American Sun
American Sun
Seven updates behind. Locking this thread til I catch up.
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Chillcavern
- Posts: 952
- Joined: 07 Dec 2018, 23:38
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American Sun
IMHO, much better outcome for Dre in the long run here. Ain’t no way his involvement is staying hidden once Caine’s lawyers bring him up - if Percy died, he’d immediately be suspect number one, on top of already being the hole in Percy’s testimony (in other words, he can potentially torpedo the case as effectively as silencing Percy would)
He’s still probably going to get fucked for an attempted shooting of a witness though, unless Percy continues covering for him all the way (and…an attempted murder has a way of changing that).
Dre needs to make up his own damn mind instead of just doing what more forceful people tell him to do. He’s just a pawn in everyone else’s games otherwise. I’m curious as to which way this is going to go - I have a suspicion that it’ll be the depressing outcome (given everything that’s happened so far), but given where you’re going with this, I do keep waiting for a bit of a tidal shift that has to come at some point, so I’m hopeful
Excellent update Caesar!
He’s still probably going to get fucked for an attempted shooting of a witness though, unless Percy continues covering for him all the way (and…an attempted murder has a way of changing that).
Dre needs to make up his own damn mind instead of just doing what more forceful people tell him to do. He’s just a pawn in everyone else’s games otherwise. I’m curious as to which way this is going to go - I have a suspicion that it’ll be the depressing outcome (given everything that’s happened so far), but given where you’re going with this, I do keep waiting for a bit of a tidal shift that has to come at some point, so I’m hopeful
Excellent update Caesar!
American Sun
Donde Hay Humo, Hay Fuego
The house smelled like gas heat and fried grease, the kind that clung to your hoodie and didn’t let go. Dre sat in a cracked vinyl chair by the back door, watching condensation bead on the storm window, his breath ghosting faintly in the morning air. The central heat didn’t reach this far back. The floor was cold through his socks.
He’d been holed up in Bogalusa almost a month now. Just long enough for the neighbors to stop asking who he was. Just long enough to know he couldn’t stay.
He pulled his hoodie tighter and leaned forward, elbows on his knees, the phone in his hand glowing dim against the gray light. His cousin was out—job at the paper mill. No one else in the house but Dre and the creeping dread that came with every notification.
He scrolled social anyway.
Instagram, TikTok, Twitter—New Orleans kids loved to speculate. A couple of throwback photos of Percy. Somebody posted an old pic from Carver and tagged it “wild how quiet it's been since that night.” Another post showed flashing red and blue lights outside a motel with the caption “witness protection my ass.” But what stopped him was the news clip.
He clicked it. The volume was low, but he didn’t need it loud to hear her voice—sharp, rehearsed, made for camera. Assistant District Attorney Jill Babin—the white bitch from that night, standing outside some courthouse in a navy peacoat, hair pulled tight, the wind tugging at her collar as microphones crowded around her.
“We believe this was meant to silence a cooperating witness,” she said, her voice cool. “Given the connection to an ongoing juvenile case, we’ll be looking into whether anyone—inside or out—might’ve had a hand in it.”
Dre exhaled through his nose, his leg bouncing harder now. His name hadn’t come out her mouth—but it didn’t need to. The timeline was enough. The tone in her voice. The way she said “juvenile case” like it had thorns.
They were pinning it all to Caine. Saying the shooting was about silencing a witness, tying it to a juvenile case. Acting like Caine made that call from inside a cell.
Dre leaned forward, elbows digging into his thighs. He hadn’t pulled the trigger, but he knew what he set in motion. Knew who Percy was afraid of. Knew what stories Percy might’ve told to save his own neck. If Babin was connecting dots, it was because he’d laid the map down in the first place.
He rubbed a hand down his face, jaw clenched.
He hadn’t meant for it to hit Caine. Not like this.
He shoved the phone into his pocket and stood, dragging the zipper on his duffel shut with one hand. No way was he staying in this cold-ass box while they let Caine carry the weight. Let the cops keep chasing ghosts in Bogalusa—he had to get ahead of it. Had to clean up what he started.
He threw on his jacket, pulled the hoodie up, and stepped into the brittle morning air. Frost clung to the windshield of his cousin’s old Corolla, and the trees stood bare against a pale sky.
His breath fogged in the silence.
He looked southwest, toward the highway.
“Time to go home.”
The courtroom looked bigger than he remembered. Colder too, like the air conditioning had been turned up just enough to make you feel it in your teeth. Caine sat stiff in a pressed shirt too tight at the shoulders, hands curled tighter in his lap. He could feel the pulse behind his eyes. Sweat gathered along the edge of his collar. The chain at his ankles felt heavier now, like it had grown since morning. Markus was on his left. Nicole on his right. Ahead of him, a dozen strangers sat in padded chairs arranged in rows, shifting and fidgeting like they were waiting for a test they didn’t study for.
Jury selection.
Voir dire.
He hated the name. Hated the way it sounded like something polite and French when it really meant: these people get to decide if your whole life ends in a courtroom.
Markus leaned in and murmured, “That’s the guy I was telling you about—fourth seat, gray sweater. Can’t stop checking his watch.”
Caine didn’t answer. He was watching someone else.
Back row, third from the right. A Black woman, maybe late forties, hair pinned up, face unreadable. She hadn’t smiled once. But every time Jill Babin opened her mouth, the woman’s expression shifted—slight frown, tightening jaw, something that looked like disapproval. Caine couldn’t tell if it was for the prosecutor or for him.
He tried not to stare, but his eyes kept pulling back to her.
Babin was pacing in front of the prospective jurors in her usual way—heels clicking like a metronome, voice clipped and practiced. Her blond hair was pulled into a bun that didn’t move when she talked, and her posture was the same rigid kind Caine remembered from every court date she’d ever stared him down in.
She’d already asked about their jobs, their schedules, if they believed in rehabilitation. Now she shifted gears.
“How many of you believe that teenagers can still be dangerous?” she asked, stopping in front of a middle-aged white woman in a yellow cardigan.
Three hands went up. One white man nodded before raising his. The cardigan woman hesitated, then slowly followed.
“How many of you feel nervous when you see a group of boys in hoodies walking toward you on the street?”
A few uncomfortable laughs. More hands.
Caine felt it like a draft across his spine.
“And if someone commits a violent crime at sixteen,” Babin continued, “should their age excuse them from accountability?”
No hands this time. Just silence. The kind that felt like agreement.
Nicole’s pen scratched across her pad. Markus didn’t move, just folded his arms.
When it was their turn, Markus stood slowly, letting the silence stretch a moment longer before speaking.
“How many of you understand what it means to grow up in a place where school security guards outnumber counselors?” he asked, voice calm, even.
No hands. Blank stares.
“How many of you believe a child can be failed long before they ever pick up a weapon?”
Still nothing.
Babin objected quietly. “Your Honor, counsel is editorializing.”
“I’m asking about bias,” Markus replied. “That’s the purpose of voir dire. If the state’s allowed to ask how a hoodie makes you feel, I should be allowed to ask what you know about underfunded schools.”
The judge didn’t say anything. Just nodded once.
Markus continued. “Has anyone here ever worked with young people from low-income neighborhoods? Taught in a public school? Volunteered in juvenile court? Mentored a kid who’d already seen more funerals than birthdays?”
A man in the back shifted in his seat. The woman in the cardigan looked down.
Caine’s hands curled tighter in his lap. He could feel the pulse behind his eyes. He didn’t look at Jill. He didn’t look at the jurors. He looked at the floor and tried to count the flecks in the tile.
Nicole nudged him gently. “You good?” she whispered.
“Yeah,” he said, eyes still down.
Markus switched tack. “What about silence? How many of you believe that staying quiet means you have something to hide?”
The question cut through the room like glass breaking.
Babin stood. “Your Honor—”
“It’s relevant,” Markus said. “My client is being charged in part because of what he didn’t say. The jury deserves to confront their assumptions.”
The judge gave Babin a look that said she could argue later.
Caine risked another glance at the woman in the back row.
She was still watching Markus. No smile. No frown. Just still.
Sara stood in line behind a man in a blazer and a young woman in scrubs, both chatting quietly while a deputy waved them through. The security checkpoint beeped every few seconds, the sound as steady as the tension in her chest. Her hands were cold. She hadn’t eaten. The courthouse smelled like floor polish and old paper.
