A/N:
So I binged Euphoria in like two days and my brain wouldn't shut up about it. Jules absolutely wrecked me — Hunter Schafer did NOT have to go that hard but she did and now I'm emotionally compromised.
Anyway, I thought: what if Jules had a little sister? Not just any sister though. A slightly unhinged, morally questionable, aggressively horny gremlin who would commit actual crimes for her. Thus, Mara was born. She's a mess. I love her. You might hate her. That's valid.
I am a relatively new writer have another 2 stories but still am fragile so be gentle (or don't, I'm not your mom). If you like it, please leave a comment — I am an absolute SLUT for validation and will reread your praise at 3 AM like a goblin hoarding gold. If you hate it, that's what the comment section is for too. Roast me. Criticize me. Tell me my pacing is off. I can take it. Probably. Maybe. We'll see.
Content warnings: This fic is messy like the show. Language, violence, sexual content, references to mental health stuff, family trauma, and one (1) feral teenage girl who has no business being this dangerous. Read at your own risk.
Enjoy the chaos.
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Word Count : 6990
One month before East Highland
The evening breeze hit Mara's face as she pedaled down Figueroa, her hair whipping behind her in blonde streaks that probably looked movie like from the right angle. She liked biking at this hour — the sun bleeding orange across the LA skyline, the heat finally backing off enough that she could breathe without feeling like she was swallowing soup. Her bare legs pumped the pedals in an easy rhythm, her skirt fluttering dangerously high with each rotation. She definitely flashed her panties to couple of passerbys. She didn't care. Let someone look. Let them crash their car. That was a them problem. And if they really did crash it would be fucking hilarious.
Mara had learned the dating app trick from Jules, though Jules would absolutely lose her shit if she knew Mara was using it. Jule can be strangely hypocritic but Mara loved her regardless. She'd started maybe six months ago, right around when she stopped looking like a fucking twelve-year-old and started looking like a fucking fourteen-year-old, which was apparently enough for most guys on these apps. Swipe right on a pretty face, don't ask too many questions, meet at a motel off the freeway. It was depressingly easy to get laid if you were a teenage girl who didn't act like one. Mara tried not to think too hard about what that said about men in general. She'd already formed her opinions there, and they weren't flattering.
The Starlight Motor Lodge Loomed out of the LA rot like a concrete tumor — two stories of stucco and rust, exterior walkways lined with doors that had seen better decades, a parking lot full of trucks and sedans that probably shouldn't be there. The neon sign buzzed and flickered, the 'S' dead, so it just read TARLIGHT MOTOR LODGE in sickly pink. Classy.
She never understood why people liked fucking in motels. A decent hotel had room service. Had robes. Had those little shampoo bottles you could steal. A car had the benefit of being anywhere — a lookout point, a beach parking lot, somewhere with a view. A jacuzzi had jets, for fuck's sake. But motels? Motels had thin walls and mysterious stains and the lingering psychic residue of every sad hookup that had happened there before. Maybe that was the appeal for some people. The anonymity of shared desperation.
Still. The guy's profile had shown abs. Not the inflated CrossFit kind or the starving-yourself kind — actual abs, tanned and defined, the kind that suggested manual labor or very dedicated gym time. Mara wasn't generally an abs-licking kinda gal, but every rule had its exception. And she was bored. And horny. And Jules was at some art thing tonight and David was working late, which meant she had a window.
She locked her bike to a rusted pipe near the ice machine — not that anyone would steal this piece of shit, but habits were habits — and checked her reflection in a parked car's window. The evening light was doing her favors. Her skirt was working overtime: white pleated cotton with thin black stripes running horizontal, short enough to show off her legs, modest enough to suggest she hadn't tried too hard. Her top was a cropped thing that left one shoulder bare, the black strap of her bra visible against pale skin. Deliberate. All of it deliberate.
People looked at Mara and saw a petite blonde with a heart-shaped face and wide blue eyes and a slightly upturned nose that made her look perpetually innocent like she still believed in Santa. She was five-two on a good day. Her wrists were thin enough to wrap your hand around. She looked, depending on the light and the outfit, somewhere between fourteen and seventeen — which was a weird fucking range to occupy, but she'd learned to use it.
The thing about being underestimated was that it was a gift that kept giving. Every time someone looked at her and saw harmless, that was information they were handing her for free. And Mara collected information the way other girls collected lip gloss. She was an information junkie. If information could make you fat, she would be morbidly fucking obese. Thank god it didn't. She loved how she looked, thank you very much.
