Witness

“Mara,” Harry called from the couch in the next room. “It’s almost on, love.”

It had been two weeks and he was still hardly allowed to leave the house, much less his bed. But there he was, insistent on getting up and going to the living room so he could sit on the couch and watch the story on the news. Even though he had a giant television in his room, he knew about the phone call. He knew what Hudson had convinced me to do, he knew that in a few short minutes, my voice would be on the air, too.

I still could hardly talk without fearing the sound of my own voice. Everything always sounded so loud.

Two weeks since I’d shot Damien Trask, my own brother, my haunting hunter, my bane of existence, to death. Two weeks since I’d watched my love nearly die on my behalf. Two weeks since I’d spent the night in the hospital, unable to sleep still with the fear.

Hudson flew out almost immediately, my carrier through it all. As much of a pain in the ass he had always been, I cried in his arms upon seeing his face. Seeing Hudson’s face again meant it was all over. Seeing Hudson’s face again meant that I was safe.

“You did it, Mara,” he hummed as I cried into the fabric of his shirt, the petals of the poppy grazing my cheek like a kiss. I hadn’t heard him call me Mara since the very first day we met, all the way back in August. Snow covered the ground in London, now.

Hector came, as well, once things had settled at the hospital – once Harry had his tube removed and the responsibility of bandaging his chest had been handed over to me. My skin bristled upon seeing him in the doorway, standing with that poppy on his chest. Mary sat in the seat next to me as we watched the doctors maneuver Harry into a wheelchair, telling jokes, and then suddenly Hector was there.

Always the bearer of bad news. Amelia, Arthur… immediately I worried what could be next.

But instead, he swiftly crossed the room and pulled me up into a hug. And instead of me crying this time, it was Hector who did. I stiffened in his embrace as I felt him heave a singular sob. It seemed so improbable that such a sturdy, assured person like Hector Pruitt would ever cry, even at his own mother’s funeral – much less upon seeing me. But I realized there were a thousand reasons for his tears – he hadn’t been there to protect me, he was so thankful I was okay, he was so sorry that I had to go through it all on my own. He felt it was his responsibility and he didn’t know how to even begin to apologize – all he could do was cry.

“I’m okay, Hector,” I promised him. “Or I will be. I promise.”

He stayed at Harry’s when we came back, insisting that was the only way he could clear his conscience. He needed to be sure we felt safe, safer than perhaps we ever had. It felt like those days first in Holmes Chapel, when I wished for the protection of a companion. I never thought that I would still feel the desperate need for it after Damien had gone. But sure enough, there I was so humbled by the feeling I got when I saw him sitting in an armchair by the door, reading the newspaper with a cup of tea.

“Just a second,” I called back from the kitchen, organizing the rest of the food on the plate. Harry, while a bit worse for wear, still had an appetite of a lion. When we ate, he went back for seconds, thirds, and even fourths. Which worked out okay, as I had yet to regain my appetite. I mostly picked at my food and pushed it around my plate as Harry practically inhaled it.

I followed the sound of the television set back into the living room, where Harry sat reclined in the corner of his couch, his shirt off again to reveal his tattooed chest wrapped in the bandage I’d replaced a few hours ago. He glanced up at me and beamed as I handed him the plate of nachos, pickles, and about a dozen Oreos. All he wanted that night was nachos, pickles, and Oreos.

I couldn’t even judge him.

“Maybe we just shouldn’t,” I murmured, curling up next to him with my knees tucked under my chin, my phone sitting on the glass coffee table just in front of us. “Maybe we should get out of the house, do something else.”

Harry glanced at me pointedly. “We haven’t left the house in weeks.”

I shrugged. It was true.

“But we don’t have to do this, if you don’t feel ready,” he replied, his hand leaving the nachos and reaching for mine instead, giving it a squeeze. “You don’t have to do everything Hudson asks of you.”

But somehow it felt like I needed to. I needed to help clear the name of the organization that had taken such good care of me for as long as they could. The O.E.O. were being shredded for their failure to ultimately protect me in the end – the media accusing them of leaving me out in the cold when it mattered most. I needed to help them. They’d helped me for so long.

But at the same time, I didn’t know if I could find the courage to speak.

It seemed that fate decided for me – at that exact moment, the TV blared an intro to the news, and there was a photo of Harry and I, plain as day. The sound echoed through the room, rattling me to the core. I glanced at Harry with wildly nervous eyes, but he nodded at me with an assurance that spoke to my spine. Suddenly, I didn’t feel like I could run anymore.

