair across from Logan and sank into it slowly, my hands finding each other under the table because they wouldn't stay still on their own.
Logan studied me for a moment — not the way Rowan did, searching for guilt, but the way someone examines a fracture to understand its depth.
"You holding up?" he asked quietly.
My throat tightened around the answer. "Trying."
He nodded as if that was good enough for now. His fingers tapped the tablet once, a small, precise sound that made my stomach grip itself. He angled the screen slightly, not for me to see, but as if aligning his thoughts.
"I asked for access to your file," he said. "All they've released is the intake summary and a skeletal incident sheet—no exhibits, no witness statements, no scene logs yet."
I shifted in my seat. The silence in the room drew close, wrapping around us like something meant to keep secrets in place.
Logan leaned forward, lowering his voice.
"So," he said, "I need you to tell me everything you can. Even the pieces that feel small." His gaze sharpened, the kind of steady attention that anchored you whether you wanted it or not. "Because whatever they think happened… Hugo, this is serious."
I nodded, breath catching.
"I know."
Logan kept his voice level, like he was laying a sheet over something. "They're booking you on manslaughter and attempted murder."
The moment the last syllable left his mouth, something inside me snapped awake.
It was subtle at first —a shift in the air, a weight sliding into place behind my ribs— and then a cold understanding rushed through me so quickly it felt like I had stepped into a different version of the room. My breath stilled. The floor under my shoes steadied in a way that made the realization worse, too solid for denial.
They were charging me with killing someone. And trying to kill someone else. Me.
Me.
The words weren't just letters on a form anymore. They were an accusation with a body. A shape. A life.
My mouth dried instantly. The room seemed to lean forward, its corners pulling inward like a closing fist. My vision tunneled for a second — not fully dark, but dimmed enough that Logan's figure softened at the edges.
I felt my pulse in places I shouldn't have: behind my eyes, in my palms, along my spine.
I hadn't understood when they said it at the house. Not really. Not fully.
But now, sitting here with Logan watching me, hearing the words echo off the walls, hearing them in my own voice—
It hit me.
This wasn't a mistake. It wasn't questioning. It wasn't a misunderstanding waiting to clear itself.
They believed it. They had evidence. They had names. They had dates. They had something that tied back to me.
A tremor climbed up my arms and lodged itself in my throat.
"I…" The word fell apart before it left me.
Logan's brow tightened, concern flashing briefly before he masked it behind professionalism.
But I couldn't hide it anymore. Not from him. Not from myself.
The charge wasn't something light, not something you explain away with the right statement or a good lawyer. This was life-ending. This was prison. This was newspapers. This was blame, guilt, fire, blood.
This was the kind of accusation people didn't come back from.
My skin felt too tight. The air tasted thin.
"Manslaughter," I whispered again, but this time it sounded like someone else said it. "Attempted murder."
My own voice betrayed me — soft, cracking, raw.
My mind raced through every face tied to me. Eddie. Harry. Riley. My mother. My father.
Everyone falling apart in some new, horrible way.
Logan leaned forward slightly, anchoring his voice so it didn't drift into panic. "Hugo," he said. "Stay with me."
I blinked, and the room sharpened again. But the fear didn't recede. It only settled deeper, filling every hollow space in my chest until breathing felt like trying to lift something too heavy.
I finally understood what I'd said. What they believed. What I was now standing in the center of.
I wasn't just a suspect.
I was being positioned as a killer.
And there was no part of me prepared for that truth.
Logan's jaw tightened almost imperceptibly. "Alright." He raised the stylus. "Let's walk through the timeline again. Slowly. And then—"
His eyes met mine, and there was a gravity in them that hadn't been there earlier.
"I need you to tell me where you were on September eighth."
The stylus clicked once against the tablet. A droplet formed at the AC vent and fell, soft as a clock that refused to show its face.
My heart lurched once, painfully, as though it didn't know if it should keep beating.
"I…" My tongue felt thick in my mouth. "I don't remember."
Logan watched me — not judging, not doubting — but truly measuring the edges of my panic.
"It's alright," he said gently. "You're overwhelmed. Your memory may be fogged from stress. We'll handle it slowly."
But the way he said slowly sounded like a warning.
As if the truth, when it surfaced, would not come softly.
Logan exhaled slowly through his nose, as if preparing himself for the next cut. He tapped his stylus against the tablet once, then set it down. When he spoke, his tone was steady, but there was a tension beneath it, subtle and sharp.
"There was a fire on September eighth," he said. "Did you cause it?"
The question struck like a sudden drop in the floor.
My breath stalled. Not because I was confused— but because something clicked in my mind too cleanly, too violently.
The fire. Henry's fire.
The house Henry sent me to.
My pulse jumped, beating against my skin like it wanted out. My mouth opened before I even chose the words.
"No."
Logan bit the inside of his cheek, jaw flexing. "Alright." He studied me, trying to read whatever truth was shaking under the surface. "Are you sure? You can be honest with me. I'm your lawyer, Hugo. You need to trust me. They apparently have a very solid case against you."
I shook my head, breath catching. "I didn't cause the fire." The words came quicker now, desperation pushing them out. "Do they have any proof?"
"They might."
"There's no way they do," I said, louder than intended. "I didn't do it."
Logan lifted a hand in a calming gesture. "Okay. Okay." But he didn't look convinced. He looked cautious. Cautious in the way people get when they're preparing for something worse.
Silence pooled between us for a moment. It wasn't peaceful; it was the kind of silence that waits to swallow your next thought whole.
My voice dropped into it without warning. "Was Eddie in the fire?"
Logan paused. "Who is Eddie to you?"
"An old friend," I said. "But we stopped talking long before September eighth."
"Why did you?" Logan asked.
I looked down at my hands—tight, pale, shaking. I didn't want to give him Eddie. Not the real parts. Not the pieces that still hurt.
"Unrelated issue," I muttered. "A friends' fallout."
I lifted my head again, searching Logan's eyes for something solid to hold onto. For an answer. For anything.
"Where was the fire?" I asked, keeping my voice low enough that he would hear concern, not calculation.
Because I wasn't confused. I knew exactly which house had burned. I knew exactly who sent me there. And I knew exactly what I did.
The question wasn't for clarity. It was bait. A quiet test to measure how much ground I had left before everything beneath me gave way.
Logan studied me carefully, a slight tilt of his head, as if trying to decide whether my question came from fear or guilt. His silence pressed against my skin, too long, too attentive.
I forced my expression to stay open — worried, shaken, but harmless. The kind of face that didn't light anything on fire. The kind of face they'd seen on posters, stages, interviews.
Inside, my stomach tightened around the truth like a fist. The memory of flames rose behind my ribs without warning — heat crawling along my arms, the sting of smoke in my lungs, the way the house groaned in its last moments. My heartbeat kicked at the memory, too loud, fighting to break free of the lie I was trying to hold together.
I swallowed it down.
Logan's brows lifted, just barely, noticing something I hoped he couldn't name.
"Whoever Eddie is," he said carefully, "you're asking the wrong questions."
His voice didn't accuse me. It was worse than that. It sounded like he was trying to save someone already halfway buried.
I nodded slowly, pretending to absorb his tone rather than the words.
But inside my chest, the truth kept scraping at the walls.
I set that fire. And now I was sitting here asking where it happened like I hadn't watched the flames myself.
Even speaking felt dangerous. Every breath risked giving me away.
But I kept my face exactly where it needed to be. Concerned. Uncertain. Innocent.
A performance I had perfected long before the world ever clapped for me. The room seemed to applaud anyway—fluorescents buzzing, camera ticking—an audience of machines that never believed and always recorded.