Page 9 of Glass Wings

I pull my phone toward me like it weighs something. Kennedy has texted three times.

Where are you.

Are you okay.

I’m coming to your hotel.

I send her a lie to keep her away.

I’m fine. At hotel. Talk in morning.

She sends back three hearts.

I open a blank note and stare at the screen until the words start arranging themselves without my help.

I crawl onto the bed without turning off the lamp. The AC hums. The mattress is still a rock. I curl around the part of me I never learned how to be gentle with and pull the blanket over both of us like a promise.

In two days, I will go to the courthouse. I will sit in a row of plastic chairs that make everyone look small and feel even smaller. I will watch a judge say words about bail like they are nothing, and I will hold my breath between each one.

In two days, I will find out our fate. Will we survive this arrest?

Will I survive this pregnancy?

Three

EASTON

Four Days Earlier

The cell is colder on Monday morning than it was Friday night. Guards shuffle down the halls like clockwork with shoes worn from hours of pacing, handcuffs clanking with every step. The sound echoes in the freezing chambers.

I hadn’t been able to sleep; Harley’s broken expression haunted my dreams. The fear of not making bail and ruining the life we were building together twisted my stomach.

My shirt smelled like sweat, and the scratchy county-issued pants clung in all the wrong places. The metal bench is colder than I remember, and it left a ridge down my spine after three nights of trying to pretend it was a mattress. I press my palms against my knees to keep them from shaking, but it doesn’t stop the gnawing inside me. I swore to myself I wouldn’t end up back here. I swore it to Harley. My Little Bird. To my parents who gave me a second chance when society didn’t think I deserved one.

I told Harley I’d be better. I told her she could trust me with her heart, with her future. She looked at me like I was the only safe place she had left in this world, and I’ve ripped that out from under her. I could see her face when I called my lawyer, hear her voice in my head when I said I wouldn’t screw this up again. That promise feels like a noose now, tightening with every breath.

I’ve had nothing but burnt coffee, mystery eggs, and the smell of other men’s sweat for company. No Harley. No daylight, except the slice that cuts across the floor from the high barred window. I wasn’t sure if she wasn’t allowed to visit or chose not to.

All I know is that I fucked up.

I pull my knees up to my chest and let my head fall back against the wall. The stone is cold and unforgiving, like it wants me to feel every ounce of the mistake I’d made. Rick hadn’t been impressed with me either. Calling him Friday night had been humiliating, after all the times I swore I’d never end up in this hellhole again. And yet—here I fucking was.

Leaning against the wall, I gripped the pay phone like it was the only thing keeping me tethered. The plastic receiver was icy against my ear, sticky with the sweat of a hundred other hands. It made my skin crawl.

“Hello?” Rick’s voice cracked through the line, rough and tired. He already knew it was me; caller ID had given me away. Still, he answered, because Rick always did. Defense lawyers don’t sleep. They don’t take sick days. They just carry the weight of men like me.

“Rick, it’s me.” My throat felt raw. “Easton⁠—”

“What the fuck did you do?” His bark landed like a fist.

I dragged in a breath that rattled more than it steadied. “It’s a long story, and it doesn’t look good. But you have to believe me, I did it for the right reasons.”

“You always do,” he muttered, weariness threading through the words.

My head dropped forward, eyes burning as they searched for something—anything—that might make this sound less like another broken promise.

“I need your help,” I said quietly. “I have to get out. Harley needs me.”