SO COLD (18+) currently editing

Chapter 47.5

SO COLD

The breakfast table was heavy under the strain of jam pots, plates of toast, fried eggs and bacon, cereal boxes, jugs of milk and orange juice and a steaming pot of coffee. Limp hands reached for a slice of toast, grim mouths chewed, mumbles for coffee? Sure. Were said. It felt like a funeral.

It was eleven-something in the morning. No-one looked like they had a restful sleep. Bags under eyes. Cranky expressions. Sullen moods. It was as if we were in high school and we'd been told to get up at seven when we'd only just gotten to sleep at five. The atmosphere was like a heatwave, suffocating.

"So what happens to her?" Seth asked.

Isiah informed us Jade had been arrested for aiding and abetting a criminal and obstruction of justice. She'd been bundled into the back of a cop car in the early hours of the morning, she said she accepted and understood her rights and no, she didn't want a lawyer. She was in an interrogation room, refusing to speak.

"There'll be a court date and she'll be sentenced. She could try for a deal, cooperate and give up your father and find herself the best defense attorney money can buy. At the moment, she's indifferent. She doesn't care to help herself or anyone around her." Isiah said. "Right now she's looking at a possible life sentence. The judge will likely make an example out of her. She'll be put out to the public and torn to pieces. This is a very public case. Your father is a ..." he hesitated.

"A cop killer, a terrorist," I listed. "As juicy as the story of him avenging Mum's death is, no one wants to hear it anymore. It's been tried and tested and the people are bored of it. Romance is dead. So we've got racially motivated murder, hatred of women, psychopath. The greatest thing that could've come out of yesterday is that the media pities us. The world now realises we are as much of a victim as the victims. We are no longer in the same bad light. Praise be to God, right?" My tone became sour.

"If he gets caught, maybe he can plead insanity," Seth said, the idealist.

"He's murdered two cops, the best he'll get is life without parole, in solitary confinement for his own safety but that won't protect him. There are going to be people in power waiting to even the score. His victim list is so long they're going to unravel it in court and wave it in the jurors' faces. He's made a laughing stock out of the law, they're going to execute him. Imagine what the people would say if they found out he's part of a cult. Some sort of lame club, a group of high-school rejects, a bunch of bullies' favourite targets, people who've never matured enough to get over the past."

"What are you talking about?" Isiah made a face.

"He's in a cult. The mayor of Southway is involved, too. And a bunch of other businessmen. Neighbours. Firemen. Office workers. News reporters. The town is swarming with them. That's how he's managed to get away. His friends brought him an invisibility cloak." I stirred my cup, there was a bitter taste in my mouth and it certainly wasn't the coffee. "There's a hierarchy. The mayor sits at the top and Dad is close by."

"That seems far-fetched," Grandma said. "A cult in Southway? Like the KKK?"

"Sort of," I said. "Except they're not fuelled by racism or bigotry, it's not a group of white-power screaming fuckwits. It's a killing club. It's a cluster of men who've always felt inferior, who's ego has been blown up by similar men, who've never felt power until they've overpowered some twenty year old woman and buried her in their back garden."

"That's whack," Seth stood up. "I gotta get out of this house, man. It's driving me crazy."

"There are news reporters camped outside," Isiah informed. "If you need fresh air go to the back garden."