“Tonight, on the evening news – all the details you need to know about the much talked about Trask case. Later, Mara Hitchcock, victim of most-wanted killer Damien Trask, speaks for the first time on the horrors she went through. I’m Will Compton, and this is the news for December 24th, 2012.”

He prattled on about the world events for a while, giving an efficient recap of what was going on that needed to be noted before he got to the story everyone was watching for. That’s perhaps what scared me most – everyone was watching for me and Harry’s story. Admittedly, mostly Harry’s story, in a lot of cases. But what they were going to end up with was me.

I reached for the phone and dialed the number Hudson told me to call and sat on hold until they needed me. The people on the line that guided me to my virtual waiting room treated me like royalty, assuring me that everything would be fine. Harry, too, comforted me – pressing kisses to my collarbone as the phone shook in my hands.

Finally, the news turned to our story. “Our top story tonight is that of Mara Hitchcock, the nineteen year old girlfriend of One Direction superstar Harry Styles, who was sent into witness protection after reporting the murder of FBI agent Eric Spengler on the night of August 21st. Tonight, we will take a look at the murder and the man behind it, Damien Trask. And later, we will hear from Mara Hitchcock herself in an exclusive interview.”

Already, I was finding it hard to breathe. Instead of watching, I stared at the ceiling instead. Though I knew Harry was next to me, it would have been impossible to tell otherwise – he was still as a statue, captivated in horror of what we were watching. Finally he moved to turn off the program, but I stopped his hand on the remote.

It was the story, entirely, right from the beginning. “Trask, 28, was the son of Arthur Trask, the CEO of multibillion dollar World Trust Corporation. He graduated nearly top of his class at Brown University in Rhode Island with a degree in computer science for both his bachelors and his masters. This upbringing in a well-off New Yorker home with a five star education does not immediately paint a picture of a born killer and tech mastermind. But those who attended school with Trask described him as ‘quiet,’ ‘strange,’ ‘unnerving,’ and ‘cold,’ and even his father began to distance himself from his son.

“It wasn’t until 2010 that Trask was under suspicion for joining the elite hacking ring behind the highly sophisticated and targeted attack against Google – Encrypto. The major players behind Encrypto are now behind bars and face trial in a series of dates in February. The charges now total to 31 charges of hacking and related charges as well as attempted terrorism. Trask came to suspicion when a security scanner caught a code that linked back to a computer at the New York Public Library Trask had been logged into earlier that day, but the evidence was not conclusive enough to press charges.

“Eric Spengler, 36, of New Castle, was the main agent put on Trask’s particular case. Spengler had an extensive history in dealing with following hacking trails and was involved in the arrests of Jeanson Ancheta, Jerome Heckenhamp, and Simon Vallor. It seemed that Spengler was the man for the case. But on the night of August 21st, when trailing Trask through the posh Tribeca neighborhood of New York City, he was brutally murdered.

“That night, a young woman named Mara Hitchcock came into the station frazzled and terrified, telling the story of a man who fit Trask’s description shooting a man who fit Spengler’s description at point black in an alley.”

They went through to explain the story I’d relived a thousand times. I could still feel the sting of the gun against my skin in my mind’s eye when they described the horrors I’d undergone. I felt as though I was going to be sick. How I’d come to live in Holmes Chapel. How I’d come to meet Harry. How I’d come to face Damien once more.

“Trask was aided mainly by the development of a new strategy of hacking methods that mapped holes in the security systems of a multitude of sources, including the phone company O2, a billboard company in London, CCTV, and ultimately the Office of Enforcement Operations, where Mara Hitchcock’s information had been contained in an email briefing a new officer. This was ultimately what lead to the kidnapping of her pop-star boyfriend, One Direction’s Harry Styles, and to whatever faceoff occurred between the two that ended with Trask’s death. The techniques of Trask were advanced and previously unheard of, and are now filed under a specific brand of ‘cyber terrorism’ that went completely undetected through all the systems. Members of the Department of Homeland Security are still working stopping this new breed on after weeks of trying to crack the code.

“This leaves a few questions. Why was there an email sent within the Office of Enforcement Operations system that contained the information of one of their most sought-after witnesses? Why would that information be made available so simply in an email when phishing attacks have been so prevalent throughout recent online history? Truly, who is to blame for compromising the life of a young girl targeted by a ruthless killer?

“We now turn to the story of our heroine, Mara Hitchcock, who is said to have not only taken down Damien Trask all on her own, but also saved the life of Harry Styles.”

