AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Is it?she thought.
“Thanks for coming in,” Judge Wood said, indicating the two seats to the right. The men sat, Julius still looking more comfortable than Hudson.
The judge laced her fingers together on top of her desk. Then she removed her glasses and let them dangle from a chain around her neck as she looked back and forth from Quinn and her parents to the shifters.
“Mr. Taylor,” she began. “You’ve filed suit in Granite County court for damages resulting from your daughter’s being, it says here, ‘viciously attacked’ by Mr. Bloom, and also for emotional damage from ‘witnessing a sex act’ between Mr. Bloom and Mr. Trager.”
“Yes,” her father said. He stared straight at the judge, refusing to even glance in the direction of the two shifter men.
Quinn looked down at her hands in her lap, wishing that she was anywhere but there.
“Can I ask why you’re filing the suit, instead of Miss Taylor?”
“Since my daughter is still under my custodianship, I’m the one who paid for her medical expenses, including the extensive counseling she’ll need.”
Quinn shut her eyes.
This is the most embarrassing thing that’s ever happened to me, she thought.
How did I not know what my parents were really like until right now?
“Miss Taylor,” the judge said.
Quinn’s head snapped up. She could feel herself begin to sweat.
“Yes, ma’am,” she said.
It’s ‘Your Honor,’ she thought, but the judge seemed to let it slide.
“You received an injury as a result of Mr. Bloom’s actions yesterday?”
Quinn glanced down at her wrist.
“Yes.”
“Could you please describe the extent of your injuries?”
Quinn gulped. She could feel a single bead of sweat make its way down the back of her neck.
“My wrist is sprained, Your Honor,” she said.
“This was determined by a medical professional?”
Quinn paused. She hazarded a glance sideways, only to see both the shifters looking at her. Julius had a look of studied calm on his face, but Hudson’s jaw was working, his hands clenched in his lap.
“Sort of, Your Honor.”
“Please elaborate?”
“Well, it was looked at by an EMT at the scene who said it was fine, just a little bruised, and I’d be fine in a few days,” she said, stumbling over her words a little. All eyes in the room were on her, and besides the judge, she could tell that they were all angry: her parents because she was telling the truth, and the shifters because she’d dragged them into this. “Later we went to a doctor who said it was sprained and he put this splint on it.”
“I see,” said the judge. She made a few notes in her paperwork. “Has this affected your day-to-day life in any way? It’s my understanding that you’re the webmaster for—” she put her glasses back on and peered at the paper — “shifter sex maniacs dot com. Are you still able to do your job?”
Quinn wished that she was a shifter. Maybe a mouse shifter, so she could shift and run away, or a housefly shifter, or a mole shifter so she could dig her way to anywhere else.
“Yes, Your Honor,” she said, her voice barely more than a whisper.
The judge simply nodded and wrote something else down. Quinn couldn’t look to either side of her, so she stared at whatever the judge was writing, willing time to pass as quickly as possible.
