She continues shouting encouraging words until I’m pulled into a room at the back of the chambers by the bailiff. I’m re-shackled like a prisoner, then told to sit on a hard plastic chair to await transport.
It takes around ten minutes for my impatience to get the better of me. “Do you know where they’re taking me?” There’s a medium-security prison about fifty miles out of Hopeton, so I’m assuming that’s where I’ll end up.
The sole guard left to watch a murderer shakes his head. “With your sentence, it will most likely be Wallens Ridge.”
“Wallens Ridge?” I parrot, shocked. Even a novice criminal like me has heard of Wallens Ridge State Penitentiary. It has one of the highest gang-related incarceration rates in the country.
My eyes shift from the murmuring guard to Owen when he joins us in the holding room. “Please tell me I haven’t been sentenced to Wallens Ridge?” When his forlorn expression answers my question on his behalf, I curse. “That’s hundreds of miles from Hopeton. I’ll never be able to see Demi or my family. Justine hasn’t left the house in a month. There’s no way she’ll travel three hundred miles to visit me.”
Col’s punishment switched Justine from a bubbly, outgoing sophomore to a depressed, suicidal woman. The only person she allows to see her scars is our mother, and that’s only because she has to change her dressings or face more surgeries due to infections. Not even Dad can get through to her, and he was once the apple of her eye. I saved her from a monster, but she is still in the deep depths of hell.
My theory is even more convincing when Owen says, “The judge refuses to accept the plea of self-defense. Wallens Ridge is the only prison within a four-hundred-mile radius capable of housing life inmates.”
“Then take it to trial,” I argue like I should have four weeks ago. “A jury may issue a lesser sentence, one that will get me closer to Hopeton.”
Dark hair falls into Owen’s eyes when he shakes his head. “We can’t take this to trial. You admitted guilt. You pled guilty. Our only option is to submit an appeal to have the judge’s sentence overturned. We can’t overturn your admission of guilt.”
“Fuck!” The guard requests that I calm down when I add to my annoyance by throwing my fist into the wall next to my chair. As my knuckles throb, I suck in some big breaths before locking my eyes with Owen. “This wasn’t our agreement.” He knows I only admitted guilt with the agreement I’d most likely serve three years. I told himeverythingduring our first meeting, and I mean everything.
“I know, Maddox, but as much as this kills me to admit, this isn’t Col’s doing.” I can see the truth in his eyes, feel it radiating out of him, and I also agree with it, but it doesn’t make it any easier to swallow. “Judge Polst is known for harsher sentences when the victim is a woman. He is an advocator of domestic violence. His life’s work has been to lower the number of violent crimes against women. Lowering statistics in this region proves his theories are working. We were just unlucky when he was assigned your case.”
I want to hate the judge, but Owen makes it a little hard. “What are the chances of an appeal?” My stomach gurgles when he pulls a face I don’t want to see after being sentenced to life behind bars. “That bad?”
“Judge Polst is highly respected by his peers.”
“And murderers aren’t. I get it.” I drag my fingers through my hair that’s overdue for a trim while breathing out of my nose. I have to trust that Karma will eventually come into play, but I’d be a lying prick if I said I weren’t struggling to believe she even exists anymore.
I guess I brought this on myself. I expected the world to be fair because I was fair to it. That’s as foolish as expecting Col not to fire at me because I didn’t fire at him first. There is good and bad in all of us, but it’s up to the individual as to which side they harness.
Colalwaysstrives for the latter.
I used to crave the former.
I don’t know which way the axis will tilt if Judge Polst’s sentence isn’t overturned. My mom often quotes that good always wins over evil, but believing you’re a good person and actually being a good person are two entirely different things.
Months ago, if you had asked me if a murderer could be redeemed, I would have said no, so why should the verdict change because the accused is me?
The simple answer is love.
I’d do anything for Demi.
For her love, I’d do even more.
5
Demi
I’m numb. I can’t feel my heart, my feet, or my hands. Every part of me is shut down, so how the hell am I moving my lips? Why are they expressing the words I swore I’d never speak to the very people I swore never to hurt? I told them Maddox would come home, and the lesser verdict of manslaughter would give him a few days to pack his belongings and say his goodbyes before he was shipped off to a minimum-security prison with lenient visitation hours.
Instead, I’m standing across from the Walsh brethren alone, explaining that the son they know would never hurt another soul has been sentenced to life behind bars for murder.
“We’re going to appeal,” I tell Mrs. Walsh when her shuddering legs see her collapsing onto the couch in the middle of her living room with a heartbreaking sob. “Owen is filing the paperwork as we speak.”
When Mr. Walsh bobs down to comfort his wife, I tug on Max’s leash, silently advising him that Mr. Walsh would never hurt his wife. He just wants to cocoon her from the world of hurt that pummeled into me only hours ago, to whisper reassurances none of us are sure of anymore. He wants to keep her safe the same way Maddox did me when he accepted my uncle’s terms.
The more I think about Maddox’s agreement with my uncle, the more I wonder how it would ever benefit Maddox. Even if he were only sentenced to the agreed seven-year term at a minimum-security prison, their agreement stated he was to remain under my uncle’s reign until the end of his sentence. Although he wouldn’t be subjected to the inhumane things my uncle made him do the first two weeks under his supervision, I don’t see my uncle simply walking away. He has wanted the Walshs on his payroll for years. He wouldn’t give it up for anything.
I wish I had time to think it through so it could have benefited Maddox. He was arrested not even an hour after our confrontation in the freezer at Petretti’s, denied bail due to the admission of guilt, and the days between his arrest and his hearing were a big hazy mess. Not solely for Maddox and me, but his entire family. Even now, during the most vital family meeting the Walshs have ever had, Justine is hearing the news from her post at the top of the stairs since she refuses to leave her room.