My heart clutched in my chest as they proceeded to tell the story of my life – or what they knew of it anyway. They elegantly glazed over the fact that Damien and I were brother and sister, probably because they didn’t know to begin with, gently leaving Arthur Trask out of the picture. Instead, I was just orphan Mara with the enormous Tisch scholarship – the girl who was in the wrong place at the wrong time, the girl who fell in love with a pop star.

Only half of me.

“Mara? Mara, are you there?”

The newscaster now was talking to me in stereo, from the television and now from my phone. Suddenly, I snapped back to the task at hand, stepping back from reliving the horrors of the last few months to open my mouth to speak.

“Oh, yeah. I’m here. Sorry.”

“Would you mind turning off the television? It will improve the audio quality if we don’t have the sound occurring in double.”

“Oh, yeah. Sure.”

I finally took my hand off Harry’s on top of the remote and allowed him to press mute, only to see the television screen with the newcaster leaning forward on his elbows, a very serious expression on his face, with a superimposed photo of me and Harry situated in the empty spot next to his face.

“Wonderful,” he said, a smile cracking his lips. “Now, Mara, I just have to say, thank you so much for taking time out of your day to speak with us. And we must ask, how are you and Harry doing?”

I paused. “We’re well, thanks.” All things considered. I leaned over and pressed a silent kiss to where that bullet entered Harry’s skin and he hummed softly at my touch.

“I’m so glad to hear it,” he commended, nodding borderline gleefully. “When I heard of your story, I was so moved by your bravery, and I’m so honored to be able to talk to you today and share your story with our audience. Now, we’re not here today to make you relive those moments in the warehouse – but we are here to talk a little bit about how you did make it out alive. What were the major factors that allowed you to be here with us today?”

I tried to speak but the words wouldn’t formulate. Glancing nervously at Harry, I cursed myself for not having planned something earlier. “Um, where would you like me to start?”

“From the beginning,” he insisted. “We want to know it all.”

I sighed. “I know the O.E.O. has been receiving a lot of opposition for the way they handled my case, and I think that’s the main thing I’m here to address today. I don’t have much to say on what happened, why it happened, and how it happened, but I can say this. I would not be here today if the O.E.O. had not been taking care of me so carefully this whole time. I owe my life to a select few agents who handled me for those few months I was Lilia George. I was taught self-defense, was constantly updated on what was happening, was set up with a new life, and was encouraged to make that life the happiest life I could. There was nothing they could do that night I ended up in Woodstock. Damien was a step ahead of us the whole time.”

“And you don’t blame the officer who carelessly emailed your information to another within a system when Trask was known to be a prolific hacker?”

That moment was when I began to fight back tears, when after listening to my whole life be played back to me on television, I wanted nothing more than for it all to finally be over. “No,” I disagreed. “There’s no one to blame for it all. In the end, what happened is between Damien and me. In the end, not even he’s to blame. Only human nature is to blame, I guess – greed and loathing.”

I thought then of Arthur, and of my mother, and the things they did to us entirely unbeknownst to either of their children. I thought then of Damien Trask, no taller than a footstool, standing in the door to his father’s office as my mother cried to his, crying for forgiveness only to be cast out. I thought of myself, reeling from the truth, standing in the doorway to my bedroom in Church Stretton as Arthur told me I looked just like her.

“Greed and loathing,” the newscaster mused, distant in my minds eye. “Would you care to expand on that?”

Just then, Hector appeared in the doorway to the living room, newspaper in his hand, raising his eyebrows as if to ask if I were okay, Mary trailing behind him with a steam-rimmed Tupperware full of our next meal. Harry glanced from them to me, and cracked that winning smile I fell in love with all those months ago.

I realized then something that I hadn’t entirely realized before. Damien had tried to take everything from me when he forced me out of my old life. But instead, he had given me some of the people who cared about me the most I’d ever experienced. Mary stayed with a friend in London and came every day around dinner to drop off a meal for us. Hector sat by the door. Hudson called constantly to stay on top of me. Even Harry’s would-be mafia parents would come the next day to celebrate Christmas with us, to give us some sense of normalcy.

All the people wouldn’t replace those I’d lost – my mother, Amelia, even Eric Spengler… but they would ease the pain of healing. And they were so much more than I ever expected to find. At the end of the day, I’d done more than lose. I’d gained.

“No,” I murmured in response. “But I would like to say this. If you ever feel like you’ve lost everything, look again. Thank you.”

And with that I hung up, got off the couch, and went to eat dinner with my new family. The ones Damien gave me. And oddly enough, felt at peace.