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“Sergeant Danvers?” he said, adding a question to the end, riding the line between respectful and pushover. He was of the mindset that all cops were bastards, or at least bastard-adjacent, but he also knew when being nice to one was the better call. If only his sister could figure that out.
Danvers looked up. Sun-faded blue eyes and a two-inch wide grey mustache, like a swipe of duct tape under his nose. This guy was every cliché of country cop dumped into a blender and pureed.
“Yeah?”
Again: he knew who Zaxx was. He had decided to be a shithead. Which suggested that Zelda was in some actual trouble.
Zaxx might have offered his hand, maybe he should have offered his hand, but now his inner brother bear had stood up. He was worried about his baby sister and starting to get pissed off.
Still, he kept his voice in neutral. “I’m Zaxx Bello. I’m here for my sister, Zelda. What’s goin’ on?”
Danvers leaned back far enough in his chair to make it creak under the strain. He waved a hand at the empty chair beside his desk. “Have a seat.”
Zaxx sat, but he kept his back straight.
“Your sister was brought in for disorderly conduct and resisting arrest.”
Zaxx was no hardened criminal. He’d been the ‘good kid,’ Mr. Responsibility, and before he’d joined up with the Horde, he’d never gotten so much as a speeding ticket. But since then, he’d done a dance or two on the wrong side of the law, and he knew plenty who’d put down stakes over there for a while. He also lived in the United States. He understood that ‘disorderly conduct and resisting arrest’ meant ‘contempt of cop’ as often as it meant actually causing enough mischief to break a law. Disrespecting a cop was not a crime, but cops thought it should be, so they’d come up a charge that would do.
“What is it you claim she did?” he asked, knowing it wasn’t the most diplomatic phrasing he could have chosen. But Brother Bear was roaring now, and Zaxx needed this cop to understand he was someone to be reckoned with.
Danvers leaned forward. “I pulled her over for blowing a stop sign. She refused to comply when I asked for her license, she refused to exit the vehicle when I instructed her to do so, and when I withdrew her from said vehicle, she became violent and attacked me.”
Zelda was five-five and maybe a hundred-twenty pounds—that was a guess; it wasn’t like he asked her weight. Point was, she wasn’t a big girl. In fact, she was the smallest on her roller-derby team, the Battlefield Betties. Danvers here was over two bills easy and close to six feet. The impulse to challenge the idea she’d attacked him was strong.
Admittedly, it was in character for his sister to react to an unfair (or a perceived unfair) pull-over in the manner Danvers described. But she’d been doing so much better the past few years. He could absolutely believe she’d blown a stop to get pulled over, but he thought it much more likely that she’d been snarky—that girl had a tongue on her that would make the devil cry mercy—and her attitude had activated a whole ‘contempt of cop’ scenario.
Zaxx would bet his rent she’d started off compliant but complaining, but he could also totally imagine her fighting back when Danvers here started with the manhandling. The thought of this asshole putting hands on his sister made his own fingers try to curl into his palms.
He forcefully reminded himself that his mission was to get his sister out of here as quickly and inexpensively as he could. Breaking her arresting officer’s nose would not advance that cause.
He nodded at the camera on Danvers' chest. “I guess you got footage of all that.”
Danvers smiled grimly. “Bodycam’s on the blink.”
Sure it was. Zaxx wanted to rip that fucking smirk off this asshole’s face and feed it to the first rat he came across. But he wanted to get Zelda out, not take a seat beside her.
So he took a deep breath, making sure not to look like he was striving for calm, and said, “Okay. So what’s next steps?”
~oOo~
Six hours later, after her arraignment on three misdemeanor charges and Zaxx posting the bond on her $1000 bail, Zelda came through the processing door. She was rumpled and looked both exhausted and pissed, dragging her backpack in one hand and clutching her envelope of personal effects in the other so tightly the manilla curled around her fist.
With her auburn bob, her huge blue eyes, and her baby-doll punk aesthetic, she looked so small. So young and sweet and unready for the world. And she was—far younger, sweeter, and unready than she would ever admit.
Zaxx stood up as soon as he saw her. She walked directly to him, not stopping until she was close enough to rest her forehead on his chest. He threw his arms around her, drew her in snugly, and held her. They had a lot to talk about, but not now or here. Now she needed to feel safe, and they needed to get away from the station.
“I need sugar,” she muttered into his t-shirt.
“Andy’s?” It was supper time, and they’d both missed lunch, but this was a day when frozen custard would do for a meal.
She answered with a vigorous nod, rubbing her forehead on his chest.
Zaxx kissed the top of her head. “C’mon. We’ll talk over concretes. We’ll claim your car later.”
~oOo~
“He’s such an asshole,” Zelda said, stabbing her spoon into her Oreo-Reese’s concrete. “First, I did stop for the sign, pretty much.”