When it was her turn, she moved forward with her bag already unzipped, coat open, arms ready to be scanned. But before she reached the machine, the officer raised his palm.
“Ma’am, step over here,” he said, jerking his chin toward a side table.
Sara blinked. The man in the blazer had walked right through. So had the woman in scrubs. Nobody else had been stopped.
She said nothing, just nodded and followed the instruction. The officer pulled open her purse and started poking through it like he expected to find a gun beneath her crumpled receipts and baby wipes. When he picked up Camila’s empty sippy cup, he gave her a look like really?
“You here for the juvenile docket?” he asked.
She hesitated. “Yes.”
“ID?”
She handed it over, cheeks burning. When he finally waved her through, she didn’t say thank you.
The waiting area outside the courtroom was full of whispers. A white family in matching navy suits sat stiffly on the bench across from her. Their boy looked about Caine’s age—fresh haircut, pressed collar, shoes that weren’t from a discount store. His mother leaned over and straightened his tie, whispering something close to his ear while he scrolled on his phone like this was just another appointment on the calendar.
Sara sat alone. The cushion was too firm. Her coat bunched at her lower back. She clutched her phone in one hand and her keys in the other, listening without meaning to.
Two older women sat behind her, talking in low tones.
“You hear what they’re saying? That he’s already in jail. Has been.”
“Then he probably did it.”
Sara stared straight ahead. Her throat tightened, but she didn’t turn around. Didn’t speak. Didn’t trust herself to.
She stood and walked to the bathroom.
It was bright inside. Too bright. A mirror stretched across one wall, reflecting harsh overhead light onto her face. She set her bag on the counter and stared at herself.
She looked tired. Not courtroom tired—life tired.
The shirt she’d ironed last night already looked wrinkled. Her makeup was uneven. She pulled a tissue from the dispenser and dabbed at the corner of one eye. Her mascara smeared. She wiped harder, then just pressed both palms to the sink and dropped her head.
She should’ve been sitting in the gallery with family. With her siblings. But they hadn’t come. Didn’t believe he deserved the fight. Not really. Not after everything.
Instead, she was standing alone in a courthouse bathroom, trying to pull herself together before they called her son’s name like it was a case file.
Nicole stepped outside the courtroom and let the door hiss shut behind her. The hallway air was marginally warmer than inside, but not by much. She pulled her coat tighter around her blazer and leaned against the wall near the vending machines, watching her breath fog as she exhaled. Recess, ten minutes. Not enough time to think, too much time to feel.
The jurors were a blur of rehearsed neutrality. She’d seen a few glimmers—maybe two, three who weren’t already rehearsing a guilty verdict in their heads. But most? They weren’t here to listen. They were here to be right.
She flipped open her notebook and scanned the rows of notes she’d made from earlier panels: names, sweater colors, seat numbers, ticks and tells.
Panel 1 – Middle-aged Black man, navy windbreaker. Kept repeating “law and order” like it was a prayer. Smiled when Babin said ‘personal responsibility.’
Panel 2 – White woman in a pink blouse, former nurse. Said she believed kids could change, then backpedaled when asked about gun crime. Unreliable.
Panel 2 – Younger Latino guy, works in HVAC. Didn’t raise his hand for anything. Silent the whole time. Could be open—or just disengaged.
Nicole clicked her pen against the page and muttered, “Same patterns every time.”
Behind her, the courtroom doors opened. Markus stepped out, rolling his neck.
“Bad as it looks?” he asked.
She nodded. “Worse. If we seat him, we lose. Same with the woman in the yellow cardigan. She’s scared of him and doesn’t even know it.”
Markus made a sound low in his throat. Agreement. Frustration.
Nicole scribbled a few more notes. “We need people who understand what silence really means. Who won’t fill in the blanks just because he doesn’t say the things they think he should.”
Markus leaned against the wall next to her. “They’re not picking jurors. They’re picking people who’ll sleep at night after convicting a kid facing 100 years.”
Nicole didn’t answer. She just looked at the end of the hallway, where a local reporter was chatting with Babin. The ADA laughed softly, touched the reporter’s arm like they were old friends.
The weight of it pressed in on Nicole’s chest. The performance. The certainty. The way truth always had to fight uphill.
She tore the corner off her page, folded it twice, and slipped it in her pocket.
Then she said, quietly, “Let’s get back in there.”
The noise of the concrete yard always made Mireya feel smaller—machines starting up, forklifts grinding over packed gravel, the muffled thump of truck doors slamming shut. She sat at her usual station by the office window, fingers cold despite the space heater humming under her desk. Her boots were still damp from the morning frost.
Her phone vibrated again.
Sara: They’re going through another group now. This one’s worse.
Mireya stared at the message for a long second before locking the screen. She’d already read that text twice. It didn’t change.
Denise was in the next room signing off checks. Mireya was supposed to be organizing job tickets, but her mind couldn’t stay in one place. She kept seeing Caine in that courtroom—shirt stiff at the collar, hands folded, face blank the way he got when he didn’t want anyone to know what he was feeling. She hated how good he was at that now.
The door opened and the cold came in with it.
Kike, Leo, and one of the other yard guys—Marcus, maybe—stepped inside. All three were still wearing safety vests and heavy gloves. Kike pulled his off with a huff.
“You got our checks, mami?” he asked, tapping the counter with two fingers.
Mireya didn’t look up. “Denise does.”
Kike leaned his elbows on the counter. “You good? You look like your dog died.”
“She’s fine,” Leo said, brushing past him.
Mireya’s jaw tightened. “Caine’s trial started. I wanted to be there.”
“Can’t miss a paycheck for your man, huh?” Kike grinned. “He got you stressin’ like you his wife or something. Ain’t worth that.”
She looked up now. “Fuck off, Kike.”
He laughed, backing off, just as Denise walked out of the office and held out a folded envelope. “Here.”
Kike snatched it and whistled low as he opened it. “Don’t spend it all in one place,” he told Marcus, who followed him out the door.
Leo didn’t leave.
He lingered near the hallway, then motioned for Mireya to follow.
She sighed and stood, grabbing her vest, slipping it over her hoodie as she stepped into the back. The cold hit harder here, through the drafty corridor and past a half-broken door that opened into one of the old warehouses. They rarely used it anymore—mostly storage, sometimes deliveries. No cameras. No one came back here unless they had a reason.
Leo held the door open for her, then let it shut behind them with a dull echo. The warehouse was dim and still, fluorescent light humming above the dust.
“I'll tell Jaime you were gonna be short this week,” he said. “Tell him you were trying to get to court.”
“I clocked in,” she muttered.
“Not the hours you wanted. Not enough to matter.” He stepped closer, pulling an envelope from his jacket. It was thick. Rubber-banded. “You want to be there tomorrow, I got you. Enough to cover your missed time. Plus something extra.”
She didn’t take it. Didn’t look at it.
“What’s the catch?”
He tilted his head slightly, smirking. “What? That the part where I call you Mami now?”
She didn’t respond.
He chuckled at his own joke. “Nah, I ain’t that corny. I just know how this works. You need something. I got it. You got something. I want it. That’s the deal, right?”
She felt it in her stomach before he said anything else.
“I don’t care what you tell yourself after,” he added, voice flattening. “Say it was for your man. For your baby. You don’t gotta like me. You just gotta decide what you need more.”
Her mouth went dry. She glanced back at the door. He didn’t block it, but he didn’t move either.
“You can walk if you want,” he said. “I won’t stop you.”
Her phone buzzed again. Another text.
Sara: That guerita’s got them all nodding. Like they already made up their minds.
Mireya slipped the phone back into her coat.
She thought about the courtroom. The cold wood benches. The way Caine would sit up straighter if he saw her walk in. She thought about Camila reaching for him, not through a screen or a visitation window, but in real time. No cuffs. No glass. Maybe the last time she’d ever see her father in a room without bars.
And here she was—in steel-toed boots and a neon vest, standing in the back of a warehouse with Leo.
She looked at him. At the envelope. At the warehouse door. At nothing.
“I want triple.”
He nodded. No hesitation. “Fine.”
