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"Ms. Terrer, are you ready?"
I sat still for a moment, staring at the agent clad in black. I had no idea what this was for, or how they even knew what they claimed to know. Why would anyone confess to wanting to kill anyone?
"Ms. Terrer?"
My shock subsided only to the agent's voice.
"Will I be safe?" My voice quivered towards the end, doubt settling in.
The agent didn't say a word, but nodded curtly and reached a hand out to me. I took it out of appreciation, but also because I wasn't quite sure I'd be stable enough to walk on my own.
We walked down a dark corridor, lit only by overhead lamps that weren't doing their job. The agent didn't seem affected, though, so I didn't say a word.
When we stopped the agent placed a hand on a metal door knob, waited for me to nod, and opened to door. I stepped inside fearfully. Who was I supposed to expect in here?
The first thing I saw was the rusted, green, metal walls. It wasn't very reassuring. The floor was concrete but smooth and polished. There were no stains. And there were three people inside, just as promised. But this wasn't what I was expecting.
Erin, Sam, and Benji were staring at me from three metal chairs in the middle of the room. They all looked confused, even a little scared. I turned to look back at the door, but it was already closed.
Erin was my childhood best friend. He always humored me, even when he knew it would wind up getting him in trouble. We've had every class together since first grade; he was a year younger but smart enough to skip kindergarten.
Sam had been my best friend since middle school. Erin wasn't always around — his family was notorious for spontaneous vacations — and Sam and I met on a day that Erin wasn't present. It wasn't anything spectacular, really. Sam was a transfer student from another county and was brave enough to ask me if they could eat lunch with me. It was hard to say no when they were wearing a hilarious graphic tee: "The Gender Spectrum is as Real as Your Sex Is." I'm pretty sure they got in trouble for that one, too.
Benji was an outlier. She wasn't a friend, not really, since she was easily two years older than me. She certainly didn't know Erin or Sam. I wasn't even sure how well she knew me. I'd always simply watched her from a distance, admiring her smile, her laugh, her hair flips. Sam used to tell me I was weird for crushing so hard on a girl I had never even talked to, but Erin was always quick to shoot a protective Dad look in Sam's direction and shut them down.
Of all three people, how could it be these three?
I stiffly approached a fourth metal chair left facing the other three. The three before me were very tense, not that I blamed them, and didn't say anything.
