Page 9 of Whistle

“My son is in jail for what he did,” Rick yelled.

“Yeah? Well, my sister is dead.”

My words decimated the fight, took the pleasure out of the fire, and I got up and fled the scene. Everything after that was a jumbled blur in my brain. I braced my elbows on my knees and tried to remember.

All I had were flashes. Strobing lights, loud music, and alcohol. So much alcohol.

And now I was here.

“The Cobalts are pressing charges this time. They are well within their rights.”

I snorted.

Slam! The heavy smack of the man’s hand cracking against the tabletop made me jolt, and the chair I was in tipped backward. I sprawled on the floor, knees bent and palms behind me on the concrete.

“Goddammit, Lawson! You just don’t get it, do you?” he spat, disgust dripping from his every pore as he stalked around the table to hover over me and stare down. “You’ve been terrorizing these people. This is not the first time you’ve trespassed, vandalized, and made their lives hell.”

“They deserve it.”

“They aren’t the ones breaking the law!” he roared. “You are! You’ve used up all your chances. The Cobalts are done being sympathetic. Your parents washed their hands of you, and it sounds like your lawyer did too.”

“Fuck you!” I yelled, shoving to my feet.

“Questioning is over. I’ll call the public defender’s office. They can deal with you,” he said. The resoluteness in his voice cut me deeper than anything else in the entire conversation. Like everyone else, he thought me a lost cause too.

Whatever. It doesn’t matter.

He turned his back, heading toward the door. Beside the table, he stopped and turned back. “I don’t get it, kid. You had everything. Yeah, your sister died, but it didn’t have to be this way.” He shook his head sadly. “Now you’re no better than the guy who killed her.”

Something inside me imploded, filling me with adrenaline and anger so fast I let out a cry and launched myself at him. My fist slammed into the side of his head, and he fell sideways into the door. I heard his head knock against it, his grunt.

I went at him again, rage blinding me. I was nothing like Cobalt. Nothing!

The door burst open, and we both stumbled back. The next thing I knew, a loud pop filled the room, and I was blasted backward into the wall. My muscles cramped painfully, and then I started to shake violently. Crumpling to the floor, I lay on my back, quaking and jerking as pain lit me up inside.

A uniformed officer appeared over me, a taser in his grip. He shoved it into his belt and watched me seize. “Adding assault of an officer to your charges.”

The effects of the taser wore off, and I was tossed back into my cell where I officially hit rock bottom.

That asshole was right. I once had it all.

And now I had nothing.

4

Coach (Emmett)

The creak of a door had my eyes flying open. I probably wouldn’t have noticed the sound at all if the house wasn’t dead silent and pitch black.

Ears on alert, I turned my head on the pillow to glance at the clock on the bedside table. I’d only been asleep for an hour.

A muffled sound out in the hallway shifted my attention. Muscles tense, I tossed the covers back and swung my legs over the side of the bed. Heart thudding heavily against my chest, I stared hard at the closed bedroom door as though, if I concentrated hard enough, I could see right through it.

A low voice made my ears strain, but it was too garbled to make out. Worry for my daughter sleeping down the hall overrode everything else, and I bolted to the door and swung it open aggressively.

“You shouldn’t have called me.” Rush stood in the dark hallway, bare back tense and slightly bent forward. He had one finger plugged into the ear not pressed against his cell.

A beat passed, and he made a noise low in his throat. “Where are you?”

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