by Bell, A. C.
“Yes,” Ian confirmed.
I could feel him looking at me but I stared at the back of Peter’s chair.
“But you did know Gabriel Escobar, correct?”
“Yes. I approached him for help because I was having difficulty getting close to Adeline.”
“Ms. Parker,” Wyatt corrected him. A surprising edge darkened his tone and Ian averted his gaze. “Why did Escobar agree to help you?”
“We made a deal that if he helped me procure Ade—Ms. Parker, I would help him get to Peter De la Cruz. He wanted to get revenge on Peter’s father, but I didn’t ask why.”
“Did he ever mention Peter being his son?”
“No, but he did call him ‘mutt’ quite a bit.”
“Watch your language,” Judge Knox intervened gruffly.
Raiden leaned into my ear. “It’s a derogatory term normally used against cynephi, but some use it for canisi, too,” he whispered.
I thought back to that very convincing growl she’d made. “Is she a canisi?” I whispered back.
“Cynephi.”
Whoa.
“And how exactly did he plan to get his revenge?” Wyatt was asking.
“I didn’t need to know so I didn’t ask, but it wouldn’t be friendly.”
“Earlier, Ms. Parker testified that Escobar left you on your own when Peter arrived. Is that correct?”
“Yes. Turned tail and left me there to get what he wanted.”
“No further questions, Your Honor.” When Wyatt turned back toward his seat, his blue eyes found mine briefly but he awkwardly looked away. Cassandra, astoundingly, passed on asking Ian any questions. Was it just me, or did she cringe away when he was escorted past her back to his seat? She recomposed herself when she stood.
“I’d like to call Peter De la Cruz to the stand.”
***
Wyatt clenched a fist around his pen at Peter’s side. He clearly didn’t like having his hand played early for him. Peter tried not to look uncomfortable under Cassandra’s manipulative gaze as he moved up to the stand. He resisted the urge to wipe his sweating palms on his slacks. Don’t look nervous. After he was sworn in, Cassandra strolled leisurely up to the stand. Making him wait.
“Mr. De la Cruz.” She paced a little while she decided how to phrase her question. “After you were admitted to the county correctional facility, you were admitted to the facility’s hospital. Why?”
Peter went rigid. No, no, no. He didn’t dare look over at his family and friends.
“Mr. De la Cruz?”
“They were treating me for depression.”
“But why did they need to treat you for it?”
Peter looked down at his hands in his lap, which were tightly wound together. The jagged scar on his wrist peeked out from under the cuff of his sleeve. He closed his eyes and tugged the sleeve down.
“Answer the question, Mr. De la Cruz,” the judge warned.
“I slit my wrist.” he murmured.
“What?” He heard Nikki squeak. His mom made a whimpering sound.
“Why did you harm yourself?”
“Quinn’s death was…” No, don’t phrase it like that. It sounds like a confession. “I felt like it was my fault. She tried to help me and he killed her for it.”
“Is that really why?” Once again, she pulled out her little remote.
Uh oh. The tape. Peter risked a glance over at Wyatt for guidance. The lawyer had stiffened but sent Peter a subtle, reassuring nod. Cassandra pulled up a dark surveillance recording of a street, meant to record traffic, and zoomed in a bit. Slightly blurry renditions of Peter and Gabriel were standing outside an alley, arguing. Then Gabriel went still. He stepped away from Peter, into the street. Peter followed slowly and looked down the street, then back at Gabriel.
A semi drove into view, enough to obscure Gabriel while Peter was still visible. Peter lunged forward out of view as well. When the semi-cleared, Peter’s hands were on his head in disbelief. He staggered to the ground as the semi stopped, too little too late. But to anyone else, it could look like Peter saw the truck coming and decided to push Gabriel in front of it. They could be watching his grief for what he’d just done rather than horror for what had happened. The driver had been texting, so he couldn’t be a witness. He hadn’t seen Gabriel jump in front or Peter try to stop him.
“Mr. De la Cruz, are you sure—”
“Wait, Counselor,” Judge Knox interrupted. “Play the footage again.” She frowned and squinted at the screen as the footage replayed. “Again.” Cassandra complied.
