❝WE STAND AND WE WON'T FALL.❞
In which Kai Nolan, a human disaster in the form of a clever detective, gets transferred to the LAPD, making things difficult not only for him, but everyone around him.
[LUCIFER SEASON 3]
BOOK THREE IN THE ❝ CHILDREN OF...
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EXPERT AT AVOIDING things that caused him great distress, Kai was uneasily rubbing his hands together as he walked down the hallways of a local high school, barely finding confidence in his badge and gun around the judgmental teens. His own high school years had been hellish and what had initially driven him to stray from difficult situations, to begin with — while he was open about how they made him feel, he rarely picked up a book or looked over his high school yearbook. He had gone so far as to skip his reunion, even when Mariah had offered to come with and either spin any lies he wanted to tell or beat his former bullies up.
"Right this way, Detective. I appreciate you coming so quickly", the principal of the school sighed wearily while walking Kai towards her office, and mustering a nod, the man glanced around the lockers being slammed shut. In some twisted way, each sound made him twitch in recognition, and for the first time in a long time, he was forced to recall all the times he had been pushed around the hallways or the target of mocking whispers in class whenever the teachers had encouraged him to speak up or recite passages from books.
Suffice to say, he had been the very opposite of popular, and when he had thought that finally explaining his dyslexia would help his peers understand, the teasing had only doubled in size afterwards.
"Of course. It's what I do", Kai tried to feign courage as he followed the principal's footsteps, all the way to her office until the noise in the hallways melted into the background. While it was evident in the air that someone had tragically died, there was something eerie about how the students seemed to go about their day as per usual — though Kai had noticed the few mementos adorning one of the lockers, presumably belonging to the deceased.
"I'll just get straight to it. I know Mr. Arnold was bullied", he added, not meaning the words to come out so bitterly but the blaming tone floated in the air before he could take them back. He could tell the principal was shaken by the events, but he also couldn't help but wonder if the teachers had done enough.
As if reading his mind, the woman nodded sadly. "We tried to put a stop to it, we really did. We value our students—they're not just students, detective. And for a moment there, I thought things were looking up, but I suppose I was wrong", she explained, and as easy as it would have been to hold onto his own conflicting feelings, he mustered a soft smile to assure he believed what she was giving him.
"I'm going to have to ask for names, I'm afraid", Kai continued, stern but gentle as he considered taking out his notepad but opted for doing the opposite, after all. Since high school, really, he had been the type of person to memorize things, or at least try, rather than scribble every little thing down.
And for once, he didn't doubt that what was told him, he'd remember.
