“Ethan, you’re not going to lose me. Ever.”
“You can’t say
that, Jordan. You really messed Toby up. You’re going to jail for beating the
shit out of him, not that he didn’t deserve it. They might kill you. I’ll never
see you again.”
“Nah. It’ll be
okay. I’ll beat this no problem.” Alicia shook her head at Jordan, whose face
fell. He raised an eyebrow at her and she drew her finger across her throat,
indicating for him to finish the phone call. “Hey, bud, I gotta go. I’ll see
you later, okay?”
“Yeah. See ya.”
Handing the
telecommunicator back to Alicia he looked her straight in the eyes. “I’m really
screwed, aren’t I?”
“Pretty much. What in hell were you thinking, attacking
Toby like that right out in the open? Granted he deserved it. Both Troy and
I got a kick in ourselves. We’re waiting to see if there’s going to be any
fallout from that.
“I wasn’t
thinking. He practically killed my best friend. I wanted to do the same to him.
Alicia, you know how it was when we were back in school, how he took after the
bullies that kept punching and kicking me. You know, the proverbial ninety-eight
pound weakling.” He sighed and hung his head. “I’m not getting out of this one,
am I?”
She shook her
head no. “I don’t see how you can. There were too many witnesses who all said the
same thing. You came out of nowhere and beat the shit out of him. You’ve never
been in any kind of legal trouble, so you might get off with a lighter
sentence. When you get arraigned, it’s going to be like a catch twenty-two.
“If you declare
your innocence, you’ll go to trial and probably found guilty. If you plead
guilty you’ll most likely receive the same sentence you would from a trial. I’m
going to try to talk them into letting me represent you. They may not, given
the relationship between you and Ethan. If the two of you were boyfriends, they
for sure wouldn’t let me.”
“I love him,
Alicia. He’s more of a brother to me than my own arrogant, self-absorbed
brother. I’d do anything for him.” Jordan snorted. “I guess I kinda have, haven’t
I”
She nodded. “My
brother feels the same way about you. If only you were gay, the two of you
would make an awesome couple.” Duncan blushed slightly as he smiled. She put
her hand on his arm, glaring at the guard as if challenging her to do something
about it. “I promise you, Duncan, I will do everything I can to get you out of
this. I’ll be back soon.”
₪₪₪₪₪
Ethan lay back
in the bed watching a televideo about Jordan, a lone tear escaping. Chris
walked into the room and, noticing what Ethan was watching, turned the
telecaster off. “You don’t need to be watching that shit,” he said as he wiped
the tear from Ethan’s cheek.
“It’s my fault,
Chris. It’s all my fault. I wish I had a Tardis so I could go back in time and
prevent myself from ever meeting Patrick.”
“A what?”
“A Tardis. It’s
from an old serial called Doctor Who. Here,” he answered, flipping through the
videos on his telecommunicator until he found the one he was looking for, then
showing it to Chris, “this is a Tardis. It’s kinda like a time machine.”
“That’s pretty
cool. I’d like to see the video.”
“I’ll show it to
you sometime. Right now I just want to go home, that’s all.”
“Have the
doctors given you any idea when that will be?”
“Maybe a few
days. I’ve gained all the weight back that I lost; I just have to have therapy
for my muscled to rebuild my strength and help with dealing with everything
emotionally. I’ll be seeing Dorothy again.”
“That’s a good
thing. I really like her.”
“Yeah, she’s
awesome.” They talked about different things until the dinner trays arrived.
₪₪₪₪₪
“Your Honor, my
client fully realizes what he did and the ramifications thereof and is prepared
to make restitution. I would only ask that, when you pass sentence, you take
into consideration that Mr. Sims was out on bond stemming from the
aforementioned case against him arising from the crimes he committed against
Mr. Ethan Evans, my client’s best friend.
"Upon the conclusion for the current
trial regarding said crimes, he is also facing an attempted murder charge
stemming from poisoning Mr. Evans in the hospital.”
“Throughout
these entire proceedings I have watched Mr. Sims very closely. I have
personally witnessed absolutely no remorse whatsoever over the poisoning of Mr.
Evans. However, I cannot allow what basically amounts to a vigilante attack on
Mr. Sims to go unpunished. I’m sure you understand that, Mr. Mills.”
Jordan rose and
bowed respectfully to the judge. “I do, Your Honor.”
“Very well. I’m
going to go out on a limb here, Mr. Mills. As you have demonstrated respect for
this court and the law, and have demonstrated remorse at what you have done, I
hereby sentence you to one-thousand hours of community service, a five-thousand
dollar fine and order you to pay all of Mr. Sims’ medical bills and subject
yourself to anger management counseling.”
The judge banged his gavel. “These
proceedings are now closed.”
Jordan pulled
Alicia into a fierce hug. “I don’t know how to thank you for keeping my ass out
of jail. I just don’t know how I’m going to pay everything,” he said, releasing
her.
“Your paycheck will
be garnished, but they can’t take more than ten-percent. Since you have a good
job and make a pretty decent salary, you should be fine. You know we’ll all
help you any way we can.
“We all know
that this was all a spur-of-the-moment thing and you’ve never shown any kind of
violent tendencies, so the anger management counseling shouldn’t take too
long.” Linking her arm with his, they left the courtroom.
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