Page 4 of Muddy Messy Love

“Enough,” Sergeant Nile says, nudging me forward. “Let’s go.”

Sniffling follows me up the street, testing my anger. My instinct is to comfort Jen, but her words still sting. How would she know how Slade feels about me? Her sobs increase until I can bear it no more. I glance over my shoulder to the girl who’s stood by my side through everything, and her splotchy cheeks and kicked-puppy eyes shatter my resolve in seconds. I sigh. “Please don’t cry. Everything will be okay.”

She wipes her nose with the sleeve of her denim jacket. “I’m so sorry.”

I grimace. “I’m the one who’s sorry.”

She peeks at my cuffed wrists and stifles another sob. “What happens to us now?”

Sergeant Nile speaks. “We’d like you to accompany us to the station for further questioning, Jennifer.”

Jen’s shoulders slump, and her gaze drops to her cherry-red Doc Martens. “I’m so dead. My Dad’s going to kill me.Creatively.”

I squeeze my eyes shut and look away. She’s right. She’ll be grounded, threatened with therapy, subjected to an exorcism…who the hell knows? The possibilities are endless. I never should have dragged her into this.

As we round the corner, I search for Slade, only to spot him standing handcuffed against the paddy wagon with an officer’s palm pressed to his back. My heart plummets, and my grand plan to save him crumbles to dust. “Why did you arrest him?” I ask the sergeant. “I told you. He was in the car. I stole it.”

The sergeant huffs, and sharp eyes meet mine. “A word of advice, Miss Masters—rethink the company you keep. Slade Pearson is bad news. Don’t expect to see him for a while, irrespective of whether you keep up this little charade.”

“He’s going to jail anyway?”

“Almost certainly.”

Dread pretzels my stomach. “Why?”

“I’m not at liberty to say.”

My breath hitches, and tears slide down my cheeks, causing the sergeant’s face to soften. I shake away his pity. I’m not some stupid girl he needs to feel sorry for.

I search for Liam and find him sitting on the kerb’s edge, head hung and solemn but cuff-free. Jen tries to run to him, but the officer stops her. I call out to Slade, cringing at the desperation in my voice, but he turns his head, and our eyes lock. His gaze flickers to where my hands hide, and his mouth tugs into a smile. When he winks at me, his eyes sparkle like a rippling moonlit lake, and my shoulders relax, the twisted mess inside my chest unfurling ever so slightly.

He shucks away the officer’s palm with an expletive-ridden claim of backache, then takes a dramatic breath beforelaunching into song—as only he would in this situation. With terrible pitch but enviable passion, he belts out the intro to “Bohemian Rhapsody.” The officer yanks him away from the paddy wagon, opens the back door, and shoves him inside, shaking his head as the door slams shut.

Slade’s performance continues, albeit quieter, from the confines of his mobile cell, and a sad smile kisses my lips. The officers might well kill him before they reach the station, but that’s okay. I’ll be dead too when my sister finds out about tonight. We can be dead together, roaming the earth as ghosts with no rules, consequences, or shitty ex-housemates. And what’s more, his girlfriend won’t be there.

And that sounds likeheaven.

“Beth, where are we going?” The turnoff to my apartment passes by in a stream of lights, and I look at my sister. “What, you’re ignoring me now?”

She purses her lips tighter, narrowing her eyes to slits that burn through the windscreen. Ah. The dreaded Silent Treatment.Second tier on the Bethany Masters Scale of Anger and prelude to Armageddon. Right now, she’s analysing my transgressions, polishing each point she wants to make with gleaming precision, and compacting her emotions into one almighty fireball. At some point, when the pressure grows too great, she’ll take aim and fire. But that could take days, and God knows I’d rather it be over now.

I glance at her from the corner of my eye and brace myself. “Real mature,” I mutter.

The air immediately charges with static, and Beth’s nostrils flare as she saps the car of oxygen, her face blooming red likea constipated toddler. “Mature? How dare you, Avery! What do I say, huh? I get a phone call at two in the damn morning asking me to accompany my little sister at the police station for an interview. Postbailfor you.Aggravated burglary? That’s a major indictable offence. What on earth were you thinking?” Her shoulders heave, and her periodic glares scorch my skin. “Well?”

I shrink into the soft leather seat, knowing anything I do and say will be used against me from this point forth. That’s the downside of having a lawyer for a sister. “Mia owed me money.” My voice comes out squeaky, and Beth snorts.

“Someone owes you money, so you steal their laptop. Is that reasonable behaviour, Avery?”

“I didn’t technically steal it,Beth.”

She scoffs. “Yeah, you’re totally innocent, clearly. Tell me, did you know Mia was home when you walked straight into her house?”

I feel so dumb. Not even Beth will believe that was accidental. “I left after five seconds,” I say instead. “We didn’t even see her.”

“Like that matters! And don’t get me started on the fact you lied to the police. You’re lucky they didn’t charge you for that too.”

I clench my jaw. It was two against one in the end. Jen and Liam’s version of events against my own. And, as Sergeant Nile pointed out at the station, Slade’s fingerprints will be on the laptop without mine. I should have thought of that earlier.

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