Chapter 8 - Handcuffs and Designer Silk
Cressida was weeping hysterically now, her manicured fingers wrenched behind her back as the cold steel ratchets clicked tight around her wrists.
"Vesper, please!" Cressida cried, her mascara running in black streaks down her cheeks. "Tell them! Tell them it was a sisterly fight! We always fought like this when we were kids! You can't let them take me to jail! Draven needs me!"
I looked at my older sister.
For thirty-one years, I had believed that if I just worked hard enough, stayed quiet enough, and absorbed enough abuse, my family would eventually see that I had value. I had bought their groceries, cooked their meals, and cleaned up their messes, hoping for a single crumb of genuine affection.
Now, looking at her crumpled silk dress and the raw terror in her eyes, I realized the truth.
There was nothing inside these people to earn. There was only vanity, greed, and a bottomless cruelty that feasted on anyone willing to kneel.
I stepped up until I was inches away from her.
"When I was lying on that patio with my face split open," I said, speaking slowly and deliberately through the metal wiring, "you asked me to pay twelve hundred dollars to wash away my blood."
Cressida sobbed, shaking her head. "I didn't mean it... Balthazar told me to write that—"
"You swung that bag with everything you had," I continued, my voice steady, ice-cold, and entirely free of anger. "You wanted to break me so you could feel tall. But you are small, Cressida. You have always been small."
The female deputy guided Cressida firmly toward the rear of the patrol cruiser. Her knees gave out, forcing the officers to half-carry her across the aggregate concrete. Her designer handbag lay abandoned in the dust, its polished brass corner scuffed against the gravel.
Morwenna collapsed onto the patio chair, her hands clutching her head as the neighbors filmed every second of the arrest on their smartphones.
"How could you do this to your own family?" Morwenna wailed, glaring at me through her tears. "We gave you life, Vesper! We took you into our home! How can you be so heartless?"
Thorne turned his gaze upon her.
"You didn't give her a home, Morwenna," Thorne said. "You gave her an invoice. And now, the bill has come due."
The Sheriff’s captain tipped his hat toward Thorne and me. "We have everything we need, Colonel Vance. The prosecutor will see you at the preliminary hearing tomorrow."
"Thank you, Captain," Thorne replied.
May you like
As the squad cars pulled away with sirens flashing, Alaric remained seated in the dirt of his driveway, staring into space like a hollowed-out statue.
***
