55. Resa

Chapter 55

Resa

I t's the last day of Sloane Eddiswood's trial and I'm dressed in a black sleeveless dress, ballet pumps, with my hair braided down my back.

There's no sign of Garrison, Vaughn, or Blaine, but their voices drift from the meeting room, so they must be going through what will happen this morning.

Blaine, Garrison, and Vaughn have been in the meeting room day and night, prepping for me to speak at the trial.

Garrison hasn't told me what he intends to do with the list of names I gave him, and no one has spoken about what will happen after the trial. But I miss my parents and I miss my life, and I want to go home.

I'm ready for this to be over.

Frost is in the kitchen, back to the counter, sipping from a mug of black coffee so strong it makes my eyes water as I take a seat at the kitchen island. "Hey."

"Hey." He studies me over the rim of his mug. He's all in black, too. "You ready?"

"As ready as I'll ever be," I say.

"How about breakfast?" he offers.

"Will I be eating it or wearing it?" I quip.

He snorts a laugh. "You're never going to let me forget it, huh?"

"Nope." I consider if my stomach can handle food. I'm not as nervous as I was before, but the thought of eating does not appeal. "Maybe some apple juice?"

He places his mug on the counter and turns to grab a glass from a cupboard and my fancy apple juice from the refrigerator.

I watch him fill my glass.

"Don't be like me," Frost says in a voice just above a whisper, confusing the hell out of me.

"I don't understand."

He hands me the glass but doesn't immediately release it. "I waited too long to say something important, and I missed my chance."

I tilt my head, trying to read him. "What did you wait too long to say? And why does it have anything to do with me?"

"How I felt." Footsteps head this way and Frost releases the glass and picks up his coffee. "And it has something to do with you because I don't want you to wake up regretting a choice you didn't take."

"I don't know what you mean."

He looks me right in the eye. "Yes, you do."

"Who was the important person?" I ask.

He shakes his head and heads for the door with his coffee. "It doesn't matter anymore."

"Violet?" It's as much of a guess as it is an inkling from what Garrison told me that night over his puzzle. I think Frost was in love with Violet and she died before Frost could tell her how he felt.

Frost pauses in the doorway. Before he can respond, Vaughn appears, grinning. "Oh, hey man. What's up?"

Frost salutes Vaughn with his coffee. "Good. Just leaving. I'll see you at the courthouse."

I wait until I can no longer hear Frost's footsteps. "Vaughn?"

"Beautiful?" He grins as he leans against the kitchen island close beside me.

"Is Frost seeing anyone? Like, has he ever seen anyone?"

Vaughn's smile fades and his expression turns searching. "Why? Did he say something to you?"

"Me?" I pick up my glass of juice. "No."

Vaughn is still watching me as I take a sip. "So, uh, you don't… uh, like him. Do you?"

Wow, this is a new experience.

"I like him." I put my glass down and turn to meet Vaughn's eye. "But only as a friend. Are we going now? I'd kind of like to get this over with."

Who'd have thought the day would come that I'd be the one pushing to give a speech?

"We're ready," Garrison says from the doorway, and I twist to face him.

Blaine is beside him, and he's still doing everything possible to avoid meeting my gaze.

I don't know if I've done something wrong, but I can't pretend it doesn't hurt that he suddenly wants nothing to do with me.

"And you're sure it's safe?" I ask Garrison.

I've gotten two out of three of them shot at. I'd rather not make it three out of three.

"It's safe," Garrison assures me. "Ready to go?"

I nod and push myself to my feet. "I'm ready."

The drive to the courthouse goes smoothly. There's no traffic on the road until we hit the courthouse, where it looks like every reporter in town has camped out front.

We go in through the back, and unlike last time, it's not just us.

I can barely see anything at all with Garrison's back inches from my face. Blaine is on my right side, Frost is behind me, and Vaughn is on my left.

We stop for a few seconds at the back door, and then we're soon on our way again, our shoes squeaking slightly across marble floors, polished to a high sheen. I have no idea why we stopped or if someone was there to meet us, but no one looks worried, so I shake off my unease after what happened before and keep walking.

The judge is speaking in a low, monotonous voice when we enter the courtroom. If anyone spots me in the middle of the Lucas Security huddle, they have better eyes than I would. I feel well and truly pinned.

The judge pauses as the door clicks shut behind us and then resumes speaking.

I should be listening. My heart is pounding and all I can think is, this is it. This is when I speak. Can I do this in front of a jampacked courtroom?

