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An engine starts.
And still I stand there.
Because I fucked up.
Again.
Thirty-Six
Landon
There’s something about courtrooms. The formality of it all. The tension and the emotions that they hold inside the stuffy wide rooms.
It’s worse knowing the threat of what Ronan promised Reed.
And why?
Because he kissed her?
Because he...loved her?
I glance at my friend seated next to me and Reed’s gaze is a glossy vacancy. We were all so damn worried about Dee. We never paused to worry about ourselves as well.
He can’t kill Reed. He–he can’t.
Her hand grips mine and I can see it when her anxiety shifts from us, to her mother.
The thin woman stumbles in her cuffs but she lowers herself down into the sleek brown chair when the judge says a few formal words.
More formalities.
It’s incredibly hard to follow for me and I can see it’s just as hard for Dee. She keeps flicking her wide gaze from the judge to her mother and then back again.
But soon after a drone of endless chatter, a decision is made.
“Defendant, Veronica Demure, is hereby found not guilty to the charges of second degree vehicular manslaughter, facing up to fifteen years of imprisonment and 10,000 in fines, has been released on parole…”
Not. Guilty.
Shit. That’s bad.
When someone dies, you don’t just skip off into the sunset without so much as a slap on the wrists.
Not without snitching on... someone.
The words of the old judge fade away as my lips part with a gasp at the same time as Dee does the same. Happiness spreads across her face but my heart is pounding a warning sound so loud I can’t hear anything else.
Even as I look up to Ronan, and see complete fucking bitter rage when he looks from Veronica...
To his daughter.
Thirty-Seven
Dee
Silence is weird. It’s weird in the way that you can feel it. And in the way that your brain replaces that utter silence with a ringing noise. Like a thousand alarms are all going off at once.
Good and bad things happened during that trial this afternoon. But only bad things will happen during the night tonight.