She started up the metal stairs, her sneakers barely whispering against the concrete. The walkway smelled like chlorine from the pool nobody used and cigarette smoke from a room two doors down. Someone was watching TV too loud — laugh track bleeding through thin walls, canned and hollow.
I've become so numb, I can't feel you there — she hummed it under her breath, the melody winding between her teeth — become so tired, so much more aware...
She'd been on a Linkin Park kick lately. Jules made fun of her for it, called it her "angst phase," but Jules didn't understand. There was something about Chester's voice that felt true in a way most music didn't. Like he was singing from somewhere real instead of somewhere profitable.
Not that Mara would ever say that out loud. She had a reputation to maintain. Several reputations, actually, depending on who was looking.
Room 214. She stopped in front of the door, rolled her shoulders, let her expression settle into something warm and approachable. Knocked twice, quick and light. Waited.
The door opened.
The man was around thirty, give or take. Clean-shaven in a way that looked expensive — no razor bumps, no patches missed, just smooth skin that caught the amber light from the room behind him. He was wearing a suit, which was interesting. Not a full suit — jacket off, sleeves rolled to his elbows, tie loosened like he'd come straight from a conference room. He looked like the kind of guy who said things like "circle back" and "let's take this offline" without a shred of irony.
Mara noticed the metallic smell immediately. Aftershave, yes, but there was something underneath — that faint copper-penny edge that came from a fresh nick. Men who shaved that close usually cut themselves somewhere. The neck, usually. Or the jaw. She filed that away without knowing why.
"You're younger than your pictures," he said.
And there it was. The first red flag.
Most guys said this with a specific kind of nervousness — the sudden fear that they were about to get Chris Hansen'd, that a camera crew would burst out of the bathroom, that their life was about to become a cautionary tale on some true crime podcast. They'd say you're younger than your pictures and their voice would waver and their eyes would dart to the door and you could practically smell the guilt sweating out of them.
This guy said it like he was confirming a delivery. Neutral. Almost pleased.
Yeah, I don't think I'm getting fucked today, at least not in the way I want.
"I get that a lot." Mara stepped past him into the room, already scanning. Standard motel layout — queen bed with a floral comforter that had seen better decades, particle-board nightstand with a lamp that didn't match anything, small table in the corner with two chairs that had probably been beige once. He'd set a glass of wine on the table already. Red, half-full. The bottle sat next to it, uncorked, breathing.
She noticed the second glass was empty.
"Have a seat." He gestured toward the chair like a host at a restaurant. Smooth. Practiced.
Mara sat, crossing her legs at the ankle the way her grandmother had taught her before she'd died. Back straight, hands in lap, smile pleasant. She looked like a girl who'd been raised right. That was the point.
"Nice suit," she said. "You come straight from work?"
"Something like that."
"What do you do?"
"Consulting."
The answer came too fast. Too polished. Like he'd said it a hundred times before and stopped thinking about whether it was true. Mara filed that away too. Her brain was always doing this — watching, cataloging, sorting information into columns she didn't have names for. It happened automatically now. She couldn't turn it off even if she wanted to.
"Consulting," she repeated, letting her voice go a little impressed. "That sounds important. What kind of consulting?"
"The boring kind." He smiled. It didn't reach his eyes. "Wine?"
"Please."
He picked up the bottle and poured, and Mara watched the red liquid fill the empty glass. The pour was steady, controlled. No tremor in his hands. She noticed the way he angled his body — keeping himself between her and the door, keeping his right hand free. Probably not conscious. Probably just instinct, worn into his body from repetition.
She reached for the glass. Brought it toward her lips.
And stopped.
She tilted the glass, just slightly. Let the wine catch the lamplight. Inhaled.
There it was.
Underneath the tannins — that earthy, almost leathery note that good red wine was supposed to have — and underneath the fruit, the plum-and-cherry sweetness that this particular vintage was offering — there was something else. Something chemical. A faint bitterness that didn't belong. Not strong enough to taste, probably. Just strong enough to catch if you knew what you were looking for.
Mara knew what she was looking for. This wasn't her first rodeo.
GHB was mostly odorless, which was why frat boys loved it. But Rohypnol — good old-fashioned roofies — had a slightly pharmaceutical edge if the dose was heavy enough. Like aspirin dissolved in cough syrup. Like something that was trying to hide and failing.
She sighed. Set the glass down on the table with a soft clink.
