WHAT SHE STARTED....CHAPTER SEVEN - by Khadijah Mohammed

I didn't say a word in the car. My mind kept going back to what I had just seen. My father asked, twice, if everything was fine. The first time I answered him — yeah — but the second time, I didn't say a word. I just looked out the window, trying to hide how pale I must have looked. I wasn't in the mood to get into it with him. Not right now, anyway. The drive back to the house, for some reason, felt slower than it was meant to be. The moment he parked, I stepped out and went upstairs. I could hear my dad calling out to me but I didn't reply. I just needed to be alone — for now. I sat in my room for the rest of the day. Every time I tried to look around, all I could see were boxes. I looked at the last one, still not full. It was everything I still had of Eni from before she died — before Dad threw the rest of her things out, back when he was still too angry to look at any of it without wanting it gone. I picked up the box, and that was when I realized it. I wasn't going to leave this place until I found out why the hell Nurse Lucy would have that bracelet. We were leaving in the morning. The truck was already booked. There was no time. I opened my door quietly. Dad was already asleep in the living room, so I went into his room and opened the safe. I took out the gun, put it in my pocket, and left. I opened the front door as quietly as I could, but he still woke up. "Where are you going, kiddo?" he asked. "Nothing," I replied. "I just needed to get some air." "Okay," he said. "But come back soon, okay?" He went back to sleep. The town is small, and knowing where she lived wasn't hard to figure out. I told myself I was just going to ask her why she had that bracelet. I waited across the street, just staring at her house, until the lights went off. I crossed the street and went to the door. It was locked — not the kind I could get open without making noise. So I went around to the back of the house. The back door was locked too, but the window wasn't. I climbed over the trash piled beneath it and pulled myself through. I landed hard on the ground inside, harder than I meant to. If she'd been sleeping, she wasn't anymore. I knew that much. I got to my feet quickly and used my phone's flashlight to see where I'd landed. The house was small inside, tidy in a way that felt deliberate, like someone who needed everything in its place because so little else in her life had stayed in place. I stood in her front hallway for a moment, listening, and I heard the soft sound of a chair somewhere further in, and then footsteps. She came around the corner already asking, "Who's there—" and stopped dead when she saw me standing in her hallway in the dark. "Chris." Her hand went to her chest. "What are you doing here? How did you—" "Why did you kill my mum?" I asked, pointing the gun at her. I needed an answer, and I needed it now. Her face went through something complicated — confusion first, quick and instinctive, the kind you can't fake in the half second before your body catches up to what's actually happening. Then shock, her mouth opening slightly, no sound coming yet. And then, for a moment, nothing at all. Her face went completely, terribly still, the way mine must have looked standing over Tessa in that field. "Why did you kill my sister?" she said.

What She Started

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