For the Love of the Law

Prologue

"Harlow Micheals, you are under arrest. You have the right to remain silent. Anything you do say can and will be held against you in a court of law. You have the right to speak to an attorney, and to have the attorney present during questioning. Do you understand these rights?"

I sighed, and muttered a yes as the police officer escorted me a into the back of his police cruiser.

And to think I only went out to pick up my drunk ass best friend from her damn drop kick boyfriends party.

As the man in blue slammed the door on me, I glanced out the window and watched as another officer put Sophie in the back of his own police cruiser, and hoped to god she could feel the glare I was directing her way. The girl who had just started the problem that got me into this predicament, was sitting smugly on the pavement, and when she saw my eyes on her, the bitch waved and her mouth spread into a nasty grin that made me take back the regret I had previously been feeling for hitting her.

She deserved the black eye that she would be sporting in the morning, and that thought alone made me grin to myself as the cruiser started moving and the nerves hit my stomach like a punch in the gut.

All I could think as we moved closer and closer to the police station was that my father was going to kill me.

Slowly.

____ | Half an hour earlier | ____

"Can you pleeeeease just come and pick me up? Marcus is dancing with that Monica slut and I just want to go home." Sophie whined in her drunken, dramatic pitch. I winced into the phone as I lay in my bed, rubbing my eyes tiredly.

"Soph, just get a cab. It's one AM and I have work tomorrow morning-"

"Please Harlow? I'll pay you."

"That kind of defeats the purpose of taxi drivers, Soph."

"I don't care! I want you and your stupid beat up car to come and get me from this stupid dirty gutter and stupid party and-"

I sighed, sitting up. "Look, I'll be there in ten, okay? Stay where you are. Promise?"

"Harlow?" Sophie groaned after a few seconds of her not answering me. She was panting slightly, and coughed roughly into the phone. "You might want to bring towels."

"You didn't-"

"I may have just thrown up."

If I didn't win best friend award for this, then whoever did deserves more than a fucking medal. Sophie and I had been joint at the hip since elementary school, we had been through everything together. Her parents divorce, my brothers accident, the first time we both thought we'd fallen in love, everything. She had always been the more spirited one, where you couldn't tell her no when she got an idea into her head and she didn't care what anyone else thought, as long as her and the people she cared for were happy.

Too bad she was also a huge pain in the ass, especially drunk.

Example, in times like right now.

Getting out from under the warmth of my sheets, my feet hit the cold floor and I groaned in annoyance. Shivering, I quickly pulled on the pair of jeans I had been wearing yesterday, picked up a grey v neck shirt and threw it on over top of my bra, and threw on my charcoal winter coat because it was cold even though it was summer, then yanked on a pair of random shoes and sneaked out down the stairs, grabbing my keys from the kitchen counter and walking out into the cold night, wondering just how drunk Sophie was.

She had three stages of drunk.

The first, was giddy, over excited Sophie. That was after three or four, because she was a light weight.