"Haaaaah." She let the sound drag out, genuinely disappointed. "Not again."
The man's expression flickered. Just for a half-second, so fast most people would've missed it. But Mara wasn't most people, and she didn't miss it.
"Problem?" he asked. Still smooth. Still controlled.
"Why do you guys always have to spike it?" She whined the words like a teenager complaining about homework, leaning back in her chair, letting her body go loose and petulant. "I just wanted to get laid. That's it. That's the whole thing. Do you have any idea how annoying puberty is? The hormones are fucking insane. I can't sleep, I can't focus, I want to jump anything with a pulse, and then every time I try to scratch the itch, some asshole has to make it weird."
He was staring at her now. His hand had dropped to his side, fingers twitching slightly. Reaching for something.
"Let me guess." Mara tilted her head, studying him the way she might study a particularly boring math problem. The kind where you could see the answer before you finished reading the question. "Serial killer?"
His eyebrows rose. Just slightly. Just enough.
"The suit's too nice for a rapist," she continued, conversational. "Rapists don't plan like this. They're impulsive, usually. Opportunistic. But you — you've got a whole setup here. The wine, the atmosphere, the consulting cover story. You've done this before. A lot." She smiled. "So. Serial killer. Am I close?"
For a long moment, he just looked at her. Something shifting behind his eyes — recalculating, maybe. Adjusting to a variable he hadn't anticipated.
Then he reached behind him, and when his hand came back it was holding a syringe. Clear liquid inside. Medical-grade, from the look of it. The needle caught the lamplight and gleamed.
"You should have drunk it," he said. His voice had changed. Colder now. Flatter. More honest, probably. "Would have been less painful for you."
"Probably," Mara agreed. "But then I would've missed this part. The part where you explain yourself. They always want to explain themselves. It's like a itch."
"Kids should be in school." He took a step closer, syringe raised. "Little girls who try to grow up too fast — they need to learn what happens when they play adult games. Someone needs to teach them."
"And that's you? The teacher?"
"I provide a service." Another step. He was between her and the door now, probably on purpose. "I correct mistakes. Girls like you — pretty, reckless, thinking you're invincible — you're mistakes waiting to happen. I just speed up the timeline."
"Huh." Mara uncrossed her legs. Planted her feet flat on the floor. "That's a fun speech. Very rehearsed. You practice that in the mirror?"
She moved.
The table went first — she shoved it hard, edge-first, and it caught him in the shins with a satisfying pop. In the half-second where he flinched, where his weight shifted backward, she was already inside his reach.
Her first hit landed in his liver. That soft spot just below the ribs on the right side, where the organ sat unprotected. She'd learned this in self-defense class — learned it and then practiced it until she could find it blindfolded. The liver was a beautiful target. Enough force in the right place and the body just shut down. No negotiating with it. No pushing through. Pure animal collapse.
She hit him again. Same spot.
Again.
Again.
Four strikes in maybe two seconds, her small fists pistoning into that same bruised point, and she watched his face go gray. Watched his grip on the syringe loosen. Watched his body try to fold in half because it didn't have a choice.
The syringe clattered to the carpet.
His head came down — couldn't help it, the liver shots did that, made you curl around the pain like it was the center of your universe — and as it came down, Mara's knee came up.
The crack of cartilage was satisfying in a way she didn't examine too closely.
Blood erupted from his nose, painting the lower half of his face in a red mask. He made a sound that wasn't quite a scream, more like the noise an animal makes when it realizes the trap has closed. Then he went down. Hard. His shoulder hit the carpet, then his hip, and he rolled onto his side, curling into a fetal position, hands coming up to cup his destroyed face.
Mara stepped back. Smoothed her skirt. Checked her reflection in the window — still presentable, hair a little mussed, not a drop of blood on her. The whole thing had taken maybe eight seconds.
She looked down at him. He was making wet, gurgling sounds, blood and spit mixing on his lips.
"Well," she said. "So much for a quick fuck."
-x-
She called 911 from the motel phone, keeping her voice steady and just a little bit scared. "There's a man, he tried to drug me, I think he's hurt, please come quickly." The operator asked her to stay on the line, and she said of course, of course, I'll stay right fucking here, next to the fucking serial killer. She looked at the phone in disbelief and then slammed the phone down, wishing the person on the other end would go deaf.
She sighed and then sat on the edge of the bed and waited.
