My name is Alveanea.

I opened my eyes, and the first thing I saw was the hexagonal pattern on the ceiling. I sat upright and saw that there was a new bottle of water and three slices of pancakes on the coffee table beside me. The detective must have put them there.

Why not waffles though? They're better.

After eating, I felt the need to go to the washroom. I opened the door and peeked outside for any signs of the washroom. To my left, I saw a lady officer coming down from the hallway and was still busy straightening her uniform, so I just assumed the hallway would lead to the washroom. When I was walking to the washroom, the police officers stared at me like I was a madwoman and whispered among themselves.

"Hey, that's the bloody girl that Barnes brought in last night."

"Why isn't she in a jail cell?"

"I reckon she's the one who shot that girl."

Take deep breaths. You can't afford to be put in a jail cell because you've assaulted a police officer, can you? Now, keep cool and ignore them.

After I returned to Detective Barnes' office, I saw him sitting on his chair behind the desk, drinking coffee. "I hoped you had a good rest; now let's head over to the interrogation room to ask you some questions about last night's incident."

I nodded as he gestured to me to leave the room first and I followed him into the interrogation room. The word interrogation itself sent a chill down my spine I had managed to get out of the police's hair for the past few years, living in the streets, and now I was being interrogated for my best friend's death and had to lie to the police. When Detective Barnes opened the door for me to go in, I saw that there was another detective in the room already, waiting for me to settle down and begin the questioning.

The interrogation room looked exactly like what was shown in movies. A table with two chairs on one side for the detectives and one chair on the other side for the people they're interrogating. And in this case, it was me. There was a mirror facing me as I sat down on the chair, and there were probably more officers behind the mirror, watching and listening to everything I did during that interrogation.

A robbery went wrong.

Viktor's words flashed in my head as I tried to be as calm as possible.

Time to test my acting skills and hopefully, they don't suck. They don't know anything yet. Calm down. If they find out about the women I killed, I would be in handcuffs right now.

Breathe in, breathe out.

"I'm Detective Parker and this is Detective Barnes. We'll be asking you questions about what happened last night with the murder of Zari Smirnov," the detective sitting beside Detective Barnes started talking. He had a shaved head and I could smell his strong cologne.

I recognised that voice. He is the voice that spoke behind me telling officer Barnes to 'let me process'. Being together at the same crime scene and interrogating me now... they must be partners.

I flinched when he said her name and shifted uncomfortably at the thought that they probably have a whole case file on her right now.

"So for starters, can you tell me your name?" Detective Parker started the interrogation.

"Tiana." It felt so weird to say the name even though I had been using my 'fake' name for the last few years of my life, and yet it felt more natural to use the real one that I had only discovered last night.

"And your last name?" he asked me after a few seconds of silence.

"Don't have one. Didn't know my birth parents."

Detective Parker looked down at the file in front of him, "But it says here in your file that your last name is Lebedev. You were adopted by Nikita Lebedev, am I right?"

I froze. It seemed that they had a whole case file on me too. Of course they did, it was an ongoing murder investigation. I noticed Detective Barnes glanced at me for a second before looking down at his notepad.

"Yes, until she died four years ago." I pushed away the memories which were rushing to the surface as I did not want to lose control of my emotions right then. Especially since I was already putting on a facade during a police interrogation.

"Then you've been living on the streets for the past four years?"

Tears were on the verge of flowing out of my eyes and the actual interrogation hadn't even started yet.

Stay strong, just like Viktor said.

"Yes," I answered as Detective Parker nodded impressively at me, I'm assuming for not getting into trouble with that police for that long.

I have my ways.

Detective Parker cleared his throat, "Oh, I see. I'm deeply sorry for your loss. Now let's properly start. Did you know Ms Smirnov?"

"Yes, we... were roommates." I tried my best to swallow the tears which would have come.

"I see. Were you at the scene when the whole incident took place? Talk us through how everything happened."

"Zari and I were on our way to the pharmacy to get some medicine for her headache when this guy wearing a mask came forward to us and pointed the gun at us. He wanted money from us."

"Were there any distinctive features he had that you noticed even though he was wearing a mask? And why would he try to steal something from you? Based on the way you and Zari were dressed, I don't think he would have had anything to steal from you." Detective Barnes gave him a look. "No offence."

Shit. I hadn't thought about this part of the story yet.

Oh god, I'm going to be caught. Think, think, think!

"He had brown eyes. And was tall. Very tall." I tried to sit still as I could feel a droplet of sweat roll down the side of my forehead.

I heard a pen click and saw that officer Barnes was taking notes on a piece of paper. Detective Parker had a point, why would someone try to rob us? From the way we were dressed, it was clear that we didn't have much cash on us. So, what thing could I have had that would have been worth robbing?

The necklace that Nikita gave me.

"He was probably trying to steal my necklace," I answered firmly and touched the gold oval shape resting on my sweater.

Detective Barnes clicked his pen again and started writing again.

Detective Parker flipped a page of the file, "Could you tell me what happened that we found three bullet casings on the ground then?"

"The man pointed the gun at me and demanded that I give it to him; so that is what I did. Zari knew what this necklace meant to me since it is the only thing that I have that reminds me of Nikita. She kicked him in the... man area and both of us ran for it. I escaped, she did not."

"And how did you escape him?" Detective Barnes finally speaks.

"I hid behind the dumpster. He tried looking for me but ran away as soon as he heard the sound of police sirens."

Detective Parker closed the case file.

Looks like I'm done here.

"Thank you for your time, Tiana. We'll have a social worker meet you in an hour or so." Both of them started to stand up.

What? A social worker? This cannot be happening right now. I had to meet Viktor, find out the truth about my past and what happened to my parents. The last thing I needed right now is to get attached to another nice family or even a shitty one who will only get killed in a matter of time when there will probably be more assassins coming to kill me.  Some very powerful people think that I should not be alive. They could be the ones that orchestrated the explosion which killed my parents.

"Can... can I deny the request?" I said. I was unsure of what to say but I had to get myself out of there and find Viktor.

"I'm afraid not. Since you were brought into foster care back in April of 2002, we'll take the date as your birthday. Which means you're still about five months away before you're eighteen in the records, therefore we'll have a social worker pick you up," Barnes said impassively.

I narrowed my eyes at him. "It's not my fault that I don't know when my birthday is. Plus, I've been on my own since I was fourteen, I can handle myself, detective."

He took three very slow steps toward me. "And what's that supposed to do? Reassure me? If you get yourself involved in trouble and get yourself arrested, I will lose my job."

Shit. There's no way out of this, is there?

After a couple of seconds of staring, detective Parker sighed and said, "Look, I don't want to put you back in foster care as much you don't want to go back. I'll need to do up a lot of paperwork. Just hold on a few more months till you turn eighteen in the records okay?"

I nodded because I didn't really know how else to react.

Detective Barnes cut in, "I'll take her to the waiting room."

Detective Parker shrugged. "All right Deke, she's all yours."

From my peripheral, I could see that detective Parker was giving detective Barnes a look which I couldn't quite decipher. I followed detective Barnes around the police station, to no surprise, getting stares from his colleagues. But as I kept on walking, I noticed that there were lesser people and we ended up in a dusty room with shelves filled with old file cases.

Before I could ask Detective Barnes what was going on, he pushed one of the shelves to the side and behind it, a door was revealed. So a secret door in a police precinct? That was pretty dope. He held the door open for me, which I assumed was a signal for me to leave.

I was going to ask him why he just let me go and how he would answer to his superior, but I didn't need him to second guess his decision right then. I just walked out of the door, ready to face what was about to come next.