She took off her safety vest and dropped it to the ground.
The afternoon dragged like wet concrete. They’d gone through panel after panel, and still the seats weren’t full. Twelve boxes, only nine names locked in. Caine sat with his back straight, the collar of his shirt now wrinkled from the weight of the day, eyes scanning the last of the potential jurors being questioned.
Markus and Nicole murmured quietly beside him, flipping pages, crossing out names. Jill Babin stood at her table with her arms folded, watching like she already knew how this ended. She’d stopped making eye contact with Caine sometime after lunch.
He couldn’t tell if that was better or worse.
The judge asked another round of procedural questions. Would the jurors follow instructions? Could they remain impartial? Would they accept the presumption of innocence even if the defendant didn’t testify?
Caine could feel their answers before they spoke. Some nodded eagerly. Others hesitated. Most were already looking past him.
He let his eyes drift again to the woman in the back row. The one who looked like she could’ve been his mom’s coworker. Or cousin. Or just someone who’d had a hard life but kept showing up anyway.
She still hadn’t smiled. Still hadn’t looked away. But now she was slouched a little more in her chair, arms crossed like she was tired of hearing the same questions asked in different words. When Babin repeated something about “patterns of behavior,” the woman’s jaw clenched.
Caine noticed.
Nicole leaned in. “If we lose her, we’re screwed.”
“She’s not in the twelve,” Markus whispered. “She’s in the alternate pool.”
“Then we better pray somebody gets the flu.”
Across the aisle, the court clerk stood. “Your Honor, both sides have exercised all peremptory challenges. We’re ready to confirm the panel.”
The judge nodded, addressing the court. “We will seat the twelve jurors listed, with two alternates. The trial will begin tomorrow after opening statements. This court is adjourned for the day.”
Caine stood with the rest of them, the shackles at his ankles clinking as he shifted. The bailiff waited for the room to clear before motioning him toward the exit.
As he moved down the aisle, slow and stiff, he passed within ten feet of the back row. The woman he’d been watching all day looked at him directly.
Not soft.
Not kind.
But not afraid.
Caine held her gaze as long as he could. Then he looked forward again and followed the officer out.
The house smelled like gas heat and fried grease, the kind that clung to your hoodie and didn’t let go. Dre sat in a cracked vinyl chair by the back door, watching condensation bead on the storm window, his breath ghosting faintly in the morning air. The central heat didn’t reach this far back. The floor was cold through his socks.
He’d been holed up in Bogalusa almost a month now. Just long enough for the neighbors to stop asking who he was. Just long enough to know he couldn’t stay.
He pulled his hoodie tighter and leaned forward, elbows on his knees, the phone in his hand glowing dim against the gray light. His cousin was out—job at the paper mill. No one else in the house but Dre and the creeping dread that came with every notification.
He scrolled social anyway.
Instagram, TikTok, Twitter—New Orleans kids loved to speculate. A couple of throwback photos of Percy. Somebody posted an old pic from Carver and tagged it “wild how quiet it's been since that night.” Another post showed flashing red and blue lights outside a motel with the caption “witness protection my ass.” But what stopped him was the news clip.
He clicked it. The volume was low, but he didn’t need it loud to hear her voice—sharp, rehearsed, made for camera. Assistant District Attorney Jill Babin—the white bitch from that night, standing outside some courthouse in a navy peacoat, hair pulled tight, the wind tugging at her collar as microphones crowded around her.
“We believe this was meant to silence a cooperating witness,” she said, her voice cool. “Given the connection to an ongoing juvenile case, we’ll be looking into whether anyone—inside or out—might’ve had a hand in it.”
Dre exhaled through his nose, his leg bouncing harder now. His name hadn’t come out her mouth—but it didn’t need to. The timeline was enough. The tone in her voice. The way she said “juvenile case” like it had thorns.
They were pinning it all to Caine. Saying the shooting was about silencing a witness, tying it to a juvenile case. Acting like Caine made that call from inside a cell.
Dre leaned forward, elbows digging into his thighs. He hadn’t pulled the trigger, but he knew what he set in motion. Knew who Percy was afraid of. Knew what stories Percy might’ve told to save his own neck. If Babin was connecting dots, it was because he’d laid the map down in the first place.
He rubbed a hand down his face, jaw clenched.
He hadn’t meant for it to hit Caine. Not like this.
He shoved the phone into his pocket and stood, dragging the zipper on his duffel shut with one hand. No way was he staying in this cold-ass box while they let Caine carry the weight. Let the cops keep chasing ghosts in Bogalusa—he had to get ahead of it. Had to clean up what he started.
He threw on his jacket, pulled the hoodie up, and stepped into the brittle morning air. Frost clung to the windshield of his cousin’s old Corolla, and the trees stood bare against a pale sky.
His breath fogged in the silence.
He looked southwest, toward the highway.
“Time to go home.”
~~~
The courtroom looked bigger than he remembered. Colder too, like the air conditioning had been turned up just enough to make you feel it in your teeth. Caine sat stiff in a pressed shirt too tight at the shoulders, hands curled tighter in his lap. He could feel the pulse behind his eyes. Sweat gathered along the edge of his collar. The chain at his ankles felt heavier now, like it had grown since morning. Markus was on his left. Nicole on his right. Ahead of him, a dozen strangers sat in padded chairs arranged in rows, shifting and fidgeting like they were waiting for a test they didn’t study for.
Jury selection.
Voir dire.
He hated the name. Hated the way it sounded like something polite and French when it really meant: these people get to decide if your whole life ends in a courtroom.
Markus leaned in and murmured, “That’s the guy I was telling you about—fourth seat, gray sweater. Can’t stop checking his watch.”
Caine didn’t answer. He was watching someone else.
Back row, third from the right. A Black woman, maybe late forties, hair pinned up, face unreadable. She hadn’t smiled once. But every time Jill Babin opened her mouth, the woman’s expression shifted—slight frown, tightening jaw, something that looked like disapproval. Caine couldn’t tell if it was for the prosecutor or for him.
He tried not to stare, but his eyes kept pulling back to her.
Babin was pacing in front of the prospective jurors in her usual way—heels clicking like a metronome, voice clipped and practiced. Her blond hair was pulled into a bun that didn’t move when she talked, and her posture was the same rigid kind Caine remembered from every court date she’d ever stared him down in.
She’d already asked about their jobs, their schedules, if they believed in rehabilitation. Now she shifted gears.
“How many of you believe that teenagers can still be dangerous?” she asked, stopping in front of a middle-aged white woman in a yellow cardigan.
Three hands went up. One white man nodded before raising his. The cardigan woman hesitated, then slowly followed.
“How many of you feel nervous when you see a group of boys in hoodies walking toward you on the street?”
A few uncomfortable laughs. More hands.
Caine felt it like a draft across his spine.
“And if someone commits a violent crime at sixteen,” Babin continued, “should their age excuse them from accountability?”
No hands this time. Just silence. The kind that felt like agreement.
Nicole’s pen scratched across her pad. Markus didn’t move, just folded his arms.
When it was their turn, Markus stood slowly, letting the silence stretch a moment longer before speaking.
“How many of you understand what it means to grow up in a place where school security guards outnumber counselors?” he asked, voice calm, even.
No hands. Blank stares.
“How many of you believe a child can be failed long before they ever pick up a weapon?”
Still nothing.
Babin objected quietly. “Your Honor, counsel is editorializing.”
“I’m asking about bias,” Markus replied. “That’s the purpose of voir dire. If the state’s allowed to ask how a hoodie makes you feel, I should be allowed to ask what you know about underfunded schools.”
The judge didn’t say anything. Just nodded once.
Markus continued. “Has anyone here ever worked with young people from low-income neighborhoods? Taught in a public school? Volunteered in juvenile court? Mentored a kid who’d already seen more funerals than birthdays?”
A man in the back shifted in his seat. The woman in the cardigan looked down.
Caine’s hands curled tighter in his lap. He could feel the pulse behind his eyes. He didn’t look at Jill. He didn’t look at the jurors. He looked at the floor and tried to count the flecks in the tile.
Nicole nudged him gently. “You good?” she whispered.
“Yeah,” he said, eyes still down.
Markus switched tack. “What about silence? How many of you believe that staying quiet means you have something to hide?”