The man — the suspect, she supposed, if she was being technical — kept trying to get up. Every time he got to his hands and knees, Mara would walk over and kick him in the ribs. Not hard enough to break anything else. Probably. Just hard enough to remind him that getting up was a bad idea.
"Stop," he groaned, after the third time. His voice was thick, distorted by the blood pooling in his throat. "Stop doing that."
"Stop trying to get up."
He stopped trying to get up.
Mara returned to the bed, pulled her knees to her chest, and stared at the water-stained ceiling. Her mind wandered, the way it always did when she was waiting for something. She thought about the wine — about how close she'd come to actually drinking it, if she'd been less paranoid, less careful. She thought about what would have happened next. The needle in her neck. The darkness. Waking up somewhere else, or not waking up at all. But would it be so bad? She had a kind of deranged smile on her face. At least life would have been fucking exciting, but then again, Jules would have been sad.
This was the third time something like this had happened. Third guy with drugs in the drink. Third guy with that particular emptiness behind his eyes. What were the fucking odds? Was she giving off some kind of victim pheromone? Did she have a sign on her forehead that said kidnap me, I'm small and blonde and nobody will notice?
Or maybe she was just lucky. Or unlucky. Depending on how you looked at it.
"You know what really sucks?" she said to the room. The man didn't respond, just kept making those wet breathing sounds. "Jocks. Like, objectively. The dick-to-ego ratio is absolutely insane. You'd think all that testosterone would translate into something useful, right? Like, I don't know, stamina? Technique? Basic awareness of where the clitoris is located? Or maybe even an average dick size."
She laughed, remembering Jacky's face. Jacky with his letterman jacket and his carefully gelled hair and his absolute conviction that he was God's gift to women.
"But no. It's just huffing and puffing and jackhammering away like they're trying to drill for oil. And then they finish in thirty seconds and look at you like you should be grateful." She kicked the man again, almost absently. He whimpered. "Premature ejaculation is one thing. Like, okay, that's a medical condition, I'm not going to shame someone for that. But premature and small? That's just tragic. That's a cosmic joke. And then they have the audacity to talk shit about people behind their backs, like their opinion matters, like they're worth anything—"
She stopped. Breathed.
Okay. Maybe she wasn't totally over Jacky.
The funny thing was, she'd actually fucked him. She was good at everything — languages, fighting, reading people — and yeah, sex too. Ask Jacky. She'd rocked his whole world one night in the back of his pickup truck, made him see God or whatever, and the idiot had taken it to mean something. He'd broken up with his girlfriend for her. Showed up at her locker the next day with flowers, talking about how they had a connection, how he'd never felt like this before, how he wanted to be with her for real.
Mara had laughed in his face.
"You thought that meant something?" She could still remember the way his expression had crumbled, the way hope curdled into confusion curdled into humiliation. "You're a premie with a short dick who doesn't know where the clit is. You should be thanking me for the pity fuck, not showing up here like you're worth my time."
He'd grabbed her collar. That was his mistake.
Not the insult — she'd already known about that, had heard him call Jules a faggot in the hallway two days prior, had been waiting for the right moment to make him pay. But when his hand closed on her shirt, yanking her toward him like he had the right, like she was something he could touch without permission — that was when she'd decided the beating would be thorough instead of just painful.
She'd broken his nose first. Then two ribs. Then she'd kept going until someone pulled her off, and even then she'd been smiling. Calm. Not a hair out of place.
The suspension had been worth it. The look on David's face when he'd had to pick her up from the principal's office — that combination of exhaustion and confusion he got when she did something he couldn't quite categorize — was almost funny. He'd given up calling himself Dad around her. She called him Davy now. He didn't correct her anymore.
"Do you know how hard it is to find a decent hookup?" she asked the man on the floor. "On those apps? It's like sifting through a landfill looking for a diamond. Ninety percent of them are either married guys looking to cheat — which, whatever, not my problem — or guys who can't hold a conversation past 'u up?' Or they show up and they look nothing like their photos. Or they smell weird. Or they're you." She gestured at him. "No offense, but your whole murder-girls-for-they-are-bad vibe is really not what I was looking for tonight."
He said something that might have been please or might have been police. Hard to tell with all the blood.
Sirens in the distance. Getting closer.
Mara took a breath. Let her expression shift. Rolled her shoulders inward, softened her eyes, made her lower lip tremble just slightly. By the time the sirens stopped outside the motel, she was shaking. Genuinely shaking — she'd practiced that enough times that her body did it automatically now, the tremors running through her like electricity.
