The Risk (Kings of Linwood Academy 3)

“You killed someone,” I shoot back angrily. “So that’s exactly what you are.”

Judge Hollowell’s face hardens. It’s not the same as seeing him hurt or afraid, but at least it’s something. It’s a crack in his mask.

“People do things out of necessity sometimes. Things they don’t want to do.” He clears his throat, his hazel eyes glinting. “That doesn’t mean those actions have to define them for the rest of their lives.”

“No. This won’t define you.” My voice is thick. “It will define my mom.”

He shrugs, as if that’s a minor detail. “For a while, yes.”

My lip trembles as I think of Mom sitting behind the little glass partition, the way she looks so different in prison orange. Five years. Five years of only getting to see her in tiny doses, of never getting to eat ice cream and watch movies or sit on the couch and talk about nothing for hours.

Five years of her life. Gone.

What would five years of prison do to her? Would she be the same person at all when she got out?

“All right.” A tear slips past the corner of my mouth as I speak. “You win. I won’t talk to Detective Dunagan.” I laugh bitterly. “He’ll probably be thrilled not to hear from me.”

Hollowell nods, smiling reassuringly. “I’m glad, Harlow. You’ve made the right choice.”

His words hit me like a punch to the sternum.

There’s a box full of pain in my chest that I haven’t allowed myself to open since the night Mom was arrested. It’s where I shove everything that hurts too much, that threatens to drag me under and make it impossible to keep functioning.

And as I stare at Hollowell’s blandly attractive face, I let that box snap open.

It hurts.

So fucking bad.

I crumple, resting my elbows on my knees and dropping my head to my hands as a wracking sob tears through my body.

“Fuck. Fuck,” I mutter, the words like broken shards of glass in my throat. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, Mom.”

My pain feeds itself, each sob pulling out another, and from what feels like a great distance, I hear Judge Hollowell telling me it’ll be all right, that I’m doing the right thing, that it’s better this way.

I struggle to take in a full breath, but my lungs are seizing so hard it’s almost impossible. My eyes hurt, and my throat hurts from crying so hard.

The couch cushion shifts slightly as someone else’s weight settles onto it, and when Hollowell’s hand falls on my knee, I jerk my head up, my body going rigid, my tears fading as revulsion floods me.

“I know you’ve been put in a hard situation by all of this, Harlow. So have I. We’re both doing the best we can.”

Judge Hollowell looks so perfectly sympathetic that I could almost believe he means it.

And I see it now, more clearly than I ever have before.

He wants to believe his own lie. He wants to believe he’s a good man who made one mistake. Maybe he even hopes that pinning Iris’s death on my mom will erase some of the guilt on his own soul, as if convincing the world she did it will make it true somehow.

I stand up abruptly, jerking my knee out of his grasp as another hitching sob escapes me. I rub my hands under my eyes, and they come away dark, smeared with mascara.

“Can I… use your bathroom?” I ask, my voice scratchy and raw.

He hesitates for a half-second, but then nods and stands. “Of course. Come with me, I’ll show you where it is.”

Striding from the living room, he leads me down a long hallway toward the back of the house. Halfway down the corridor, he stops, gesturing to a partially open door. “Here you are.”

He makes no move to leave, so I brush past him and step into the bathroom, closing and locking the door behind me. The face in the mirror almost makes me jump. My skin is blotchy and red, my eyes swollen and bloodshot. Mascara has streaked and smeared around my eyes, making it look like I got punched in the face.

I switch the tap on.