“Is there a problem, Your Honor?”
“Yes, there’s a problem,” Knox sassed. “There’s no clear view of the actual murder. This boy could have pushed the victim or he could have tried to stop the man from doing it himself. Let me see that.” Cassandra handed over the remote and Knox used it to bring the video to a freeze frame just before Peter lunged for Gabriel. “That boy looks terrified, not like he’s about to kill his own father. Hand over a copy of the footage and I’ll review it in my chamber.”
Peter straightened in surprise. Cassandra’s lips were tightly pursed when she marched back to her bag. She gave the judge a flash drive and Knox called a recess. Peter looked questioningly to Wyatt, so he came up to the stand.
“Can she keep them from using it?” Peter asked.
“She can if she decides it’s unfairly damaging.” Wyatt kept his face calm, trying not to get Peter’s hopes up in case Knox came back with bad news.
Did Peter dare to hope? While they’d been training for the trial, Peter had been certain that this footage would be his undoing. It hadn’t even occurred to him that the judge could get it thrown out.
“You’re doing great,” Wyatt said with a grin. “Even if she lets them keep it, we’ll get through this.”
Everyone waited in an anxious aura of impatience as the minutes ticked by. When she finally came back, her stern expression was impossible to read. She’ll let them use it, he fretted. It’ll condemn me.
Knox resumed her position on the bench and banged her gavel to quiet the murmur of voices and to resume the session. “After careful consideration, I’m ruling the surveillance footage inadmissible due to its ambiguous content. The jury cannot include it in their deliberation.”
The murmur returned, louder. Relief took over and Peter leaned forward on his knees. Shoving his hands into his hair as air flooded his lungs. He hadn’t even realized he’d been holding his breath. Frazzled and frustrated by this unforeseen blow to her case, Cassandra didn’t get much else out of Peter. Next, Wyatt had Peter recount his tale of what happened after his disappearance and then released him back to his seat.
Next, Wyatt called Elias. Elias looked tired, with purple rings around his eyes and disheveled hair. Peter’s mom was making him stay at a motel. He fought the urge to feel sorry for the man.
“I was fifteen when I met Gabriel,” he began. “We were both homeless, living in Houston. Back then, he was a canisi like me.”
“I thought he was a cynephi?” Adeline whispered behind him.
“Later,” Raiden whispered.
Peter was glad they couldn’t see his face.
“We met Nahamina, my wife, a few years later and they started dating. He was good at picking fights and eventually it was my turn, not that it wasn’t deserved. He found out I had a thing for Mina. We parted ways after that and they stayed together.
“The next time I met up with them, he was different. Mina was covered in bruises. She was afraid of him. I could see it. So, I snuck to her that night. She told me he’d picked a fight with a new kid in the neighborhood a month before. He was turned into a wulver.” People around the room gasped and the murmuring returned. Knox banged her gavel to regain order and the chatter died down. “He’d gotten more violent since then. Started hitting Mina. She hadn’t told him she was pregnant. Said she was afraid he would assume she was cheating on him because they hadn’t been intimate since he got bit. I asked her to run a
way with me and she agreed.”
“Why didn’t you tell anyone who he was when he showed up?” Wyatt asked.
“I was afraid my son would hate me when he found out I wasn’t his father.” Elias’s gaze slid cautiously over to Peter. The pleading in his eyes nearly broke Peter’s resolve. He looked down to get away from them. “Gabriel found us when Peter was two. He swore that I would pay for taking Mina from him, so I moved us to the east coast. We bounced around and landed in New York for a while and then Norwich. It’s been eighteen years. I thought he had finally moved on. Apparently not.”
***
“Not guilty,” the foreman declared. The judge dismissed everyone and rose to leave. Wyatt clapped a hand to Peter’s shoulder as the room filled with discussion. We let Nahamina pass us and she embraced her son, sobbing joyfully. He held her tight, burying his face in her hair.
He was free! Wyatt directed Peter past us. Peter’s eyes were wide and his shoulders straight as if it was starting to sink in. I smiled and we all filed out after them. I caught sight of Elias, back in his pew. His forehead rested against his laced hands. My chest grew tight and I slid into the pew in front of him. He looked up with a start when I put my hand on his.
