Seen

15.

Without saying a word, another man I hadn't seen before came in from behind the cop and roughly hand cuffed me.

I know what I had said before but honestly, how could I fight back? I was in a complete state of shock. I now experienced what it was like to be arrested but be nearly 100% innocent. Jake wasn't fighting either. He had also been shocked stiff.

They nearly shoved me out of the office and down a hall. The hallway has a door at the very end of it with at least five complicated security locks down the side. Directly in the center of this door, in bold lettering, it read, 'UNDER 18 YEARS OF AGE'. I wasn't sure of what that meant.

With still no sign of dad, Maggie, or Jake, I was starting to get even more uneasy. They were the only ones I felt safe around-some more than others.

Greatly to my surprise, right before we reached the well-locked door, we redirected and took a right turn. This right turn led us into another large room.

At the moment, I was only thinking about how impressed I was about the large number of doors in the police department building. This, however ended quickly when I was informed by the cop that had hand cuffed me that there had been an "insane" breakthrough in the current "murder" case.

I just knew the cops would be leading me to my cold holding cell any minute now after they tell me I'm guilty.

"Hunter, we brought you here to inform you about the final conclusion to this case. Your dad is very incredible at tracing and editing, and yes before you ask, he is indeed justified to help us in a state of law due to his experiences. He has led us to our logical conclusion." The question cop explained.

Guilty. Definitely guilty now that my dad had helped them out. He'd betrayed me once. Who's to say he wouldn't do it once more? I thought to myself.

"The conclusion was just so obvious. We felt ignorant that we were being so careful, tip toeing around the answers." He started up again. "Well we now know that you are...,"

Here it comes. I squeezed my eyes shut.

"innocent." My eyes instantly flew open. "The pictures we took of the victim had ideal clues that linked to Jay. Your father was the one who had pointed out the small tattoo on Jay's neck and had compared it to the mug shot used in the broadcast the other day. The tattoos were found in both pictures." He said, explaining further into the situation. 

I couldn't process this all at once. "But I killed him." I pointed out. Now I could ask all the questions I wanted, being innocent and all.

The question cop answered with, "If a killing is committed and the killer had tried to harm the possible victim in a fatal manner and the victim ends up killing them, it's no longer murder but manslaughter. This doesn't sound better but it is because manslaughter is committed out of self defense."

I had barely understood a word he'd explained yet I could still infer that it all meant that I wouldn't be finding myself locked away any time soon, I hoped.

Through all the excitement and sudden great news, all I could possibly ask was, "Then, why am I in handcuffs?"

"Uh...well, from what we saw you do to your father, the whole gun incident," he started, "we weren't quite so sure how you'd react when we gave you good news."

No doubt, he'd realized how stupid he had sounded so he attempted to cover it up with, "Better safe than sorry."