Page 143 of Offside Angel

MIRA

I don’t know how long I’ve been here.

My holding cell doesn’t have a clock, but the sun is starting to come up now. I think it’s been a few hours since they booked me. Long enough that the ice pack a nurse at the hospital gave me has gone warm.

My eye is throbbing, but my throat hurts even worse. It feels like I drank a razorblade smoothie. The nurse gave me strict orders to ice it every six hours, but that was before I confessed to my father’s murder. I have a feeling I’m not going to get top-notch medical care in jail. None of the officers who have peeked in to check on me have said a word about how I’m doing or anything else.

It’s fine. I’m not up for talking, anyway.

I used my one phone call to call Taylor. “What do I need to do?” she asked as soon as the line connected. “How can I help?”

“Nothing. I’m just keeping my promise.”

“Holy shit, Mira. You sound awful.” Then: “Wait—what promise?”

I smiled even though I wanted to cry. “You made me promise that if I ever got arrested, I’d call you first.”

“Now is not the time for inside jokes, Mimi! What do you need from me?”

“Nothing.” I twisted away from the phone to clear my throat, which was enough to bring tears to my eyes. “Zane is taking care of everything.”

“You really sound horrible.”

“I look horrible, too. In case you were wondering.” A P.A. at the hospital found me a t-shirt in the Lost & Found, and I thought that was bad. But the jailhouse scrubs are worse.

“Do you want to talk to Aiden?”

“No!” I blurted, necessitating another agonizing throat clearing. “I don’t want to scare him.”

“Fair enough. But… he’s already scared. Daniel and I are trying to keep him calm, but we don’t know what to tell him.”

My chin wobbled. “Tell him I love him and that Zane will be home soon.”

“You’ll be home soon, too,” Taylor said. “Trust me. Daniel is on the phone with Zane right now. He’s going to do absolutely everything to get you out.”

That was a buoy of hope for the first few hours. But I underestimated how isolating a jail cell could be.

I have no connection to the outside. No connection to my family. It feels like the world has stopped turning.

I lie down on the thin mattress and think about sleeping, since actually sleeping is very much off the table, despite how many hours I’ve been awake.

I’m still lying there when a key slides into my cell door. I sit up just as an officer slides the metal grate open.

“Katerina Costa,” he says flatly, “come with me.”

“Where am I going?”

The man doesn’t answer. He stands stoically outside of my cell, waiting.

Wherever he’s taking me, it can’t be worse than here. So I shove to my tired legs and follow him down the long hall.

Most of the other prisoners are sleeping in their cells. It’s still the middle of the night by most people’s standards. But a few lift their heads to watch me lumber past.

I’m probably going to another interrogation. I willingly confessed, but the detectives at the hospital kept asking me the same questions over and over again. I’m sure they were trying to find inconsistencies in my story, working to poke holes in my version of events. But I held true to what happened then, and I’ll do it again now.

I push my shoulders back and lift my chin, ready to face whatever comes next. But the door at the end of the hall has a large, hard-to-miss yellow sign affixed to the window.

Secure Exit Door.

---