She heard footsteps on the metal stairs. Voices. Someone calling out LAPD, open up.
She made herself look at the door with wide, terrified eyes. Made herself flinch when it burst open.
Two cops filled the doorway. The first was a man — tall, dark-haired, built like someone who'd spent time in the military and never quite stopped carrying himself like it. His eyes swept the room with mechanical efficiency: man on the floor, blood everywhere, syringe on the carpet, teenage girl trembling on the bed. He processed all of it in about two seconds, his expression never changing.
The second cop was a woman, younger, with dark hair pulled back and an open, expressive face that hadn't learned to hide things yet. A rookie, Mara guessed. Something about the way she moved — eager but uncertain, like she was still learning the choreography of how cops were supposed to act in situations like this.
"LAPD," the man said. "Everyone stay—" He stopped. Looked at the man who was already very much on the floor. Looked back at Mara.
"He tried to—" Mara let her voice crack. Perfectly timed, perfectly pitched. "There was something in the wine, I could smell it, and he had a needle, and I didn't know what to do, I just—"
The woman cop was already moving toward her. "Hey. Hey, it's okay. You're safe now." She crossed the room in quick strides, sat on the bed next to Mara, close but not crowding. "I'm Officer Chen. Lucy. Can you tell me your name?"
"M-Mara."
"Okay, Mara. You're doing great. You're doing so great." Officer Chen — Lucy — had a voice like warm water. Soothing without being condescending. "My partner is going to secure the suspect, okay? You don't have to look at him anymore. You don't have to think about him."
Mara nodded, letting herself lean slightly toward Lucy's warmth. She watched through lowered lashes as the other cop — Bradford, according to his name tag, which also had a tiny American flag pin next to it — walked over to the man on the floor and cuffed him with movements that were almost bored. Like this was paperwork. Like he'd done it a thousand times.
"Ribs might be broken," Mara said, her voice small. "I think I — I don't know how hard I—"
"That's okay. That's not your fault." Lucy was pulling off her jacket now, draping it around Mara's shoulders like a blanket. It smelled like lavender fabric softener and something slightly chemical — gun oil, maybe. "You did what you had to do to survive. That's all that matters."
"Boot." Bradford's voice was flat, all business. "Call it in. I'll start processing the scene."
"She's a minor, Tim. She's scared. Maybe we should—"
"She's also a witness, and this is looking like a major case. The faster we process, the faster we can get her somewhere safe." He was already bagging the syringe, movements precise and economical. "Get her statement started. Basics only. We'll do the formal interview at the station."
Lucy's jaw tightened slightly — Mara caught it, filed it away — but she nodded. "Okay. Okay, Mara, I'm just going to ask you a few questions, alright? Just tell me what happened in your own words. Take your time."
Mara took her time.
She told the story the way she'd constructed it in the three minutes she'd had between the fight and the sirens — scared girl, dating app, bad decision, worse luck. She let her voice shake at the right moments, let tears well up when she described the needle, let herself clutch Lucy's jacket tighter when she talked about the moment she realized she was in danger. It was a good performance. One of her better ones.
More cops arrived. The room got crowded. Mara heard snippets of conversation — syringe tested positive, found a bag in the closet, holy shit, are those—
She saw the moment they opened his overnight bag. Saw the way the cop's face went pale, the way he stepped back like he'd found a snake.
Fingernails. Dozens of them. Beautiful, manicured, painted in colors that had probably been fashionable when their owners were still alive. Each one in its own little plastic bag, labeled with what looked like dates.
"Jesus Christ." Someone said it like a prayer. "Chen. Bradford. You know who this guy is?"
Lucy's hand tightened on Mara's shoulder. "Who?"
"The Plier." The name dropped into the room like a stone into still water, ripples spreading outward. "Serial case. Been open for three years. At least twenty victims. Feds have been going crazy trying to find this guy."
Twenty victims. The man on the floor — the Plier — started laughing. It was a wet, bubbling sound, blood and spit and something broken in his chest making the noise come out wrong.
"Little girl got lucky," he said. "That's all. Just lucky."
He was playing to the room, Mara realized. Playing to the cops, to the uniforms, to anyone who would listen. He'd clocked her act — seen the trembling and the tears and understood that she wasn't going to contradict him. Smart. Psychopaths were usually smart about things like this. Reputation mattered to them. It was half the point, really — the legend, the fear, the way people said your name in whispers. The Plier. He'd probably picked that name himself, workshopped it in his head while he was pulling fingernails off dead girls. And now some sixteen-year-old had put him on the ground in under ten seconds, and he couldn't let that story get out. Couldn't let people know that his big scary career had ended with a teenage girl's knee in his face.