The question cut through the room like glass breaking.
Babin stood. “Your Honor—”
“It’s relevant,” Markus said. “My client is being charged in part because of what he didn’t say. The jury deserves to confront their assumptions.”
The judge gave Babin a look that said she could argue later.
Caine risked another glance at the woman in the back row.
She was still watching Markus. No smile. No frown. Just still.
~~~
Sara stood in line behind a man in a blazer and a young woman in scrubs, both chatting quietly while a deputy waved them through. The security checkpoint beeped every few seconds, the sound as steady as the tension in her chest. Her hands were cold. She hadn’t eaten. The courthouse smelled like floor polish and old paper.
When it was her turn, she moved forward with her bag already unzipped, coat open, arms ready to be scanned. But before she reached the machine, the officer raised his palm.
“Ma’am, step over here,” he said, jerking his chin toward a side table.
Sara blinked. The man in the blazer had walked right through. So had the woman in scrubs. Nobody else had been stopped.
She said nothing, just nodded and followed the instruction. The officer pulled open her purse and started poking through it like he expected to find a gun beneath her crumpled receipts and baby wipes. When he picked up Camila’s empty sippy cup, he gave her a look like really?
“You here for the juvenile docket?” he asked.
She hesitated. “Yes.”
“ID?”
She handed it over, cheeks burning. When he finally waved her through, she didn’t say thank you.
The waiting area outside the courtroom was full of whispers. A white family in matching navy suits sat stiffly on the bench across from her. Their boy looked about Caine’s age—fresh haircut, pressed collar, shoes that weren’t from a discount store. His mother leaned over and straightened his tie, whispering something close to his ear while he scrolled on his phone like this was just another appointment on the calendar.
Sara sat alone. The cushion was too firm. Her coat bunched at her lower back. She clutched her phone in one hand and her keys in the other, listening without meaning to.
Two older women sat behind her, talking in low tones.
“You hear what they’re saying? That he’s already in jail. Has been.”
“Then he probably did it.”
Sara stared straight ahead. Her throat tightened, but she didn’t turn around. Didn’t speak. Didn’t trust herself to.
She stood and walked to the bathroom.
It was bright inside. Too bright. A mirror stretched across one wall, reflecting harsh overhead light onto her face. She set her bag on the counter and stared at herself.
She looked tired. Not courtroom tired—life tired.
The shirt she’d ironed last night already looked wrinkled. Her makeup was uneven. She pulled a tissue from the dispenser and dabbed at the corner of one eye. Her mascara smeared. She wiped harder, then just pressed both palms to the sink and dropped her head.
She should’ve been sitting in the gallery with family. With her siblings. But they hadn’t come. Didn’t believe he deserved the fight. Not really. Not after everything.
Instead, she was standing alone in a courthouse bathroom, trying to pull herself together before they called her son’s name like it was a case file.
~~~
Nicole stepped outside the courtroom and let the door hiss shut behind her. The hallway air was marginally warmer than inside, but not by much. She pulled her coat tighter around her blazer and leaned against the wall near the vending machines, watching her breath fog as she exhaled. Recess, ten minutes. Not enough time to think, too much time to feel.
The jurors were a blur of rehearsed neutrality. She’d seen a few glimmers—maybe two, three who weren’t already rehearsing a guilty verdict in their heads. But most? They weren’t here to listen. They were here to be right.
She flipped open her notebook and scanned the rows of notes she’d made from earlier panels: names, sweater colors, seat numbers, ticks and tells.
Panel 1 – Middle-aged Black man, navy windbreaker. Kept repeating “law and order” like it was a prayer. Smiled when Babin said ‘personal responsibility.’
Panel 2 – White woman in a pink blouse, former nurse. Said she believed kids could change, then backpedaled when asked about gun crime. Unreliable.
Panel 2 – Younger Latino guy, works in HVAC. Didn’t raise his hand for anything. Silent the whole time. Could be open—or just disengaged.
Nicole clicked her pen against the page and muttered, “Same patterns every time.”
Behind her, the courtroom doors opened. Markus stepped out, rolling his neck.
“Bad as it looks?” he asked.
She nodded. “Worse. If we seat him, we lose. Same with the woman in the yellow cardigan. She’s scared of him and doesn’t even know it.”
Markus made a sound low in his throat. Agreement. Frustration.
Nicole scribbled a few more notes. “We need people who understand what silence really means. Who won’t fill in the blanks just because he doesn’t say the things they think he should.”
Markus leaned against the wall next to her. “They’re not picking jurors. They’re picking people who’ll sleep at night after convicting a kid facing 100 years.”
Nicole didn’t answer. She just looked at the end of the hallway, where a local reporter was chatting with Babin. The ADA laughed softly, touched the reporter’s arm like they were old friends.
The weight of it pressed in on Nicole’s chest. The performance. The certainty. The way truth always had to fight uphill.
She tore the corner off her page, folded it twice, and slipped it in her pocket.
Then she said, quietly, “Let’s get back in there.”
~~~
The noise of the concrete yard always made Mireya feel smaller—machines starting up, forklifts grinding over packed gravel, the muffled thump of truck doors slamming shut. She sat at her usual station by the office window, fingers cold despite the space heater humming under her desk. Her boots were still damp from the morning frost.
Her phone vibrated again.
Sara: They’re going through another group now. This one’s worse.
Mireya stared at the message for a long second before locking the screen. She’d already read that text twice. It didn’t change.
Denise was in the next room signing off checks. Mireya was supposed to be organizing job tickets, but her mind couldn’t stay in one place. She kept seeing Caine in that courtroom—shirt stiff at the collar, hands folded, face blank the way he got when he didn’t want anyone to know what he was feeling. She hated how good he was at that now.
The door opened and the cold came in with it.
Kike, Leo, and one of the other yard guys—Marcus, maybe—stepped inside. All three were still wearing safety vests and heavy gloves. Kike pulled his off with a huff.
“You got our checks, mami?” he asked, tapping the counter with two fingers.
Mireya didn’t look up. “Denise does.”
Kike leaned his elbows on the counter. “You good? You look like your dog died.”
“She’s fine,” Leo said, brushing past him.
Mireya’s jaw tightened. “Caine’s trial started. I wanted to be there.”
“Can’t miss a paycheck for your man, huh?” Kike grinned. “He got you stressin’ like you his wife or something. Ain’t worth that.”
She looked up now. “Fuck off, Kike.”
He laughed, backing off, just as Denise walked out of the office and held out a folded envelope. “Here.”
Kike snatched it and whistled low as he opened it. “Don’t spend it all in one place,” he told Marcus, who followed him out the door.
Leo didn’t leave.
He lingered near the hallway, then motioned for Mireya to follow.
She sighed and stood, grabbing her vest, slipping it over her hoodie as she stepped into the back. The cold hit harder here, through the drafty corridor and past a half-broken door that opened into one of the old warehouses. They rarely used it anymore—mostly storage, sometimes deliveries. No cameras. No one came back here unless they had a reason.
Leo held the door open for her, then let it shut behind them with a dull echo. The warehouse was dim and still, fluorescent light humming above the dust.
“I'll tell Jaime you were gonna be short this week,” he said. “Tell him you were trying to get to court.”
“I clocked in,” she muttered.
“Not the hours you wanted. Not enough to matter.” He stepped closer, pulling an envelope from his jacket. It was thick. Rubber-banded. “You want to be there tomorrow, I got you. Enough to cover your missed time. Plus something extra.”
She didn’t take it. Didn’t look at it.
“What’s the catch?”
He tilted his head slightly, smirking. “What? That the part where I call you Mami now?”
She didn’t respond.
He chuckled at his own joke. “Nah, I ain’t that corny. I just know how this works. You need something. I got it. You got something. I want it. That’s the deal, right?”
She felt it in her stomach before he said anything else.
“I don’t care what you tell yourself after,” he added, voice flattening. “Say it was for your man. For your baby. You don’t gotta like me. You just gotta decide what you need more.”
Her mouth went dry. She glanced back at the door. He didn’t block it, but he didn’t move either.
“You can walk if you want,” he said. “I won’t stop you.”
Her phone buzzed again. Another text.
Sara: That guerita’s got them all nodding. Like they already made up their minds.