The judge falls silent and a new male voice takes over. This one is confident, assured and now that I'm paying attention, he's announcing that a victim of the Asylum free heat clinic abuses is going to give an impact statement to mark the close of the trial.

It takes me a second to realize he means me.

I've never felt like I was a victim. Just someone who made the wrong choice when I went looking for a free heat clinic and had my life ripped out from under me.

As I stand near the back doors, shielded on all four sides by Lucas Security, more and more people are noticing me. I don't see them. I hear muttering, soft and faint spread. People wondering who it is, what this victim is going to say, and if it's anyone they know.

Then Garrison strides forward. When he moves, Vaughn, Blaine, and Frost move too. And since I'm in the middle, I'm carried along by their momentum.

They walk right to the front.

Garrison pushes open a dark wood gate, and for the briefest of moments, my gaze connects with Sloane Eddiswood's green eyes, identical to Everleigh's.

He's in a custom suit with how well it fits him, and three gray-haired men share his dark wood table covered with reams of files and papers. High-priced lawyers hired to prevent their client from dying in jail.

Sloane looks at me, then turns away. As if I'm not worth the least bit of his attention. As if he doesn't see me at all, or care that what he did has wrecked lives.

As if I don't matter.

My jaw firms and I throw my shoulders back, walking on until Garrison stops and turns fully to face me.

The entire court must be watching. It's quiet. But Garrison looks me in the eye and asks, "Are you still sure about this?"

And I think if I were to say no, he'd walk me right back out of this, even if it meant trampling over anyone who tried to stop us.

I remember how it felt to stand shivering in a silk slip behind a big wall of glass as rich alphas haggled over me like a piece of meat.

"Yes, I want to do this," I tell Garrison.

He nods.

Everleigh is there. I hadn't thought she would be. So is Pack Ashe. That's not such a big surprise. I can't imagine they would have let Everleigh come here alone.

Everleigh is sitting beside a pale blonde woman who looks enough like her that they must be related. Her mother, I think. She is staring at the judge, her face angled away from Sloane as if she doesn't want to risk even accidentally looking at him.

Vaughn lowers his head and his lips brush the shell of my ear. "How many people do you want to hear?"

What?

I stare at him, confused. "I don't understand."

"Reporters will write something up, but probably not everything. How many people do you want to hear you speak, beautiful?" he says.

"If I could climb to the highest mountain and have everyone in the world hear me, I would." Everyone needs to know what alphas like Sloane are capable of. The more people who know, the more likely things will change. "Dexter Pieter, wherever the hell that sorry excuse for a leader is hiding, needs someone to light a fire under his ass."

Vaughn smiles and nods. "Heard and understood, beautiful."

"Miss…." The judge's voice pulls my attention from Vaughn.

Everyone is waiting. It's time. I walk to the witness box, sit down and fold my hands in my lap as I take a moment to prepare.

Blaine, Garrison, Vaughn, and Frost stay close enough to protect me if I need it, but they don't block my line of vision.

For the first time in my life, I'm not terrified at the thought of public speaking. I look at Sloane Eddiswood, think of other alphas like him ruining lives and getting away with it, and I am so furious, I shake with it.

I lean toward the microphone attached to the witness box. "An omega has three choices."

The whispers from the back of the room fall silent.

"They can go to the Omega Institute and be ‘guided' to the alpha of the Institute's dreams. Usually, those alphas belong to the wealthy families who sponsor their balls and galas. An omega can go to Haven Academy, a place that has a glossy brochure and is vague about whether they can leave if they change their mind. Or they can live life on their own terms, choose the wrong free heat clinic, and mid-heat have a predatory alpha like Sloane Eddiswood abduct them, and spend the next two years raping them like what happened to me."

Silence.

I clear my throat and continue. "There needs to be another option. And alphas like Sloane Eddiswood need to spend the rest of their lives rotting in a cell. I escaped, but I wasn't the first or even the last victim. There are omegas who are desperately afraid, trapped, and think that the world doesn't give a shit whether they live or die. That only alphas matter in this world."

I think I've said everything I've needed and wanted to say until I realize I haven't said the most important thing of all.

I sweep my gaze over the courtroom, trying to meet as many eyes as I can, willing them to hear me, and to believe me. "This world needs to change."

"I'm done," I tell the judge and start to rise. "Actually, no, I'm not." I glare at Sloane. "You are a piece of shit and I really fucking hope someone introduces you to a shiv where you're going."

