The precinct fell quiet after Maggie fired the first shot

The precinct fell quiet after Maggie fired the first shot. The blast from the gun rang through the office, leaving a harsh, frightening silence that lingered for a moment that seemed like hours. The deadness in the atmosphere lasted only a few seconds before Maggie fired off three more shots. She bolted through a door and ran to the detectives.

"Everybody get down!" she cried.

"Maggie, you don't want to do this," Scotty began.

"Shut up!" she screamed. "You have no idea!"

"Maggie, please put the gun down," Lily pleaded. "We won't hurt you, just please put the gun down."

"You're liars! All of you! You're all horrible, filthy liars! Everyone is! They all lie to me!"

"Who lied to you, Maggie?" Lily asked kindly. She realized that Maggie's mind was not in its right place; her behavior was childish, and she spoke with the apparent mental age of seven or eight.

"All of them . . . all of them . . ."

"Did Kyle lie to you?"

At these words, Maggie lowered her gun and cocked her head. Her glossy eyes seemed more focused on reality, and when she spoke, she seemed much more mature. "How do you know about Kyle?"

"We know that he lied to you. We know what he did."

Maggie sneered. "Ha! I bet you have no idea."

"He told you that you two could be together forever," said a voice from another room. The detectives turned around to see Jeremy standing unprotected outside of the interrogation room. "And then he turned around and left you."

"You!" Maggie exclaimed. "You! I thought I got you with the bomb in your apartment! You are the cause of it all! Everything was your fault!"

"How was it my fault?" he questioned calmly. The detectives stood in awe at how he handled the situation so composed. Perhaps it had something to do with his inability to show any sort of expression, but something told them that he was simply unafraid of Maggie and her handgun.

"You would've ruined everything! You saw what Kyle did, you would've told! He would've gotten in trouble! I would've never been able to see him again."

"What he did was wrong, Maggie. You know it was wrong." Jeremy paused for a moment. "You didn't know what he did, did you? You believed Sally, instead of your best friend Sofia. You thought it was me."

Maggie nodded and lowered her weapon even more. "I didn't think she'd lie to me. I knew that Sofia would never have believed you did anything wrong, even if you had. And I was the same way with Kyle. So ready to believe he was perfect. And Kyle hated you. I don't know why, he really had no reason."

"Sometimes people do things for no reason."

"And you know what? After Sofia died, he called me a wimp, a nobody, a loser. He told me I should die. After all I gave him . . . after all I did for him . . ."

"He told you to shoot her, didn't he?"

"No," Maggie replied, tears filling her eyes. "He told me to shoot you. But then Sofia got in the way."

October 16th, 2004

"You can drop me off here," Maggie told the cab driver a block from her high school. As the trembling sixteen-year-old paid the driver and stepped out of the taxi, her mind raced through what she was going to do. She clutched her stomach, where her gun hid safely in her jacket. As she continued walking, her plan was interrupted.

"Maggie! Hey!" Sofia Jackson stood right in front of her, looking very beautiful in her homecoming dress. "You look great! Let's go in, I'm meeting Jeremy."

"I can't," Maggie replied.

"Why not?" Sofia asked. "Do you want to talk to me?"

"Not here," she said. Sofia led her to a path that strayed into a small forest. They were blocked from sight by several bushes, so no one else could see what happened.

"Talk to me," said Sofia.

"I can be with him forever," Maggie said dreamily, touching the gun in her jacket. She didn't even notice that it had come into view.

"Maggie! What is that?" asked her friend.

"I can be with him forever . . ."

"Who?"

"Kyle."

"What? Kyle? Don't you know what he did to Sally?"

"That wasn't him!" Maggie exclaimed. "Jeremy did that!"

"Jeremy would never do that! You know him! You're his friend!"

"I can't be his friend and stay with Kyle too. He can't be around. Jeremy has to go. That's why I'm here."

"Maggie, no! You can't do this! We can get through this--" Sofia reached for Maggie's gun.

"Get away! I have to do this!"

"No, stop it!

"Get away!"

"Give me the gun!"

"GET AWAY!"

The gun went off. Sofia's eyes widened, and Maggie dropped her gun to the ground. In what seemed like an eternity, Sofia fell to the ground. In an attempt to stop her, Maggie grabbed her necklace, but all it did was snap off. She couldn't scream—everyone would hear her. Maggie looked around frantically, hoping she could automatically know what to do, praying she could undo everything. She darted around and ran away from her best friend's bleeding body.

"Wait—" Maggie heard Sofia cry.

"I'm so sorry," she sobbed and turned around. She walked back to her friend.

"You didn't mean to . . ." Sofia shuddered and took one final breath before closing her eyes one last time. Maggie stroked her hair and left her alone.

"I didn't mean to do it!" she cried. "But I couldn't stand to do that to anyone else again—I just couldn't! Until Kyle turned on me . . ."

"It's okay," Jeremy said quietly. "It's over now."

A wave of insanity flashed through Maggie's eyes. "No. Not yet." She raised the gun again and pointed it at Jeremy. Everyone jumped, but instead of shooting her original target, she turned the gun on herself and put a bullet through her chest.

"No!" everyone cried in unison. Maggie crumpled to the ground, writhing in pain. Scotty rushed to her, and, miraculously, found that she was still alive. The bullet missed her heart.

Several minutes later, an ambulance arrived at the scene and got Maggie hooked up to several machines. Stillman handcuffed her to the stretcher and read her Miranda rights. Lily and Scotty rushed over to Jeremy, who stood shaking in the same exact spot. They were even more surprised to see Gardner standing beside him.

"I'm sorry," he said.

"Water under the bridge," Jeremy replied, extending a hand. Gardner shook it, and opened the door for a wonderful friendship between them. He soon left, leaving Jeremy standing alone with his thoughts.

"We caught her. After three years, we finally know who killed Sofia," he said aloud.

"Are you okay?" Lily asked.

"I'm good," he answered. All three of them walked outside without another word. All of a sudden, Jeremy looked up to the sky. As he stared up to heaven, Lily could have sworn she saw Sofia Jackson standing by, smiling and waving at her best friend. She looked back at Jeremy, and could not believe her eyes.

"I'm good," he said again, grinning from ear to ear. They noticed a tear in his eyes, but nothing could hide his obvious joy as he continued smiling broadly into the vast blue sky.