Mireya slipped the phone back into her coat.
She thought about the courtroom. The cold wood benches. The way Caine would sit up straighter if he saw her walk in. She thought about Camila reaching for him, not through a screen or a visitation window, but in real time. No cuffs. No glass. Maybe the last time she’d ever see her father in a room without bars.
And here she was—in steel-toed boots and a neon vest, standing in the back of a warehouse with Leo.
She looked at him. At the envelope. At the warehouse door. At nothing.
“I want triple.”
He nodded. No hesitation. “Fine.”
She took off her safety vest and dropped it to the ground.
~~~
The afternoon dragged like wet concrete. They’d gone through panel after panel, and still the seats weren’t full. Twelve boxes, only nine names locked in. Caine sat with his back straight, the collar of his shirt now wrinkled from the weight of the day, eyes scanning the last of the potential jurors being questioned.
Markus and Nicole murmured quietly beside him, flipping pages, crossing out names. Jill Babin stood at her table with her arms folded, watching like she already knew how this ended. She’d stopped making eye contact with Caine sometime after lunch.
He couldn’t tell if that was better or worse.
The judge asked another round of procedural questions. Would the jurors follow instructions? Could they remain impartial? Would they accept the presumption of innocence even if the defendant didn’t testify?
Caine could feel their answers before they spoke. Some nodded eagerly. Others hesitated. Most were already looking past him.
He let his eyes drift again to the woman in the back row. The one who looked like she could’ve been his mom’s coworker. Or cousin. Or just someone who’d had a hard life but kept showing up anyway.
She still hadn’t smiled. Still hadn’t looked away. But now she was slouched a little more in her chair, arms crossed like she was tired of hearing the same questions asked in different words. When Babin repeated something about “patterns of behavior,” the woman’s jaw clenched.
Caine noticed.
Nicole leaned in. “If we lose her, we’re screwed.”
“She’s not in the twelve,” Markus whispered. “She’s in the alternate pool.”
“Then we better pray somebody gets the flu.”
Across the aisle, the court clerk stood. “Your Honor, both sides have exercised all peremptory challenges. We’re ready to confirm the panel.”
The judge nodded, addressing the court. “We will seat the twelve jurors listed, with two alternates. The trial will begin tomorrow after opening statements. This court is adjourned for the day.”
Caine stood with the rest of them, the shackles at his ankles clinking as he shifted. The bailiff waited for the room to clear before motioning him toward the exit.
As he moved down the aisle, slow and stiff, he passed within ten feet of the back row. The woman he’d been watching all day looked at him directly.
Not soft.
Not kind.
But not afraid.
Caine held her gaze as long as he could. Then he looked forward again and followed the officer out.
-
Captain Canada
- Posts: 4739
- Joined: 01 Dec 2018, 00:15
American Sun
Damn, Mireya really folded and selling ass now
American Sun
shocked.
American Sun
American Sun
La Verdad No Se Grita
The room was still dark when she opened her eyes.
Outside, the morning hadn’t broken yet. The old air conditioner groaned in the window, spitting out more noise than cold. Across the room, Camila slept on her stomach, one leg tucked under her, her little curls spread across the pillow like spilled ink.
Mireya sat on the edge of the bed, motionless.
She was already dressed—jeans, black shirt, hoodie zipped halfway up. Her boots were on the floor beside her, unlaced. She hadn’t turned on a light. The only thing illuminating the room was the sliver of glow creeping through the cracked blinds.
The envelope sat beside her. Thick. Heavy for its size. Jaime’s logo was still faintly visible on the paper underneath, like a ghost of legitimacy.
She stared at it, fingers twitching.
She’d taken three showers last night. The first to scrub the dirt from her skin. The second to wash the smell off. The third because her stomach still wouldn’t settle, and she thought maybe heat would help. It hadn’t.
She told herself it was for Camila. So, she could be there for Caine. So, she didn’t have to choose between court and rent.
That was the lie she kept closest. The one she could almost believe.
But in the quiet, in the dark, she knew the truth: she was tired. Tired of saying no to everything. Tired of counting quarters at the pump. Tired of watching the world keep moving while she clawed just to stay still.
It hadn’t felt like a choice. Not really. Just another thing she had to do to stay upright.
Still, the shame didn’t care about the reasons.
She pressed her palm to her stomach and breathed slow. Her insides felt knotted, raw. Nothing sat right.
Behind her, Camila stirred.
“‘Mila. Despierta, mi amor,” she murmured, turning halfway to look. The little girl blinked up at her, dazed and warm.
“Mommy,” Camila whispered.
Mireya swallowed. “Hi, baby.”
The girl reached for her, arms stretching toward the edge of the bed. Mireya scooped her up without thinking, tucking her close against her chest. Camila’s cheek landed on her shoulder with a soft sigh.
Her little hand touched Mireya’s necklace. Familiar, safe.
Mireya closed her eyes for a second. Just a second.
Then she stood, grabbed the envelope, and slid it into the bottom of her purse beneath a pack of wipes and her cracked phone charger. She picked up Camila’s coat and backpack without looking back at the bed.
She didn’t want to see the imprint she’d left behind.
At the door, she kissed Camila’s forehead.
“We’re going to see Daddy today,” she said softly.
Camila didn’t answer. But she smiled.
Mireya opened the door and stepped out into the cold.
The courtroom didn’t feel like anything.
It wasn’t hot or cold or loud or quiet. It just was. Thick walls, gray paint, wood paneling that looked expensive but old, like someone wanted it to feel like justice just because it smelled like polish.
Caine sat beside Markus and Nicole, hands resting cuffed in his lap, ankles shackled beneath the table. He didn’t look at the jury box. He’d already seen all he needed to yesterday. The way some looked down, the way one didn’t blink, the way that Black woman near the back row hadn’t smiled once.
Same seats. Same stares.
The court clerk read off the case number.
The judge’s voice echoed, low and calm.
Then Jill Babin stood.
She didn’t raise her voice. She didn’t have to.
“This is a case about silence,” she began. “About a teenager who used it like a weapon.”
She walked slowly in front of the jury, heels clicking just enough to register without feeling staged. She didn’t look at Caine. She didn’t need to. She had already made him into a symbol.
“This young man,” she said, motioning with her hand, “was sixteen when he decided that someone else’s car—someone else’s life—mattered less than a flex. He had a gun. He had a plan. And he had two others who went along with him.”
Markus didn’t move. Nicole scribbled something in her notepad.
Babin kept going.
“And when it fell apart—when someone resisted—he didn’t panic. He didn’t freeze. He ran. Quiet. Cold. Calculated. Not a word to law enforcement. Not a single statement. Because silence isn’t fear in this case—it’s strategy. It’s what predators use.”
Caine felt the words like static. Not sharp. Not sudden. Just noise sinking into his skin.
“In this courtroom,” Babin continued, “you’ll be told he’s a father. That he’s soft-spoken. That he had dreams. That he played football. But what matters isn’t the picture he paints of himself now. It’s the actions he took that night. It’s the lives he endangered.”
She stopped walking. Hands folded.
“A boy willing to take a life over a vehicle is not misunderstood. He’s dangerous. And the state will prove that danger doesn’t disappear just because it wears a juvenile face.”
She returned to her table.
The judge nodded.
“Defense?”
Markus stood.
He didn’t walk. Didn’t even button his coat. Just stood tall in front of the jury box and let the silence settle for a beat.
“We’re not here to argue that my client is perfect,” he began. “He’s not. None of us are.”
He gestured with an open palm. No pacing. Just gravity.
“What we are here to ask is simple: are you certain? Not suspicious. Not angry. Certain. Are you sure this boy—this teenager—was the one who planned a robbery? Who held a gun? Who acted with the intent to hurt someone? Are you sure enough to cage him for the rest of his life?”
No one moved.
“Because the state wants you to think silence is a confession. That if he doesn’t speak, he must be hiding something. But sometimes silence is the only protection a kid has. Sometimes it’s fear. Sometimes it’s loyalty. And that doesn't make him a monster. It doesn’t make him guilty. But if you say it does? You're not just ending a boy’s youth. You’re ending his life.”
He looked at them, one by one.
“This boy has not said a word since his arrest. Not because he doesn’t care—but because he knows what words can cost.”
