AllFreeNovel
Share Us
With how gentle the guys can be with me, it's easy to forget that they're dangerous men. But there's nothing gentle about them now.
“Mila,” Mack says. “Work with Snark and Faith. Get all the info together and start building your case and turning it into media. We're gonna need it to kick off the party later. Talk to your contact at Channel 7. What was her name?”
“Ella.” I nod. This isn’t going the way I thought it would for school, but this isn’t about my senior project anymore. We're setting things in motion, and it feels so much better than doing nothing.
“Good. Get her on board. I've got a plan coming and?—”
A new, gravelly voice cuts in. “Plotting and planning under my roof, holding my fucking dog hostage, and I'm not even fucking invited to the damn party?” Eagle-eye stands over us, his bulging arms crossed over his barrel chest. “What's going on?”
“Just the man we wanted to talk to, actually,” says Reaper. “We need to move fast. Are your people ready to put Mila’s brother somewhere safe until this plays out?”
“Of course.”
By the time we're done meeting, there's the bare bones of a plan in place. But for me, most importantly, I have to get the evidence together and make it presentable. The cops in this town are less than useless, and I don’t know who we can trust. The only way to do it safely, is to point a light right at the rot, so that the authorities have no choice but to react.
31
MILA
“Ella, I'm so glad you were willing to hear me out and help with this.”
We’ve been working for the past three hours, putting everything I’ve collected into something that can actually be presented. It’s one thing to have a couple of names and some vague accusations, and another to have what’s necessary for an actual news broadcast. The more information we went over, the more excited Ella and her team got.
Ella Washington, a tall, elegant woman with thick black curls and intense, almost black eyes, directs her made-for-TV smile at us. “Mila, of course! I loved having you work with us for your internship, and I'm so glad you chose me and Channel 7 to help you get this out. There won’t be any hiding after this. Your name and face will be out there in the public. Are you sure you're ready to handle that?”
I nod, determined. “It’s not just about the story for me. My family and people I care about are caught up in this.”
She exhales sharply, a little laugh. “So I see. Your backup has made that clear.”
Her eyes skate over Scrapper behind me, who is standing with two other bikers, Bull and Mad Dog. Rule number one right now is that nobody is on their own. The three oversized bikers look very out of place during after-hours at the television studio, but I feel a heck of a lot safer with them here. I wish Reaper and Mack were here, but they’re following other leads while we put this together. They promised that any brother will treat me the way they do. I'm safe. I just want all of my boys.
“Let's get this show on the road,” says Faith, who's also here with us, ready to push stuff out onto our social media as soon as it’s ready.
Ella glances over at Faith. “Just remember that Channel 7 has the exclusive right to first broadcast.” I like Ella, and I think she’s serious about reporting, but she’s also serious about her job at the network.
Faith rolls her eyes. “Of course. I know how this works. Let's nail some bad guys to the wall.”
“Okay, crew!” Ella claps her hands to get everyone's attention. Even though it's late at night, she's pulled in people to help create the segment for airing on the morning news.
It still hasn't really hit me that my work is actually going to get broadcast. That my investigation, as haphazard and wild as it's been, is going to go out there for everyone to see. When I was recovering at home this past summer, I had all sorts of ideas of how this would go, and this isn’t even close to any of them.
“Did your dad get Danny somewhere safe?” I whisper to Faith. All three of my boys insisted that when Eagle-eye says things are going to happen, they will, but still, I have to be worried. I'm his little sister. That's just how this works.
Faith nods. “Don’t worry, he’s safe in solitary confinement right now. One of Dad’s friends is working there tonight and won’t let anything happen.”
“Mila.” Ella calls me over from the editing workstation, where some of her people are busy turning our information into a presentation that will actually catch people's interest.
Here we go.
While one woman is working on organizing what I've brought into a format she can use on the screen, assembling pictures and picking out the juiciest quotes and implications and so on, Ella brings me over to a green-screened sound and video studio set up in the room next door. Everything's kept close together for scoops like this. It's almost like you can see all the data flowing from workstation to workstation as each person does their part in putting it together. It's exciting. It's what I hope I get to work with someday.
But right now, I can't let myself get drawn into the technical skill and professionalism that's happening around me. This is for Danny and all those other people who've been wronged by the system. I just hope I remember what it feels like to be right in the middle of this when I'm doing this for a job. To remember that the bigger the story, the more people are stuck in the middle of it.
A makeup team roll right up with a movable vanity, basically, and start prepping me for screen time. All I can do is sit here and let it happen, tapping my feet impatiently. I know I need this for the little interview Ella's going to put me through in a few minutes, but this definitely isn't my favorite part. While Scrapper's grinning at me wearing a pound of makeup, I just want to get to the facts. This is why I want to be the person digging all of this up, and not the one who sits and reports on it, and why I’m leaning towards print or internet when I graduate, but I'll do what I need to do.
“Good?” asks the man that just finished applying mascara and blush as he steps back.
A woman in a severe office dress and horn-rimmed glasses looks me up and down with such intense scrutiny that I don't dare move until she gives an approving nod. “Good enough.”
