I was handcuffed to the stretcher in the ambulance which I found strange. I was a victim. For a long time I just stared at the metal that encircled one of my wrists, keeping me relatively stationary. The ambulance attendant was asking me a lot of questions. They were usually about me. I ignored all of them for a long time. My mind was too busy to be worried about her tedious words. I felt very little, like I was swimming through a haze.

Then, her gloved hands reached forward with a moist cloth and she began wiping some of the blood off of my fingers. My eyes slowly slid upward, seeing the soft-faced woman who was attending to me for the first time. She was humming to herself, seeming to have given up on asking me questions for the time being. I watched her as she cleaned my palms.

"There, that's better." She remarked when both of my hands were free from blood.

"Thank you." I whispered, feeling slightly better. At least I wasn't walking around with a constant reminder on my own flesh.

"Now, I want you to tell me a little bit about what happened, okay?"

I didn't respond. My eyes went back downwards and I gave my head a slow shake. Saying the words out loud would make it too real. Confessing what happened to someone else would damn my actions to reality. I wasn't ready for that. I felt I would never be ready.

"Did you hit your head at all?"

I shook my head again. And though it didn't feel like it the emergency medic was unraveling me ever so slightly as the ambulance drove to the hospital. She started by asking me simple questions that I could answer with small nods or the shaking of my head. Was I dizzy? Could I remember what I had for breakfast? Then she slowly pushed harder, still asking very small questions, but forcing me to give a verbal answer now. What had been wrapped around my throat? Did I remember losing consciousness at all, or did I remain awake through the whole attack? Did I just get the blood on my hands or had I felt some get in my mouth or in my eyes? I answered all of her questions truthfully, but didn't expel any excess information.

We reached the hospital. There was another man in a deep green uniform waiting for me. He wasn't carrying a large gun like the men who stormed into my house had been, but he was no less intimidating of a human being. He was the one who removed my handcuff from the stretcher, but it became very clear very quickly that I was still his prisoner. He was never more than two feet away from me as we moved through the hospital. And the hospital was nearly bursting at the seams with men like him. It seemed strange. I could only imagine doctors and nurses filling these hallways.

I was moved to a private room. Several people entered. Each one of them spoke to me quietly, but professionally. The man who had been assigned to me stayed near the only door, his eyes locked on me for the entirety of these exchanges. One of the doctors began touching my stomach. I flinched both from pain and form the surprise. Josh had delivered a violent blow there that I had forgotten about until now. I watched the agent shift, ready to pounce on me if I made another move. My grey eyes met his and I slowly sank back down into the lumpy bed. The doctors continued to examine me and ask me various questions, asking me to lift my shirt so they could see my bruised stomach and check for internal bleeding. Then it was onto my swollen face that was still attempting to heal from the violent slap. Then, it was my aching throat that had been squeeze mercilessly.

Once it was determined that I would survive the night they cleared out, leaving me with the officer.

"Where's Jasper?" I demanded.

The shock was nearly completely faded. My mind was no longer filled with the murky fuzz that made it nearly impossible to function. Now, I knew that I had left my friends in my dining room, still tied to chairs. I hadn't even checked to feel a pulse before I let Jasper's counterpart lead me away. That might've been the last time I would see the two people who meant the most to me and I hadn't even put up a fight. Now, I was being catered to in a hospital and I hadn't said more than a few words about the people I cared about most.

"I'll be asking the questions." The officer denied, closing the door and approaching me. "You're going to walk me through what happened, step by step. Do you understand?"

I knew that I wouldn't be able to argue my way out of this, but I wanted to. I needed to know what had happened to Alistair and Sophie. Somehow, I knew ignoring his questions would only prolong the process. I just nodded my head slowly, meeting his eyes squarely.

"Let's start from the beginning."

And we did. We started from the very beginning, like where I had met Alistair.

"You were going on dates with a federal agent when the American government was looking for you?"

I nodded my head slowly.

"That seems a bit like dancing with the devil, don't you think?"

He had no idea. And the night that I had truly been dancing with the devil I didn't have the slightest clue either.

I just continued on with the course over events.

