Page 112 of Shattered By the Currents

“I could kill you right now.”

Ryan touched his shoulder. “Connor, let him go.”

“Do it,” Xander said, words just for him. “Then you can both go to prison together. Won’t that be romantic. Quite the happily ever after.”

“Raven’s not going to prison. She’ll be out within the day.”

“Huh.” He frowned. “How’s that?”

“Connor, let him go,now,” Ward barked.

Connor ignored the sheriff and inched his face closer. “You did this. You killed those people. And there’s evidence somewhere. We’re not going to stop until we find it. Then you’re going away for a long fucking time.”

There was a single flash of fear, but it cleared as quickly as it came. “I’d wish you luck, but…you know.”

Ryan pulled him away. Connor let him. Then he watched as the asshole walked out of the station.

Ward started berating him for his actions. He didn’t listen. He continued to watch Xander through the glass as he climbed into his car and drove out of the lot. It was only when his phone rang that he finally looked away.

Ethan.

“Tell me you have something.”

“I have everything.”

The single recessedLED light flickered from the center of the ceiling in the holding cell. It had been flickering all night. It wasn’t warm or golden. It was a bright, clinical kind of light, similar to the doctor’s office.

She hadn’t realized lights weren’t turned off at night in a holding cell. She hadn’t known a lot of things. That prisoners didn’t get a bed, just a concrete bench. That there were cameras everywhere, to the point she felt constantly watched. And the smell—God, it was awful. A musky, almost stale stench, like terrible body odor mixed with urine and vomit.

At first, she’d wanted to be sick. But at some stage she’d gotten used to it.

So many emotions had passed through her since being locked in this cell. Fear. Anger. Tiny flickers of hope that were sometimes high and sometimes low. Now, there was just this odd numbness. Because there was a chance, a very real, very terrifying chance, that no one would save her. That she wouldn’t be able to save herself. That she was about to spend the rest of her life in prison for crimes she didn’t commit.

She closed her eyes as the numb armor around her chest started to crack and hopelessness tried to punch through.

Breathe, Raven. In and out.

Slowly, she opened her eyes and focused on the recessed light again. The flickering had begun to form a pattern. A silent beat to a song she didn’t know the tune to.

How many others had lain here, watching this light, waiting to be transferred to a prison? And how many of them had been as innocent as she was?

Her heart clenched at the thought of Connor. Was he fighting for her? A scared whisper in her head said maybe he was questioning her innocence again. Maybe whatever evidence Ward had on her was so damning that he believed it.

She let the numbness creep back in as she focused on the light.

Flicker. Flicker.

She’d always pictured these cells as loud and busy. Maybe some drunken shouting. The scuffle of a fight breaking out between a deputy and a man trying to reclaim his freedom.

There was near silence.

Obviously, Deep River wasn’t the hotbed of criminals that movies painted towns out to be. Either that, or Ward and his deputies weren’t working hard enough to arrest anyone but her.

Maybe it was a combination of both.

Long minutes of silence stretched by. More overthinking. More swinging of the pendulum between bravery and fear.

She was still staring at the light when the loud click of footsteps sounded down the hall. Her spine stiffened.