Page 40 of Katie 3

“As I can’t speak about the sealed files, no.”

“Let me fill it in for you then. You signed a contract, didn’t you?”

“Yes, it—”

Carter holds up his hand to shush her. “It said what was expected of you in this consensual relationship, right?”

“Yes.” She nods, her jaw set.

“And who broke this contract?”

“I did,” she mutters.

“Why and how did you do that?”

Her lips remain sealed, pressed tightly together as her stare breaks and flits to Brad.

“Look at me, Brandy,” Carter says, his voice dropping low and sending a trail of goosebumps over my arms. “Answer my question.”

She swallows. “I wanted… Brad for myself. And I… went about it the wrong way.”

Carter hums. “How?”

“I filed a report, that he… raped me.”

Murmurs erupt again and the judge’s hammer slams down to force them to silence.

“And did he?” Carter asks.

Her eyes narrow and snap to Brad just briefly. “No, he didn’t.”

The nausea hasn’t dropped as I do the math. They went from her, to… me. The same rules, the same games.

I’m nothing special.

And that thought digs its way into my soul, forcing the doubt to spread.

“No further questions,” Carter says, and as he turns to walk to his side, his eyes meet mine. There’s a smile there, a nod, probably to ease away the hurt. But it doesn’t work.

I’m too much away from it all, I don’t even notice that they call my name until a slight tap on my shoulder zaps me out of the dark.

I’m called again, forced to swear in, then sat there. Whereshejust sat. Fitting maybe… I don’t know anymore.

My eyes find my mother again. Her face is hard, set in anger. Did she know? She warned me about Brad’s troubles—she must have meant with Brandy. But did she also know her husband was fucking her?

I blink my stare away and find Brad. I take in his bruises and cut lip as he shuffles in his seat. He smiles very slightly and mouths “I love you.”

Rather than answer, I look at Henry as he approaches.

Here we go, right?

He asks the questions he prepared me for, asking about my relationship with Brad, bringing up that it started when we were still stepsiblings, which I agree with. I talk about being a student, about Dan constantly getting closer to me and ignoring my soft rejections until I didn’t feel safe around him and told Brad, leading to the punch.

“Objection, speculation,” the prosecutor calls.

“I can’t say that?” I ask the judge. “It’s what happened.”

The judge speaks up. “Overruled.”

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