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“Who made you crash?”
I let out a huff. “I have no idea.”
Detective Reynolds clucks his tongue. “He’s fine. See? We can have a conversation about this.”
I want to haul off and punch him, but my fucking hand is broken. I grit my teeth. I’m so pissed. I should’ve worn a fucking seatbelt. I don’t know what the fuck I was thinking. Tears sting the corner of my eyes. My hand will heal, but I won’t be able to fight for a while.
“How did the guy on the scene get shot?”
“Ask him.”
Reynolds smiles, but there’s no amusement there. He runs a hand through his thick hair. “I don’t think you understand the gravity of the situation you’re in, Ms. Samson.”
I dart my eyes to my surroundings. “I think I do.”
He shakes his head and an ominous feeling starts in my toes. “No, unfortunately, you don’t. Let me enlighten you. Your fingerprints showed up on a weapon used to murder a young girl. How do you suppose that happened?”
The bed may as well have fallen out from underneath me. “What?”
“She was just a teenager. On her way home from school.” He pulls out a picture from the file he’s holding and turns it toward me. It’s a school photo of a young black girl who couldn’t be more than fourteen. “Now I know you’ve bitten off more than you can chew with the Heights Crew. I tried to warn you,” he says. “Now you’ve gone and ruined your life.”
I’m aching at the seams to tell him I didn’t kill this girl. It’s threatening to burst out of me, but I press my lips together and close my eyes. This must have been the reason for Johnny’s message.Don’t say anything. He’ll take care of it.
“Not talking to me anymore?”
I keep my eyes closed.
He moves around the room, and when he talks again, I almost jump because he’s right beside me. “It’s sad what happens when young girls like you get involved with the type of men who are in these gangs. I tried to help you.”
The picture of the young girl won’t leave my head, and a single tear runs down my cheek. No, of course I didn’t kill her, but I think I know what happened to the gun that was in my room now. And yes, my fingerprints were all over it.
The detective sighs. “When you’re released from the hospital, you’ll be booked into Rawley Police station for first degree murder of a child. I hope you contemplate on that, Ms. Samson.”
His footsteps lead him away from the room, and when the door clicks shut behind him, my heart opens up for the first time in a long time. All the grief I’ve been holding back. All the stress and pressure, all the fucking pain I’ve had to endure comes out in a flood of emotions that wrack my body with sobs. The expression of my pain hurts, but it would hurt even worse to keep it inside. To hold it back.
I came to the Heights to make my life better, not worse, and now I may have just ruined mine. For wanting something more. Hell, even just wanting the life I should have had.
My heart splinters open when I realize that little girl died because of me. Because someone wanted to frame me for this. To make the Heights Crew pay.
Everywhere I look, innocent people are getting hurt, and I’m at the center.
This wasn’t what this was supposed to be at all.
And now if I have any chance of getting out of this, I have to rely on Big Daddy K. The one who gets around the police all the time. The person I hate most in the world.
Isn’t life ironic?