Three lies, that’s all you get.

And here I stand, cuffed hands behind my back, metal chinking as my hands tremble.

Some might say I wasted my first lie and I can’t help but agree with them. It had been drilled into me since I was young to never tell lies— like every other kid. “Not unless it’s life or death.” My mother would chide. But at seven years old under the scrutinising stare of my mother, stealing that chocolate bar did feel like life or death. So I lied.

Two left.

My second lie wasn’t thrown away on a stolen chocolate bar. No by sixteen I had learnt my lesson. So when my uncle sat me down on our torn up couch in my family’s run down trailer and asked me how many people I’ve killed— I lied and said none.

I had to, he’d never understand. Killing was my job and my only hope for getting out of my nightmare town. Besides no one expected the scrawny sixteen year old girl to be taking out criminals.

Or so I thought.

It had seemed my luck had finally run dry.

“I’ll ask you one final time, Ms Lapis,” the judge locked eyes with me, her voice echoing through the court room, “do you plea guilty or not guilty to the murder of Andrew Lapis?”

I fought back a smile. This seemed like a life or death situation my mother used to talk about.

My uncle deserved it anyway.

“Not guilty.”

My final lie.