Markus took a step closer.
“You’ll be told he’s dangerous. That he doesn’t deserve another chance. But I ask you to look at the evidence. Not the adjectives. Not the fear. Not the drama. Just the facts. And the gaps. Because justice doesn’t live in volume. It lives in doubt.”
He nodded once.
“That’s all.”
He sat. Nicole closed her notepad.
Caine didn’t breathe until the first witness was called.
The courtroom was freezing. Not in the way that made you shiver—just enough to make her wish she’d worn another layer under her hoodie. Her knees ached from the hard bench. Her neck hurt from the angle she was holding it, eyes fixed on the side of Caine’s face.
She hadn’t looked away once.
He was still—too still. The way he got when he wanted to disappear. Back rigid. Shoulders tight. Not slouched, not defiant. Just locked in place like moving would break something inside him.
When Babin called him “calculating,” his jaw twitched.
That was the only thing that moved.
Mireya didn’t blink. Didn’t shift. She just stared, hand resting on her thigh, thumb digging into the denim like it might ground her in her own skin. She kept hearing Leo’s voice in the back of her head—“Say it was for your man. For your baby.” She wanted to tear the memory out like a weed.
Beside her, Sara whispered something under her breath. Mireya glanced sideways and saw the rosary slipping between her fingers, lips moving just enough to let the words pass through. Not loud. Not performative. Just steady.
She turned back to the front.
Markus was speaking now. His voice was even, his posture easy. He wasn’t asking for sympathy. He wasn’t trying to make Caine look like a saint. He was just... telling the truth. Or at least a version of it that felt close enough to touch.
And Caine—he didn’t lift his head once.
Mireya’s stomach twisted. Not because she needed him to look at her, but because she knew what it meant when he didn’t. He was scared. Or worse, he was tired.
She looked at him like she could will some of her strength into him. Like if she just kept her eyes on his shoulders, maybe the weight would shift.
He didn’t even know what she’d done to be here.
Didn’t know she’d thrown part of herself away to sit on this hard bench. To make sure he could see his daughter that afternoon. To let him know he wasn’t alone.
She told herself it was for him.
But sitting there—watching him shrink beneath the word predator—it felt like it had been for nothing.
Detective Martel took the stand like he owned it.
Pressed uniform. Polished badge. Confident tone, even when the facts were thin. Nicole had seen it before—officers with more experience on the witness stand than in the field, their testimony rehearsed like morning traffic reports. Not lies exactly. Just… performance.
Jill Babin guided him with ease.
“Detective, what can you tell us about the weapon used in this case?”
“A Glock-style firearm was recovered during the arrest of Percy Anderson,” Martel said. “Unregistered. He had it on his person when he was taken into custody. No prints besides his were found on the weapon.”
Babin nodded. “And how did you come to arrest Mr. Guerra?”
“Mr. Guerra was named in a statement given by Percy Anderson the day after the incident,” Martel replied. “Based on that statement, a warrant was issued. Mr. Guerra was arrested at his residence. He had narcotics in his possession at the time of arrest.”
Nicole’s pen moved across the page: no eyewitness, no footage, weapon on Percy, only link = Percy.
But Babin wasn’t focused on facts. She was building a character.
“Had Mr. Guerra made any statements to law enforcement?”
“He refused to speak. Asked for an attorney upon arrest.”
That landed. Nicole saw it ripple across the jury box. A few leaned back. The woman in the yellow cardigan pressed her lips together.
Babin let the silence stretch.
“So,” she said, turning to the jury, “we have a juvenile suspect, accused of a violent crime, found with drugs at the time of arrest, who declines to explain himself. That’s not just coincidence, Detective?”
“No, ma’am. Not in my experience”
Nicole didn’t object. Neither did Markus.
Because this was the show. And the only way to beat it was to let them watch it collapse under its own weight.
She watched the jurors instead. Buzz cut man—still nodding. Yellow cardigan woman—tight and anxious. But the older Black woman near the back? Still. Calm. Not convinced. Not lost.
Nicole circled two names on her jury sheet. Drew a line under one.
Unmovable.
Markus rose for cross.
“Detective Martel,” he said, flipping a page on his legal pad, “you mentioned that my client was arrested after being named in a statement?”
“Yes.”
“Did you recover any physical evidence linking him to the scene?”
“No.”
“No eyewitness put him there?”
“No.”
“No prints, no surveillance footage, no weapon in his possession?”
“No.”
Markus nodded slowly. “So to be clear: Percy Anderson had the gun. Percy Anderson was caught with the gun. Percy Anderson named my client after the fact. And that’s the full basis of your arrest?”
“Yes.”
“And yet you testified that his silence implies guilt.”
Martel hesitated. “It contributes to a pattern of behavior.”
“A pattern,” Markus said, stepping a little closer, “like being poor, or being afraid, or being taught since you were four that police aren’t there to protect you.”
“Objection,” Babin snapped.
“Sustained,” the judge said, but not sharply.
Markus turned to the jury. “You’ve heard that my client didn’t speak. That he was arrested. That he was in possession of marijuana. But everything else? It’s what someone else said. A boy already holding the gun.”
He let the silence do the rest.
Then added, low, “Sometimes silence is survival. Especially when you already know the system’s been told who you are before you even speak.”
He returned to the table.
Nicole kept her eyes on the woman in the back.
Still listening.
The sun had come out, but it hadn’t warmed anything.
Sara sat on a low concrete ledge beside a taco truck parked across from the courthouse. The traffic murmured behind her, a half-muffled chorus of idling engines and radios bleeding from cracked windows. She had her rosary looped twice around her wrist, fingers moving automatically, lips barely parting.
Mireya sat beside her, silent. She hadn’t spoken since they walked out of the building.
Their food sat between them, untouched. A foam tray of tacos. A bottle of Jarritos already sweating through the paper bag. Camila was back with Elena for the rest of the day—Sara had walked her to the car herself before the morning session. She hadn't let go of her for longer than necessary.
“Do you think the jury believed Markus?” Mireya finally asked, voice low.
Sara didn’t answer. Just kept the beads moving.
Mireya didn’t press.
The silence between them was too brittle to fill.
A few minutes passed before Sara noticed the figure cutting across the sidewalk.
She stiffened. Mireya did too.
Dre.
He moved like someone expecting to be watched, eyes flicking across the street, at the courthouse steps, at the uniformed deputies on break by the corner. His hoodie was up. His hands were in his pockets. He looked tired, but alert.
He stopped a few feet away.
“Hey,” he said.
Neither woman responded.
He didn’t take offense. Just sat down beside them, keeping distance like he knew it mattered.
“You seen him yet?” he asked, glancing at Sara.
She shook her head.
Dre nodded once, like he’d expected that.
“I need to talk to his lawyer,” he said.
Mireya looked at him sharply. “Why?”
He paused. Looked past her toward the courthouse. Then back at Sara.
“You know I can’t tell y’all.”
Sara let the rosary fall still in her lap. Her hand hovered there, clenched lightly.
“I need to talk to them,” Dre said again, quieter this time. “Just tell me how.”
Sara stared at him for a long moment. Then reached for her phone.
The state called a therapist.
Young. Buttoned-up. Looked like she had just aged out of grad school and into expert witness status. Her voice was pleasant, practiced. Her language clipped in that precise, unshakable tone therapists adopted when they wanted to sound clinical but compassionate.
Markus didn’t write anything down.
She rattled off statistics. Studies. Charts the jury wouldn’t see. Something about adolescent impulse control. Something about recidivism and early indicators of violent pathology. She never used the word “monster,” but it floated just under her sentences like a shadow.
Nicole passed him a note. He didn’t need to read it. He already knew what she was thinking.
This wasn’t about Caine. It was about a category. An archetype. A profile padded with enough white space that the jury could scribble in whatever they feared most.
When it was time, he stood slowly.
“Dr. Langan,” he said, his voice even, “have you ever spoken to my client?”
“No.”
“Ever reviewed his academic history? His medical files? Talked to his teachers?”
“No.”
“Then your assessment is based entirely on generalized research and your interpretation of his charges.”
She straightened. “I’ve studied patterns of youth aggression for a decade. I’m offering context.”
“Right,” Markus said. “Context.”