I told him everything I could recall, praying I didn't leave out any important details. I explained the threatening phone call I had received at work. I told him how I took Hope's car to my house and how I probably ran through a few red lights accidentally. I explained Josh meeting me at the door and having blood on his hands. Just as I had been when Jasper and his team had found me. I choked through the awful things that Josh threatened to do to me. And exactly how he had ended up on my kitchen floor in a pool of his own blood.

"No one remained conscious through the entire event aside from you?" the officer questioned, raising a single eyebrow.

"Well, Josh."

"Unfortunately, I can't ask a dead man to confirm your accusations against him."

I frowned heavily. Could this man truly believe that I was making my side of the story up? It seemed blasphemous. I had just survived a wild and brutal attack by sheer luck and he was questioning my honesty. But Alistair had been right when he told me all those months ago that josh had great face value. Everyone who met him loved him. He was nice and charismatic. And I was the one who had turned on my heels, ran away, and built my own empire overnight. I could be turned into a villain very easily in a case like this.

"There's a camera." I blurted out, thinking about the blinking red dot I had seen. "I can't tell you if it was rolling or not, but he said something about making me relive the moment when I misbehaved."

"Are you suggesting he filmed all of this?"

The doubt in his face was growing clearer by the second.

"I don't know if it's true or not, but there was certainly was a camera in the kitchen. One was pointed at me when I... when I stabbed Josh and the other was aimed more towards Sophie and Alistair."

It almost appeared like the officer rolled his eyes. But I couldn't be sure and I couldn't confront him because in the next second he was standing and locking one of my wrists to the bed I was currently resting on. I opened my mouth to protest but he was faster.

"I need to report back to my team. You will have doctors coming in and out to check up on you in the meantime."

"But, I need to see Sophie and Alistair." I argued.

"You just admitted to killing one of the most influential men in America. If I were you I would be more concerned with your own situation than that of the supposedly innocent victims."

Then he was gone.

His words took a very long time to sink in. I had killed a man. I had killed my ex-fiancé. I had killed someone that America loved.

How would anyone believe my story?

I had assumed that everyone would somehow know how terrible Josh had been. I thought they would take one look at the crime scene, deem me a victim, and let me go without a second thought. And maybe they would. Maybe the camera had been rolling and they would have all the proof they needed to let me go.

Or maybe not.

And with those thoughts running through my mind my heart began to pound. But I could do nothing but wait.

I waited for what felt like forever. It was impossible to tell how much time had actually passed. The outside of the single window in the bleak room was too filthy to determine the daylight. There was an old clock on the wall but it appeared that the batteries had died and it was no longer serving its purpose. The television on the wall was beyond outdated and shut off. It was just me with my thoughts and a handcuffed wrist.

One doctor came to check up on me. She asked me a few questions. I answered politely, then asked if she knew anything about the people who had arrived with me. She just gave me a tight lipped smile and told me that she wasn't able to release such information. Part of me wanted to lash out at her, tell her that I was to be taken seriously. But I reminded myself that she was just doing her job like she had been instructed to. In addition to this, acting angrily wouldn't help my innocence case. Besides, if she told me that they were alive I would want to see them immediately, being even more antsy. And if they weren't...I would probably have such a severe breakdown that I would be moved to the psych ward for monitoring.

So when the next person came in I didn't ask. I met the nurse's eyes and answered all of his questions as best as I could. No, I wasn't in any pain. Yes, I could remember the last few hours. Yes, I knew my name and my birthday and who was currently the prime minister.

After a while I had come to expect nothing but nurses and doctors. If I was lucky some of them would ask me if I needed to use the washroom or give me a small packet of saltine crackers.

But when the door opened again it was not a doctor.

It was Jasper.

"Please let me go see them." I begged softly, before he could even speak "I swear I'm not lying. I killed Josh out of self-defense. If I didn't have to I wouldn't have."

Jasper was visibly more pale than he had been when he arrived to the scene of the crime. His steady hands were now trembling by his sides. He didn't respond to me for a long time. His brown eyes were just drifting over my face, down my body, then back up to my face like he wasn't truly processing what he was seeing. But then he covered the distance between us and unlocked my wrist from the handcuffs.