So he laughed. Played it off. Lucky, he said. Just lucky.
Mara looked at him. Let her eyes meet his for just a second, just long enough for him to see — just a flash, just a glimpse — what was actually underneath the trembling and the tears.
His laughter stopped.
"Get him out of here," Bradford said. His voice was harder now, something personal bleeding through the professional facade. "Get him the fuck out of here."
Two uniforms hauled the Plier to his feet. He screamed when they moved him — ribs, probably, or his liver finally registering the full extent of the damage — and Mara watched him go with an expression of carefully constructed fear.
Inside, somewhere deep, she felt quiet satisfaction settling into her bones like warmth.
-x-
The ride to the station was strange.
Lucy sat with Mara in the back of the cruiser while Bradford drove, the city lights sliding past the windows in streaks of neon and sodium yellow. Lucy had positioned herself close but not crowding — textbook comfort positioning, the kind they probably taught at the academy. She kept up a gentle stream of reassurances, her voice soft and steady.
"You're doing so well, Mara. You're so brave."
Mara nodded, letting a small shudder run through her shoulders.
"It's almost over, okay? We're going to get you somewhere safe."
Another nod. She made her breathing shallow, irregular. Added a tiny hitch every few seconds, like she was fighting back tears.
"You're safe now. He can't hurt you anymore."
Lucy's hand found her shoulder, squeezed gently. Mara leaned into the touch, made herself smaller, more fragile. The blanket Lucy had draped over her shoulders helped sell it — she clutched at it like a lifeline.
In the front seat, Bradford was quiet.
Mara watched him in the rearview mirror, catching glimpses of his face whenever they passed under a streetlight. He wasn't buying it. She could tell by the way his jaw was set, the way his eyes kept flicking back to study her in quick, assessing glances. Something was bothering him. Something didn't add up.
Smart, she thought. Good instincts.
The way the Plier had been taken down — it wasn't accidental. It wasn't the flailing self-defense of a panicked teenage girl. It was surgical. Four liver shots in the same spot. A knee to the face timed perfectly with the body's natural fold. That kind of precision didn't come from luck.
Bradford had noticed. She could see him turning it over in his head, trying to reconcile the trembling victim in his backseat with the aftermath he'd seen in that motel room.
But then Lucy would say something comforting, and Mara would respond with another perfectly-timed shudder, and Bradford's certainty would waver. Because she really did look traumatized. She really did look like a scared little girl who'd barely escaped something terrible.
Mara saw him glance at Lucy in the mirror — watched the way his expression flickered with something like disappointment. Lucy was too trusting. Too soft. She was seeing what she expected to see instead of what was actually there.
He's going to be a problem, Mara thought. Not now, maybe. But eventually.
She filed that away for later.
"Almost there," Lucy said, her voice gentle. "The station's just a few blocks. We're going to get you some water, maybe something to eat, and then we'll take your formal statement, okay? And we'll call your parents."
"My dad," Mara corrected, letting her voice stay small. "Just my dad. My mom... she's not around."
Something flickered across Lucy's face — sympathy, maybe, or recognition. "Okay. Your dad, then. We'll call him."
The station was exactly what Mara expected — fluorescent lights that buzzed like dying insects, linoleum floors that had been mopped so many times they'd lost any sense of their original color, the general atmosphere of bureaucratic exhaustion that seemed to hang over every government building in existence.
But underneath the coffee and the sweat and the staleness of too many bodies in too small a space, there was something else.
Mara's nose twitched.
No way.
She scanned the reception area as Lucy guided her through, her eyes landing on a box sitting on the front desk. Pink cardboard. Grease stains on the lid. Unmistakable.
Donuts. Actual fucking donuts at a police station.
She almost broke character. Almost laughed out loud. So much for stereotypes being exaggerated — apparently cops really did keep a box of fucking donuts at reception like it was some kind of mandatory requirement. Did they get a budget for this? Was there a donut line item in the LAPD's annual spending report?
She bit the inside of her cheek hard enough to hurt, forced her face back into traumatized-victim mode, and let Lucy lead her deeper into the station.
They put her in an interview room — small, beige, a metal table bolted to the floor and two chairs that had been uncomfortable since the Clinton administration. The kind of room designed to make you feel small and cooperative. Mara sat in the uncomfortable chair and made herself look small and cooperative.