He turned to the jury.
“Let’s talk about that. The studies you mentioned—how many of them are based on white, middle-class teens from two-parent households?”
She paused. “Many studies draw from nationally representative samples—”
“But not all?”
“No.”
“Have you ever studied kids from neighborhoods where funerals outnumber graduations? Where public schools have metal detectors but no working bathrooms?”
“Objection,” Babin snapped. “Irrelevant.”
Markus kept his gaze steady. “Goes to the credibility of her framework.”
“Sustained,” the judge said.
Markus took one step closer to the jury box, hands loose at his sides.
“My client has never raised his voice in this courtroom. He hasn’t threatened anyone. He hasn’t made a scene. Even though his life is quite literally on the line. But the state brought you someone who’s never met him to tell you he might be dangerous because the numbers say so.”
He turned back to the therapist.
“Would you say it’s easy for a Black teenage father with no prior violent convictions to be mistaken for something more threatening than he is?”
“Objection.”
Markus didn’t wait.
“Withdrawn.”
He turned to the jury.
“Of course, my client would look like a monster when compared to the kids studied in ivory towers. But that doesn’t make him a criminal.”
The judge gave him a look. A warning.
Markus nodded.
“Nothing further.”
He sat.
Nicole didn’t say a word. She just underlined something in her notes twice and circled it.
Markus didn’t look.
He was watching the jury.
And for the first time all day, one of them looked back.
They were waiting for him by the railing, just behind the defense table, just before the bailiff would lead him through the side door.
Sara. Mireya. And Camila in Mireya’s arms, legs dangling from her hip in little pink sneakers.
The courtroom was mostly empty. The hum of papers shuffling, chairs scraping, low voices fading into hallway echoes. But when Caine stood, the sound that cut through all of it was Camila’s voice.
“Dada!”
She said it like it was the only word she knew.
Caine froze.
The shackles at his ankles clinked when he took a step toward them. The deputy behind him didn’t rush. Didn’t stop him either. Just stood nearby, watching.
He looked at Camila—her hands reaching, her mouth open in a smile that had no idea what courtroom air tasted like.
Sara stepped forward first. “You okay?”
“Yeah,” he said automatically. Voice low. Rough.
Mireya didn’t speak. She just adjusted Camila’s weight, holding her tighter. Caine’s eyes flicked to her for half a second, then back to the baby.
“You said she was saying words,” he said, still watching his daughter. “But I ain’t know she meant it.”
“She meant it,” Sara said.
Camila reached toward him again, fingers flexing.
He wanted to touch her. Just her hand. Even for a second.
The bailiff cleared his throat behind him.
Mireya finally spoke. “I’ll be here. Every day.”
He met her eyes.
She looked like she hadn’t slept. Like something inside her was knotted too tight. But she was still there. Still holding his daughter.
“I love y’all,” he said.
Mireya blinked fast but didn’t answer.
Sara said, “We love you too.”
He turned slightly, letting the chains pull him back into motion, letting the moment pass before it hurt more than it helped.
Camila’s voice echoed behind him as he was led away.
“Dada! Dada!”
He didn’t look back.
But he carried it with him, all the way down the hall.
The room was still dark when she opened her eyes.
Outside, the morning hadn’t broken yet. The old air conditioner groaned in the window, spitting out more noise than cold. Across the room, Camila slept on her stomach, one leg tucked under her, her little curls spread across the pillow like spilled ink.
Mireya sat on the edge of the bed, motionless.
She was already dressed—jeans, black shirt, hoodie zipped halfway up. Her boots were on the floor beside her, unlaced. She hadn’t turned on a light. The only thing illuminating the room was the sliver of glow creeping through the cracked blinds.
The envelope sat beside her. Thick. Heavy for its size. Jaime’s logo was still faintly visible on the paper underneath, like a ghost of legitimacy.
She stared at it, fingers twitching.
She’d taken three showers last night. The first to scrub the dirt from her skin. The second to wash the smell off. The third because her stomach still wouldn’t settle, and she thought maybe heat would help. It hadn’t.
She told herself it was for Camila. So, she could be there for Caine. So, she didn’t have to choose between court and rent.
That was the lie she kept closest. The one she could almost believe.
But in the quiet, in the dark, she knew the truth: she was tired. Tired of saying no to everything. Tired of counting quarters at the pump. Tired of watching the world keep moving while she clawed just to stay still.
It hadn’t felt like a choice. Not really. Just another thing she had to do to stay upright.
Still, the shame didn’t care about the reasons.
She pressed her palm to her stomach and breathed slow. Her insides felt knotted, raw. Nothing sat right.
Behind her, Camila stirred.
“‘Mila. Despierta, mi amor,” she murmured, turning halfway to look. The little girl blinked up at her, dazed and warm.
“Mommy,” Camila whispered.
Mireya swallowed. “Hi, baby.”
The girl reached for her, arms stretching toward the edge of the bed. Mireya scooped her up without thinking, tucking her close against her chest. Camila’s cheek landed on her shoulder with a soft sigh.
Her little hand touched Mireya’s necklace. Familiar, safe.
Mireya closed her eyes for a second. Just a second.
Then she stood, grabbed the envelope, and slid it into the bottom of her purse beneath a pack of wipes and her cracked phone charger. She picked up Camila’s coat and backpack without looking back at the bed.
She didn’t want to see the imprint she’d left behind.
At the door, she kissed Camila’s forehead.
“We’re going to see Daddy today,” she said softly.
Camila didn’t answer. But she smiled.
Mireya opened the door and stepped out into the cold.
~~~
The courtroom didn’t feel like anything.
It wasn’t hot or cold or loud or quiet. It just was. Thick walls, gray paint, wood paneling that looked expensive but old, like someone wanted it to feel like justice just because it smelled like polish.
Caine sat beside Markus and Nicole, hands resting cuffed in his lap, ankles shackled beneath the table. He didn’t look at the jury box. He’d already seen all he needed to yesterday. The way some looked down, the way one didn’t blink, the way that Black woman near the back row hadn’t smiled once.
Same seats. Same stares.
The court clerk read off the case number.
The judge’s voice echoed, low and calm.
Then Jill Babin stood.
She didn’t raise her voice. She didn’t have to.
“This is a case about silence,” she began. “About a teenager who used it like a weapon.”
She walked slowly in front of the jury, heels clicking just enough to register without feeling staged. She didn’t look at Caine. She didn’t need to. She had already made him into a symbol.
“This young man,” she said, motioning with her hand, “was sixteen when he decided that someone else’s car—someone else’s life—mattered less than a flex. He had a gun. He had a plan. And he had two others who went along with him.”
Markus didn’t move. Nicole scribbled something in her notepad.
Babin kept going.
“And when it fell apart—when someone resisted—he didn’t panic. He didn’t freeze. He ran. Quiet. Cold. Calculated. Not a word to law enforcement. Not a single statement. Because silence isn’t fear in this case—it’s strategy. It’s what predators use.”
Caine felt the words like static. Not sharp. Not sudden. Just noise sinking into his skin.
“In this courtroom,” Babin continued, “you’ll be told he’s a father. That he’s soft-spoken. That he had dreams. That he played football. But what matters isn’t the picture he paints of himself now. It’s the actions he took that night. It’s the lives he endangered.”
She stopped walking. Hands folded.
“A boy willing to take a life over a vehicle is not misunderstood. He’s dangerous. And the state will prove that danger doesn’t disappear just because it wears a juvenile face.”
She returned to her table.
The judge nodded.
“Defense?”
Markus stood.
He didn’t walk. Didn’t even button his coat. Just stood tall in front of the jury box and let the silence settle for a beat.
“We’re not here to argue that my client is perfect,” he began. “He’s not. None of us are.”
He gestured with an open palm. No pacing. Just gravity.
“What we are here to ask is simple: are you certain? Not suspicious. Not angry. Certain. Are you sure this boy—this teenager—was the one who planned a robbery? Who held a gun? Who acted with the intent to hurt someone? Are you sure enough to cage him for the rest of his life?”
No one moved.
“Because the state wants you to think silence is a confession. That if he doesn’t speak, he must be hiding something. But sometimes silence is the only protection a kid has. Sometimes it’s fear. Sometimes it’s loyalty. And that doesn't make him a monster. It doesn’t make him guilty. But if you say it does? You're not just ending a boy’s youth. You’re ending his life.”