Someone gasps. Sloane looks away and I stand up.

Probably not my best moment, but you know what? I don't regret it.

The judge clears his throat, visibly uncomfortable. "Such accusations are?—"

"Shocking, of course." The prosecutor, I presume, given he's sitting at the table next to Sloane and his fancy attorneys, pushes himself to his feet and glances at his watch. "The police feel the same way, which is why approximately twenty minutes ago, they conducted a series of raids on no less than twenty properties. There have been more arrests this morning than any other in history. A lot of very wealthy men are going to prison for a very long time."

For one long moment, there is complete and utter silence.

Then all heads swivel toward me as if I was the one responsible for it all. But it wasn't me. All I did was hand a list of names to Garrison Brewster and he made this happen.

I'm in a daze as the judge announces the close of the trial and Garrison opens my witness box for me.

We stay in the courtroom, though some people leave it, notably the jury.

As the prosecutor speaks to his assistants, I stand in a Lucas Security huddle, stunned that I didn't spend the last two minutes as a stuttering mess.

"You did this," I say to Garrison.

He shakes his head. "Not me. For all the talk of abuse in the city, the cops were reluctant to act against such powerful people. They haven't been doing enough to protect omegas, and I think you reminded them of that. They will want to speak to you and take an official statement, but you confirmed a lot of things they already suspected."

"Nothing can change if people don't know what needs to change," Vaughn says, pulling his cell phone from his pocket.

It's weird hearing my words spoken back to me.

Vaughn taps a few buttons and swivels his cell phone to show me the screen. It's a social media app. In the video that pops up, I'm sitting in the witness box, staring Sloane Eddiswood down as I wish someone introduces him to a shiv.

Garrison nods at the phone with the rapidly increasing views. One million views blink into two as I watch. "Perhaps I'm being premature, but I think that you're about to change the world."

I laugh when I want to cry. "The top of a mountain I said."

Vaughn bumps my shoulder and grins. "I thought we could do a little better than a mountain, beautiful."

Pack Lucas didn't just give me a voice in the courtroom. They gave me a voice to the entire city . Maybe even the world.

I throw my arms around him, and he squeezes me right back. "Do you think things will change?" I ask, pulling away.

"What do you think?" Vaughn asks.

"That there's no way that Dexter Pieter—or anyone—can pretend not to know what's been going on." My excitement dims. "Do you think he even cares? He must not to stay cooped up wherever he is, determined to hide."

"I think it's time that things changed." Blaine looks at me for the first time in days. His voice is quiet but intense. "You're brave."

"Not really. All I did was tell people the truth as I knew it."

"And was it hard?" His gaze is even more intense.

"It was the hardest thing I've ever done in my life." And that includes leaping out of a window and into a tree.

Suddenly, there's a commotion outside my Lucas Security huddle. Doors are creaking open, and the judge is speaking.

The jury is ready to deliver their verdict.

This has the possibility of being very good news or very bad. A guilty verdict means Sloane will die in prison. An innocent verdict would make me question everything. I wait near the back of the room, in my Lucas Security huddle, to find out what that news is.

"Guilty."

After that? Carnage. Complete and utter carnage as reporters swarm toward me.

And I hear a voice I wasn't expecting.

"Theresa?"

It's not a good idea to leave my huddle, I get it. But that sounds like my mom and I have to see her.

"Vaughn?" I yell, since it sounds like she's somewhere in his direction.

Vaughn shoves someone back and focuses on me. "Resa?"

"My mom!" I yell. "She's somewhere over…" My voice trails off when I spot her.

She looks older. Her long red hair is thinner than I remember, and her blue eyes are exhausted. Dad has more gray in his dark brown hair, and his warm, deep olive skin is worn. But at the sight of me, they both suddenly look ten years younger.

They're grinning at me, shoving people aside in a way I didn't think they had in them.

And then they're there.

I'm in Mom's arms. Dad is crying and he never cries, which sets me off.

Cops surge in from the back doors as Garrison, Vaughn, Frost, and Blaine block the reporters.

"This way, Theresa. We need to go with the police," Dad yells, pulling me away.

Mom and Dad lead me away as Pack Lucas stand with their backs to me, blocking reporters from following. They are a human wall that, despite all the jostling and pushing, doesn't give one inch.

Then the courtroom doors slam shut between us, and all I can think is that I didn't even have a chance to say goodbye.