Lucy brought her a bottle of water and a granola bar. "Just wait here, okay? It won't be long. Your dad's on his way."
Mara nodded. Ate the granola bar. Drank half the water.
The statement took forever. She told them the story again, start to finish, while a detective with tired eyes typed everything into a laptop and Lucy stood in the corner looking supportive. Mara cried at all the right moments. Said I was so scared enough times that it started to sound less like a phrase and more like background noise. Let her voice crack when she described the syringe. Let her hands shake when she talked about the moment she realized what was happening.
She signed her name at the bottom of the typed pages with a trembling hand.
They made her wait again.
She was studying the ceiling tiles — counting them, for lack of anything better to do, she was up to forty-seven — when the door finally opened.
Jules came through first.
Her sister stood in the doorway for about three seconds, taking in the scene — the blanket wrapped around Mara's shoulders, the tear-streaked face, the cops hovering with their clipboards and their concerned expressions. Jules was still dressed from the art thing, one of her elaborate outfits — high-waisted pants and a crop top and jewelry that caught the fluorescent lights and scattered them like a disco ball.
Her expression went through several stages in rapid succession. Concern. Confusion. Suspicion. And then—
Recognition.
Jules started laughing.
Not a polite laugh. Not a surprised laugh. A full-body, doubled-over, gasping-for-breath cackle — the kind of laugh that said I know exactly what I'm looking at and I'm not buying it for a single fucking second. She had to grab the doorframe to stay upright, tears streaming down her face, completely losing her shit in the middle of a police station.
Lucy took a step backward, alarmed. The detective looked up from his laptop like he was witnessing a mental breakdown in real time.
"Oh my god," Jules wheezed, barely able to get the words out. "Oh my god, your face. Mara. You absolute fucking gremlin."
David came in behind her, and Mara could read every stage of his emotional journey in the way his expression shifted — concern first, then confusion as Jules kept laughing, then a kind of weary recognition as he looked at Mara and put the pieces together.
"Please tell me," he said slowly, "that you did not kill anyone."
"No! David, have some fucking trust in your daughter." Mara dropped the scared-girl act like a coat she'd been waiting to take off. "But I did beat the shit out of a serial killer. They call him the Plier. He kills girls and collects their pretty fingernails."
"WHAT?" David and Jules shouted in unison, Jules's laughter cutting off abruptly.
"Technically he tried to drug me first."
"WHAT?"
They both turned to look at Lucy, who suddenly found herself the center of attention. She cleared her throat, professional mode kicking in despite her obvious confusion.
"The, uh, the suspect is a person of interest in a serial murder case," she explained. "Twenty victims over three years. He attempted to drug your daughter, but she... incapacitated him before he could."
"Incapacitated," David repeated flatly.
"His ribs are broken," Mara offered helpfully. "And his nose. And probably his liver is bruised. I'm not totally sure about that last one."
David and Jules stared at her.
Mara shrugged, completely abandoning any pretense of trauma. Lucy's face was doing something complicated — her brain clearly trying to reconcile the trembling victim from five minutes ago with the girl who was now casually discussing the injuries she'd inflicted on a serial killer.
"It was self-defense! Mostly." Mara let her real smile spread across her face, slow and satisfied. "Okay, maybe I could have just run away. But where's the fun in that?"
David pinched the bridge of his nose. This was a gesture Mara had become very familiar with over the years. It usually preceded a lectures.
Jules let out a disbelieving chuckle.
Bradford stepped into the doorway, his expression unreadable. He'd been watching. Of course he'd been watching.
"So," he said slowly, his eyes fixed on Mara's face. "The scared little girl act. All of it was fake."
"Tim—" Lucy started, but he held up a hand.
"I'm not accusing her of anything. I just want to understand." His gaze hadn't wavered. "You weren't scared for a single second in that room. Were you?"
Mara met his eyes.
"No," she said. "I wasn't."
Bradford nodded once..
"Wait." Lucy held up a hand, her expression shifting from confused to alarmed. "Wait. The statement. Everything you told us — did you lie? Because if you lied on an official statement—"
"Everything in the statement is one hundred percent true," Mara said, raising her hands in mock surrender. "I went to the motel. He tried to drug me. He pulled out a syringe. I defended myself. All factually accurate. I'm not an idiot."
"But the crying—"
"Also real. I can cry on command." She demonstrated, letting tears well up in her eyes, then blinked them away. "See? It's a skill."
