Twisted And Deranged • Alex Turner

Chapter 23 ● Silence

Violet's POV

"Are you ready to tell us what happened?" Asks the detective empathetically as he sits across from me.

Only a steel table in between us in the grey room. The only hint of color was the purple blanket wrapped around my torso, not covering my exposed legs that felt cold against the steel chair.

I finally speak and say yes.

Alex's POV

Several knocks at my door woke me up.

Violet, I thought. I fell asleep and didn't go visit. I broke another promise, what's new? I just hope she isn't too mad at me.

I open the door to find two men awaiting me.

"Alex Turner?"

I nod.

"Detective Murray and Detective Clash," he motions. "We have some questions for you concerning a crime that happened over the night. We aren't at liberty to explain it all to you yet, but we would certainly like to have you help us with the investigation. Would you please come to the precinct with us?"

"Who-whom is this concerning?" I ask. They both look at each other and one of them sighs.

"Your girlfriend," the one that didn't sigh speaks.

I rush out the door and slam it behind me as I follow them down the stairs.

Violet's POV

"My boyfriend had just left the penthouse, I fell asleep after I heard the elevator shut," I explain.

"Did you see him leave?" he asks.

"No, no, I was in the den, I fell asleep shortly after." I begin again. "I'm assuming that my mother arrived, sometime in between that," I weep.

"You were intoxicated, right?"

"Yes."

He writes something down. I start again to finish my statement.

"I fell to the ground when I heard them. The gunshots, I mean. The thud I had made wasn't heard because of the-the bullets. I was too scared to get up. I-I couldn't move, but I knew that if whoever was there found me, they'd-"

"Shoot you."

"Attack me," I correct him. "I rolled under the couch. The shots sounded like they came from the master bedroom. I was in the den, the opposite corner of the penthouse." I wipe a tear from my cheek.

I'm a wreck.

"I heard him leave. The elevator made that fucking sound," I say angrily.

"Him? Just one person?"

"I heard one set of feet and I don't think a woman is capable of doing this, or even owning a machine gun for that matter. Are they even legal to have?"

"Then what?"

"Then? I was grasping the feet of the couch for the life of me. Five minutes. I was there for about five minutes after he left. Then I hesitantly made my way from under the couch. Walked to the bedroom at the pace of a goddamn snail..."

He wrote some more in the notepad.

"The door to her room was open. I walked straight in. That's when I saw her."

I finished giving the detective my statement and went out into the hall to find Topher still sitting there. Rubbing his palms on his knees, a nervous habit of his. He hugged me as soon as he saw me and the detective told him he's next.

I sat down where he was. Watched him walk into the room where I was. His eyes were swollen from all the crying.

I heard the clanking of a boot heel on the floor and I turned to see Alex being guided by yet another detective. Once he catches a sight of me he runs over.

"Violet, what happened?" He begins to ask me as he grabs me by the face.

"Sir!" The detective starts yelling at him. I say nothing and stare down at the floor. He grabs my face between his hands and tries to make me look at him.

"Violet, speak."

"Sir!" The detective starts again as he rushes toward us. I stay silent. He grabs Alex by the arm, takes him to the other interrogation room.

Topher bursts through the closest door.

"Is that him?" he asks angrily. I say nothing to either one of them as they stare each other down.

The sight of my mother's still body in her bed as the sheets lied in a pool of blood punctured with bullet holes was playing in a reel in the back of my head.