“I’m sorry,” was all I could say.
“Thank you for helping him.” He whispered.
His gaze turned down again. With nothing else to say, I left. A small horde of people awaited us in the hallway. The bailiff instructed them to stand aside to let us through. Four reporters stepped forward to question Peter and Wyatt so the rest of us scooted past and huddled by the wall. Mom was congratulating Nahamina amidst hugs.
I couldn’t help staring when I noticed two little clusters of protesters at the end of the hall. They were probably waiting until we were closer before they verbally expressed their particular grievances about the trial, but we were close enough to read their signs. A few were directed accusingly at Peter, a couple more at the system for prosecuting him, but at least half weren’t even about the trial. They were about Ian and me. And not all were in my favor. “Keep the Blood Pure”. “Brackett is a Hero”. “Dhampirs Need A Cure”. The man holding the second sign appeared to recognize me and whispered to the man with the first sign. I matched their baleful scowls.
Warm fingers coiled around mine and I looked up at Raiden at my side. “Don’t give them the satisfaction of letting them get to you,” he said softly. I laced my fingers with his and turned to lean my shoulder against the wall so I would be looking at him instead of them.
I smiled and his glance flicked briefly to my lips. A moment passed between us, but he looked awkwardly around at the highly occupied hallway, where my mom was also present. Nikki grinned mischievously around his shoulder when he turned back around and I felt myself turn pink. Raiden must have guessed what I was looking at and his smile when he chuckled made my stomach give a nervous flutter. I shot her a pointed look and she turned away, still grinning.
“So…” Raiden’s thumb stroked my hand. More butterflies.”
“Everyone stand aside. Come on, against the wall,” The bailiff ordered, shooing Peter’s group away. Both of our smiles faded. There was only one thing that could mean. Raiden turned to watch Ian be led out of the courtroom, flanked by agents again. The voices in the hallway fell silent except for a few nearly inaudible murmurings. Ian scoured the congregation until he found me. Raiden’s fingers tightened comfortingly around my hand. I refused to back down this time. Ian’s grey eyes stayed on mine until they suddenly flitted to the protesters. Curiously, I looked over. Would they bother him? Part of me hoped they would.
That wasn’t, however, why he was looking at them. One of the men, who was holding a “Prejudiced Prosecution is Profane”—apparently protesters love alliteration—lowered his sign to the floor. As “P3” man stepped around his compatriots, he muttered something and a ball of energy ignited in his palm. His glare was on Ian, dark and angry.
“Stop!” The guards at Ian’s sides barked and the one on the left erected an energy shield to cover the three of them. The shields were pale blue and transparent like colored glass. “P3” man lifted the sparking orb in his hand. At the last moment, his eyes flew to me instead. My breath caught. His lips pulled back in a snarl.
Raiden spun in front of me as my attacker released the orb. It struck him in the back and his weight was knocked into me. He cried out and braced an arm on the wall so he wouldn’t hit his head. I wrapped my arms around him to catch him. People fled the firefight that ensued between my attacker and the guards, all except one woman who remained to help my attacker. He’d brought back up.
“Raiden?” My voice was shaking. That had been a lot of electricity for him to take.
“I’m okay,” he breathed unconvincingly. I eased him down to kneel on the floor and eased out of the way so he could lean forward against the wall. I knelt uselessly beside him while he gasped in pain. The black scorch mark through his suit smelled of burnt flesh. At least the cauterization kept him from bleeding much.
Both sides of the firefight were now using magical shields and shooting an assortment of elemental barrages at each other. The shields began to crack and splinter. Agent Stokes had joined in and Agent Morrison was directing people back into the courtroom for safety. Morrison started waving our group over. Slade crawled over to help me move Raiden. A fireball blasted the wall behind me and I stumbled over in surprise. The woman helping my attacker was practically sparking with anger as she glared at me. She was going to shoot again. What if she missed again and Raiden took another hit? I threw my arms over my head and used myself to block Raiden as he had for me. Turn to metal, turn to metal! I didn’t, of course.
“No!” I heard Nikki shout.
