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“Well it sounds like he figured it out,” Maria said grimly. “Come on, Abbey—I think we’d better get out there.”
“Yes, we should.” Abbey cocked her head to one side as her heart sank. “Do you hear that?”
“Hear what?” Maria asked her.
Abbey took a deep breath to try and calm herself but her heart was racing and her palms were sweaty.
“Police sirens. I think the reunion is over.”
37
ABBEY
“I’m telling you, Captain Hogan, you can’t charge him. You can’t even hold him.” Councilor Lizabeth Paige, the head of the Kindred Mother Ship’s Legal Department, shook her head, her long dark hair swishing over her shoulders.
Abbey knew this because she could see the blurry motion and hear the swishing sound. They hadn’t had to call the lawyer to represent Solon. The minute the news of what had happened at the reunion had gone wide—which hadn’t taken long since a lot of people had apparently recorded the incident on their cell phones—she had been dispatched from the Mother Ship to come and represent Solon.
“Tell me everything,” she had demanded and Abbey had listened numbly while Solon described getting a confession from her attacker and then severing his genitals and throwing them on the floor in front of a crowd of her old classmates.
Then she had called the police captain back into the interrogation room and coolly informed them that they had a “Rage Mauling” on their hands and that Solon’s actions were protected under the rulings of the World Court which held that no Kindred or Monstrum warrior could be prosecuted for protecting or avenging his human bride.
“Bullshit!” Captain Hogan growled. (Spex had described him to Abbey as having broad shoulders, short gray hair, and “angry-mad eyes.”) “We can too hold him—hell, he’s going to jail for what he did tonight! Do you know what kind of connections Chris Brander has? His father’s a goddamn state senator!”
“I don’t care if his father is the President,” Lizabeth Paige said firmly. “Chris Brander admitted to attacking and raping my client’s human fiancée, Abbey Lennox. My client was well within his rights to punish him for that offense.”
“But she said it happened over ten years ago!” Captain Hogan protested and Abbey knew he was pointing at her. She shivered and put her arms around herself.
She’d already been forced to relive the awful details of the attack and admit how Chris Brander had attacked her when the police questioned why Solon would do such a thing. It was something she hadn’t let herself even think about—let alone talk about—in years, and talking about the dirty, disgusting, shameful details made her feel like she was vomiting all over the table.
“There is no statute of limitations on rape—at least not where the Kindred or the Monstrum are concerned, officer,” Lizabeth Paige told him. “You can’t legally hold my client. If you try?—”
There was a squeaking sound as the door opened and a new voice said,
“Excuse me, Captain? There’s another one here who says she wants to testify.”
“What? Another?” Hogan demanded.
“Uh-huh. Says Brander attacked her too,” the other voice said. “Says he, uh, got what he deserved.”
“That’s the third woman who’s come forward in the last two hours, isn’t it?” Lizabeth Paige demanded. “It sounds to me, Captain, like you have a serial rapist on your hands. And no, it doesn’t matter that these crimes were committed ten years ago—Chris Brander hurt women and you can’t deny it!”
“That’s still no reason for this big fucker here to rip off his cock and balls!” Captain Hogan sounded upset and angry. “He should have brought him to court!”
“What—so someone like you could argue that he shouldn’t be punished just because his crimes were committed over ten years ago?” Lizabeth Paige demanded. “So you could drag his victims up on the witness stand and ask them what kind of clothes they were wearing when he raped them? Because maybe they were ‘asking for it’ so it’s not really his fault? Is that it?”
She sounded truly outraged on Abbey’s behalf and Abbey wanted to be grateful. But right now all she felt was numb. She’d never in a million years imagined her high school reunion ending like this. If only she had just stayed home!
“Please,” she said, turning to Lizabeth. “Please, I just want to go home.”
“Of course you do.” The lawyer put a comforting hand on her arm and squeezed. Then she spoke to the police Captain again. “Captain Hogan, if you don’t release my client right now, I promise I’ll bring a lawsuit that will bankrupt this whole town. Furthermore, I’ll leak to all the press and social media how you’re on the side of a known rapist.”
“I never said I was on his side!” Hogan protested uneasily. “I’m just saying, his father’s really important.”
“Which is why I never reported what Chris did to me back when he did it,” Abbey said, still feeling numb. “Because I knew his family was too rich and too well-connected and nothing would come of it. I knew that people like you would ignore me or say I was lying.” She had begun to cry now, but she couldn’t seem to do anything about it. “Do you know how scared I was that I might be pregnant? I was sure my life was over. And it took me years to trust anyone male again. When I did, I wound up with the Wheelchair Killer!”
“The Wheelchair Killer?” Captain Hogan snapped his fingers. “Oh, that’s you—the one who got away from him.”
“Yes, that’s me,” Abbey said bitterly. “The poor little blind girl who keeps getting attacked. But guess what, Captain? I am through being a victim. You couldn’t catch Henry—if that really is his name—but Chris Brander got exactly what he deserved. Now I want to get out of here and go home! I can’t…can’t take much more of this.” Her voice wobbled and nearly broke and she swiped at her eyes, which were stinging with tears.
