Sever - A Wattpad Featured Story

Blue - Chapter 22 - Then

It's dark. Late. The holding cell Detective Pike assigned me stinks like manure mixed with discarded fried fish, and it's cold enough to store meat down here. Mikey flicks on the artificial lighting and clicks the door shut behind me. It stirs a cold sweat on my brow.

'See, you've wound her up now, David, by running off like that. When she gets an idea in her head she's like a dog on a bone. You might think you can keep things from me, but you can't keep anything from her. Why did you lie about your results? And why didn't you tell me about the girl?'

'Mikey, she's nothing to do with this and nothing to do with me.'

Shaking my head, I want to burrow into the ground. I'm a solution maker. Used to be anyway. Why can't I figure this one out. Jade was close enough to explain this all to. But I saw the hurt in her eyes. She doesn't deserve to be dragged into this quicksand pit. Now the detective is threatening to involve her, I see how stupid my actions really were.

'You know what, I don't care why you were there. David? Blue! Listen to me,' Mikey says. It's either him or the Cat III suspended ceiling lights and their perpetual glare is making my head hurt, so I look down, my eyes meeting his furrowed forehead some way below the chestnut lego square hair cut.

'How could anyone, honestly, charge you real money to create a toupee-looking hair do like yours?' I say.

He doesn't flinch.

'They're going to put you on that stand and cross examine you until you're nothing,' he says. 'Less than nothing. They will reduce your written facts into pulp. Humiliate you. If you get angry like that in the court room —which, by the way, is what they're gunning for— they'll label you a threat to the general public and lock you away forever. That's what they want. And they'll do it to the girl too. When innocent people die, they want to make as many people as possible pay. It's all about guilt. Seeing a head roll helps that. It restores confidence in the system, and with the riots going on these days, it sure as hell could use it.'

I imagine Mikey's head rolling about on the floor. Would his lego toupee fall off and roll about like a plastic bowl?

'Are you smirking at me?' he says. 'Think this isn't serious, kid? Any judge will impose a custodial sentence, no matter what. This plea bargain is a blessing from the heavens. They don't give these kind of bargains out sparingly and certainly not Pike. Do you understand me?'

'If what you've said is true, why's she offering it? Do you not think it's strange giving me a chance to get out, if the fate of this country rests upon my conviction?'

'The actions of a woman are never straight forward. But you'd be insane to look a gift horse in the mouth.'

'That is such a stupid phrase,' I say.

He starts pacing the room. Even with his stumpy legs, he's crossed it in three strides.

'So it will give you a permanent criminal record, a suspended sentence, and a scummy community service drill in their nasty council digs, but it's like a camping trip compared to what the court system will do to you. Especially with your little absconder 'off piste' today. She could imprison you for that alone.'

'She already has,' I mutter, raising my eyebrows at the cell. It's a small one. She did that on purpose. With Mikey's squat frame crossing the room I imagine the walls closing in. Soon they'll hit him, crush him, and squeeze the fat from his belly. He's still talking. Some of it I hear.

'If you wind her up anymore, she'll slam a police assault charge on - GBH, for breaking that officer's nose - and God knows you deserve it. I had to pull every string in the book to get her to drop that and she's not yet fully agreed. Best I can hope for is for her to drop it with the girl and give you an industrial length anger management course and that's better than you can imagine, believe me.