Tate glared. “Excuse me?”
“He was defending himself!” Mia cried.
“I don’t see a scratch on Kyle, but Jared has a black eye there and you even admitted to witnessing your brother hit him.”
“But I also saw Jared and two other boys take Kyle down first.”
“The boys have a different story,” Branch said, looking at his booklet of miniscule notes.
“Of course they do, because they’re lying. Tell them, Kyle,” Mia begged.
“Yeah, tell them, Kyle,” Jared said.
Kyle stayed silent.
Branch sighed. “Arrest him, West.”
Mia’s eyes shot wide. “Tate, don’t. You know he’s a good kid. You know what’s been going on.”
Tate looked at Kyle. “Tell me right now what happened. Tell me the truth.”
Kyle glanced away and Mia knew, just like Tate obviously did, that he wasn’t saying anything.
“Haul him in, son,” Branch said to Tate. When Tate didn’t move, Branch frowned as if extremely confused and stepped toward him. “How are you expecting to be Sheriff when you can’t even arrest an assailant? A bully no less. “
Mia shook her head, there was no way…
But when Tate grabbed his cuffs, her stomach lurched and her heart broke.
“No!” she said and went to step between them.
“Mia, don’t,” Kyle whispered.
Tears pricked her eyes and she couldn’t hold them back anymore. She glared up at Tate as her entire world fell apart.
“You know him better than this,” she said looking Tate in the eye. “I thought you were on our side.”
“He’s not giving me a choice, there’re two witnesses—”
“I’m a witness!” she said. “Why don’t you believe me over the kids?”
“Because there’re two against one, Miss Blake,” Branch said. “Rules are rules.”
Then it hit her. The man Tate looked up to, the man he mirrored himself after, wasn’t going to budge. And neither was Tate.
“We’ll sort this out, I just need time. It’s better I take him in,” Tate whispered to her.
All Mia saw was the man she came to trust, to count on, prepare to arrest her brother. He didn’t stand up for her or Kyle. Didn’t listen to her as a witness
because two jack-ass teenagers apparently had more credibility than her. Didn’t consider the past several weeks and what Kyle had gone through. All that went out the window because “rules were rules.”
She shook her head. “You’re a coward.”
His face fell like she had slapped him.
Everything in her body felt weak, splitting at the seams from her ribs to her knees, she felt like a paper doll being torn apart. The clicking sound of the cuffs going on and the look on Kyle’s face was something Mia would never be able to erase. Time slowed and everything they’d been building toward, all her hopes that Sweet Hill was where home could be for them, went out the window.
When Tate walked Kyle out, Mia was right on their heels.