Memories From a Dead Girl

Sixty-Five

I turned and looked at Austin's face, and although he couldn't see me, I could see him clearly. His eyes fell on Chloe, then around the room, like he had forgotten what happened. Part of me wished he had, but I knew if he did, we'd never get the answers he promised.

"Tell me," Chloe said in a tone that I recognized from outside the jail cell. "Tell me why you let her die, how you convinced a precinct full of police officers that you were innocent."

To his credit, Austin's lips twisted into a smirk. This simple action filled me with dread, and when he spoke, my body shook with what was presumably fear. But I didn't feel it.

"Your sister's death was an accident, but I didn't have a choice. I had to tell them something they could hold onto—use as evidence. They already assumed that I was guilty, there was no changing their minds. At least not yet." His smirk widened. "It was easy to convince you that I was innocent, wasn't it?"

"But how did you convince them?" I asked, knowing that he couldn't hear me. Then I narrowed my eyes. "What are you?"

Then another thought occurred to me: It was her word against his. No one would believe her—the grieving sister, out for revenge.

"Do you want to know how I made them believe me?" Austin taunted. "How I manipulated the polygraph?"

"Yes," Chloe said.

"Things like that are easy when you're able to change people's thoughts."

So he wasn't entirely human—not enough of one to have done what he had. But there was something I didn't understand still.

The knife I felt go into me.

It was his attack that I saw?

Impossible.

But I knew I was wrong.

Nothing was impossible.