I braced myself for the hit, but it didn’t come. A barrage of fire collided with something behind me. A barrier like the ones the others were using now protected us. Had one of the guards cast it? No. I found Nikki with her hand outstretched toward us. Peter and Lorraine gaped on either side of her, but neither looked as surprised as Nikki. Or maybe horrified was the right word for the look on her face. She was pale, mouth ajar. Her wide hazel eyes moved to mine.
“It’s okay,” I mouthed through the chaos.
Wyatt suddenly stood and marched around Ian’s entourage. Seething anger darkened his usually light features. I shifted to stop him but Slade caught hold of me. It didn’t matter anyway because Wyatt had turned himself completely into metal. I felt my breath stop and could do nothing but stare. It really was a family trait. His heavy footfalls broke the tiles in an intimidating cadence of crunches and cracks.
The guards shouted for him to get out of the way until a fireball hit his chest and he just ripped his blazer and shirt off, showing off his metal back. His advance didn’t slow and my attackers backed up, eyes widening. Wyatt’s iron fist shattered the shield that guarded them. His fist struck “P3” man so hard in the chest that he was sent back into the wall and crunched a hole in the plaster. He fell into a slump on the floor and remained still. The woman scrambled to his side.
“Randal?” She patted his cheek, frantically trying to bring him back to consciousness. He stirred. Barely.
“Don’t move!” One of the guards commanded. Wyatt put his hands on the back of his head expectantly.
I stared in horror as he was handcuffed and made to kneel. “What are you doing? He was helping!” I bellowed. The guard moved around him to handcuff the assailants as well, oblivious to me.
Wyatt peered at me over his shoulder, cuffed hands still on his head. His metal skin was receding back to normal. “It was still illegal. Don’t worry, I’ll be fine. How is he?” He gestured his chin toward Raiden. I spun back around to see. Slade had crouched at his friend’s side to do the same and Nikki moved to my right. Her hand was shaking when she put it on my back.
“You’re lucky,” Slade was saying. The gnarly burn in Raiden’s back begged to differ. “That should have been much worse.”
I gasped, realizin
g a flash of movement I hadn’t registered in my peripheral just after the man had fired at me. A hand casting something. And the orb, had it dimmed a bit? I looked back at Ian where the other guard had him standing against the opposite wall. He felt me looking and his brown eyes met mine. He nodded almost imperceptibly as if to answer my question. He had dampened the spell.
“We should move him out of the hallway. He needs help.”
“What?” I looked confusedly to Morrison and realized he was talking about Raiden, not Ian.
“Just take me to the Manor. Hemway knows what to do.”
“There's a magician in Human Resources, she can treat you,” Morrison suggested.
Raiden shook his head. “I need Hemway to do it.”
“He has a condition,” I clarified. “Hemway knows how to treat him.”
“At least let me get you something for the pain.”
“No. No painkillers.” Raiden's fists clenched and I touched his shoulder. He was afraid, I realized, of taking anything addictive as a recovered alcoholic.
I smiled weakly at Morrison. “Thank you, but we can take care of him. Look after Wyatt?” He nodded. I pulled my car keys from my pocket. “Peter.” His eyes widened when I tossed them to him. I was trusting him with Farrah. I hung Raiden's left arm over my shoulder and Slade moved to help but I waved him off. “It's okay, I've got him.” I used my strength to help Raiden to his feet and let him test his step. He faltered and braced his hand on the wall. I adjusted my grip on his back so as not to touch the wound and carried what weight he was in too much pain to carry himself.
Reuniting
I sat beside Raiden in the backseat of Slade's car. Raiden had to sit sideways, which made wearing his seat belt awkward and his arm was coiled around the headrest in an attempt to be more comfortable and to stabilize him. The car ride had been...quiet so far. An hour had passed, my phone told me. Slade was tapping his fingers on his leg as he drove. Whether out of anxiety or irritation, I couldn't tell. Knowing his friend was in pain was probably the only thing keeping him quiet. His greyish blue eyes had been flicking between Raiden and me in the rearview mirror the entire time. I tried not to feel irritated, too. He's just being protective of his niece, I reminded myself. His niece. That was still a surreal thought.