Lucy looked like she didn't know whether to be impressed or horrified.
"Great acting, right?" Jules grinned, slinging an arm around Mara's shoulders. "She's been doing it since we were kids. Used to drive our mom crazy. Dad too, before he figured out how to spot it."
"I have not, actually, figured out how to spot it," David said wearily. "I just assume everything she does is a performance until proven otherwise."
"That's very hurtful," Mara said. "And also very accurate. Good job, David. You're learning."
Her father had by now grown used to the blatant disrespect and just shook his head.
Bradford exchanged a look with Lucy — something passing between them that Mara couldn't quite read. Then he straightened up, all business again.
"We need to finish the paperwork. Boot, take Mr. Vaughn to sign the parental consent forms."
"It's Boot now?" Lucy muttered, irritation flickering across her face. "I thought I'd at least earned my name after tonight."
"Sign the forms, Boot."
Lucy's jaw tightened, but she nodded and gestured for David to follow her. They disappeared down the hallway, leaving Jules and Mara alone in the interview room.
The door swung shut behind them.
Jules turned to Mara immediately, her expression shifting from amused to genuinely concerned. "Hey. For real though — are you okay?"
Mara considered the question. Rolled it around in her head like a marble.
"Yeah," she said finally. "I'm good. Like, actually good."
"You sure? Because that guy was—"
"A serial killer, yeah. Twenty victims. Fingernail collection. Whole deal." Mara grinned. "Honestly? It was kind of fun."
"Fun?"
"The most fun I've had in months. Maybe years. I got to hit someone who really, really deserved it, and I didn't even get in trouble for it." She spread her hands. "That's like, the dream, Jules."
Jules stared at her for a long moment. Then she laughed — not the shocked cackle from before, but something softer. Something that was half amusement and half concern and maybe a little bit of fear.
"You're so fucked up," she said.
"I know."
"Like, genuinely. Something is wrong with you."
"Probably." Mara shrugged. "But I'm your fucked-up sister, so you're stuck with me."
Jules pulled her into a hug — quick and fierce, the kind of hug that said I love you and you terrify me and please don't ever change all at once.
"Okay but seriously," Jules said, pulling back, "his nose went like, cartoon broken? Like, flattened?"
"Oh, totally. There was so much blood, Jules. You should have seen it."
-x-
David finished signing the forms. They left the station. The night air hit Mara's face and she breathed it in like freedom.
They made it about thirty feet across the parking lot before she lost it.
The laugh came up from somewhere deep — not the controlled chuckle she'd been suppressing all night, but the real thing. Five minutes of solid, uncontrollable laughter that made her stomach hurt and her eyes water. Jules joined in, the two of them clutching each other next to David's car, howling at the sky.
"A serial killer," Mara gasped out. "An actual serial killer."
"You broke his nose!"
"I broke so much of his nose. It went like—" She made a crunching sound with her mouth, miming the impact.
"Oh my god."
"And his ribs! Jules, you could hear them crack. It was like stepping on bubble wrap."
"That's disgusting."
"It was beautiful."
"You're both insane," David said, but he was smirking. Just a little, just at the corners.
They piled into the car. Mara took the back seat, stretching out. The adrenaline was finally starting to fade, replaced by a pleasant heaviness in her limbs.
They drove in silence for a few blocks. Then David spoke.
"We're moving."
Mara sat up. "What?"
"East Highland. It's a suburb. Quiet. Safe." He kept his eyes on the road. "We're leaving at the end of the month."
"David—"
"No school in LA will take you, Mara. Not after what you did to that boy." His voice was flat, exhausted. "And Jules needs a fresh start too."
Something shifted in the car. Mara looked at Jules, saw the way her sister's jaw tightened, the way her hands curled into fists in her lap.
"I'm fine," Jules said. Too quickly. Too flat.
"Jules—" David started.
"I said I'm fine. If we're moving, we're moving. Whatever."
The silence that followed was heavy. Mara watched her sister's reflection in the window — the blank expression, the tension in her shoulders, all the things Jules wasn't saying.
She didn't push. She knew better than to push when Jules got like this.
"End of the month?" she asked instead.
"End of the month."
Mara leaned back in her seat. Outside the window, Los Angeles slid past — palm trees and neon signs and the particular loneliness of a city that never stopped moving.
East Highland, she thought. Fresh start. New city. New people.
For some reason, she couldn't quite explain it, she found herself looking forward to it.