He looked at them, one by one.
“This boy has not said a word since his arrest. Not because he doesn’t care—but because he knows what words can cost.”
Markus took a step closer.
“You’ll be told he’s dangerous. That he doesn’t deserve another chance. But I ask you to look at the evidence. Not the adjectives. Not the fear. Not the drama. Just the facts. And the gaps. Because justice doesn’t live in volume. It lives in doubt.”
He nodded once.
“That’s all.”
He sat. Nicole closed her notepad.
Caine didn’t breathe until the first witness was called.
~~~
The courtroom was freezing. Not in the way that made you shiver—just enough to make her wish she’d worn another layer under her hoodie. Her knees ached from the hard bench. Her neck hurt from the angle she was holding it, eyes fixed on the side of Caine’s face.
She hadn’t looked away once.
He was still—too still. The way he got when he wanted to disappear. Back rigid. Shoulders tight. Not slouched, not defiant. Just locked in place like moving would break something inside him.
When Babin called him “calculating,” his jaw twitched.
That was the only thing that moved.
Mireya didn’t blink. Didn’t shift. She just stared, hand resting on her thigh, thumb digging into the denim like it might ground her in her own skin. She kept hearing Leo’s voice in the back of her head—“Say it was for your man. For your baby.” She wanted to tear the memory out like a weed.
Beside her, Sara whispered something under her breath. Mireya glanced sideways and saw the rosary slipping between her fingers, lips moving just enough to let the words pass through. Not loud. Not performative. Just steady.
She turned back to the front.
Markus was speaking now. His voice was even, his posture easy. He wasn’t asking for sympathy. He wasn’t trying to make Caine look like a saint. He was just... telling the truth. Or at least a version of it that felt close enough to touch.
And Caine—he didn’t lift his head once.
Mireya’s stomach twisted. Not because she needed him to look at her, but because she knew what it meant when he didn’t. He was scared. Or worse, he was tired.
She looked at him like she could will some of her strength into him. Like if she just kept her eyes on his shoulders, maybe the weight would shift.
He didn’t even know what she’d done to be here.
Didn’t know she’d thrown part of herself away to sit on this hard bench. To make sure he could see his daughter that afternoon. To let him know he wasn’t alone.
She told herself it was for him.
But sitting there—watching him shrink beneath the word predator—it felt like it had been for nothing.
~~~
Detective Martel took the stand like he owned it.
Pressed uniform. Polished badge. Confident tone, even when the facts were thin. Nicole had seen it before—officers with more experience on the witness stand than in the field, their testimony rehearsed like morning traffic reports. Not lies exactly. Just… performance.
Jill Babin guided him with ease.
“Detective, what can you tell us about the weapon used in this case?”
“A Glock-style firearm was recovered during the arrest of Percy Anderson,” Martel said. “Unregistered. He had it on his person when he was taken into custody. No prints besides his were found on the weapon.”
Babin nodded. “And how did you come to arrest Mr. Guerra?”
“Mr. Guerra was named in a statement given by Percy Anderson the day after the incident,” Martel replied. “Based on that statement, a warrant was issued. Mr. Guerra was arrested at his residence. He had narcotics in his possession at the time of arrest.”
Nicole’s pen moved across the page: no eyewitness, no footage, weapon on Percy, only link = Percy.
But Babin wasn’t focused on facts. She was building a character.
“Had Mr. Guerra made any statements to law enforcement?”
“He refused to speak. Asked for an attorney upon arrest.”
That landed. Nicole saw it ripple across the jury box. A few leaned back. The woman in the yellow cardigan pressed her lips together.
Babin let the silence stretch.
“So,” she said, turning to the jury, “we have a juvenile suspect, accused of a violent crime, found with drugs at the time of arrest, who declines to explain himself. That’s not just coincidence, Detective?”
“No, ma’am. Not in my experience”
Nicole didn’t object. Neither did Markus.
Because this was the show. And the only way to beat it was to let them watch it collapse under its own weight.
She watched the jurors instead. Buzz cut man—still nodding. Yellow cardigan woman—tight and anxious. But the older Black woman near the back? Still. Calm. Not convinced. Not lost.
Nicole circled two names on her jury sheet. Drew a line under one.
Unmovable.
Markus rose for cross.
“Detective Martel,” he said, flipping a page on his legal pad, “you mentioned that my client was arrested after being named in a statement?”
“Yes.”
“Did you recover any physical evidence linking him to the scene?”
“No.”
“No eyewitness put him there?”
“No.”
“No prints, no surveillance footage, no weapon in his possession?”
“No.”
Markus nodded slowly. “So to be clear: Percy Anderson had the gun. Percy Anderson was caught with the gun. Percy Anderson named my client after the fact. And that’s the full basis of your arrest?”
“Yes.”
“And yet you testified that his silence implies guilt.”
Martel hesitated. “It contributes to a pattern of behavior.”
“A pattern,” Markus said, stepping a little closer, “like being poor, or being afraid, or being taught since you were four that police aren’t there to protect you.”
“Objection,” Babin snapped.
“Sustained,” the judge said, but not sharply.
Markus turned to the jury. “You’ve heard that my client didn’t speak. That he was arrested. That he was in possession of marijuana. But everything else? It’s what someone else said. A boy already holding the gun.”
He let the silence do the rest.
Then added, low, “Sometimes silence is survival. Especially when you already know the system’s been told who you are before you even speak.”
He returned to the table.
Nicole kept her eyes on the woman in the back.
Still listening.
~~~
The sun had come out, but it hadn’t warmed anything.
Sara sat on a low concrete ledge beside a taco truck parked across from the courthouse. The traffic murmured behind her, a half-muffled chorus of idling engines and radios bleeding from cracked windows. She had her rosary looped twice around her wrist, fingers moving automatically, lips barely parting.
Mireya sat beside her, silent. She hadn’t spoken since they walked out of the building.
Their food sat between them, untouched. A foam tray of tacos. A bottle of Jarritos already sweating through the paper bag. Camila was back with Elena for the rest of the day—Sara had walked her to the car herself before the morning session. She hadn't let go of her for longer than necessary.
“Do you think the jury believed Markus?” Mireya finally asked, voice low.
Sara didn’t answer. Just kept the beads moving.
Mireya didn’t press.
The silence between them was too brittle to fill.
A few minutes passed before Sara noticed the figure cutting across the sidewalk.
She stiffened. Mireya did too.
Dre.
He moved like someone expecting to be watched, eyes flicking across the street, at the courthouse steps, at the uniformed deputies on break by the corner. His hoodie was up. His hands were in his pockets. He looked tired, but alert.
He stopped a few feet away.
“Hey,” he said.
Neither woman responded.
He didn’t take offense. Just sat down beside them, keeping distance like he knew it mattered.
“You seen him yet?” he asked, glancing at Sara.
She shook her head.
Dre nodded once, like he’d expected that.
“I need to talk to his lawyer,” he said.
Mireya looked at him sharply. “Why?”
He paused. Looked past her toward the courthouse. Then back at Sara.
“You know I can’t tell y’all.”
Sara let the rosary fall still in her lap. Her hand hovered there, clenched lightly.
“I need to talk to them,” Dre said again, quieter this time. “Just tell me how.”
Sara stared at him for a long moment. Then reached for her phone.
~~~
The state called a therapist.
Young. Buttoned-up. Looked like she had just aged out of grad school and into expert witness status. Her voice was pleasant, practiced. Her language clipped in that precise, unshakable tone therapists adopted when they wanted to sound clinical but compassionate.
Markus didn’t write anything down.
She rattled off statistics. Studies. Charts the jury wouldn’t see. Something about adolescent impulse control. Something about recidivism and early indicators of violent pathology. She never used the word “monster,” but it floated just under her sentences like a shadow.
Nicole passed him a note. He didn’t need to read it. He already knew what she was thinking.
This wasn’t about Caine. It was about a category. An archetype. A profile padded with enough white space that the jury could scribble in whatever they feared most.
When it was time, he stood slowly.
“Dr. Langan,” he said, his voice even, “have you ever spoken to my client?”
“No.”
“Ever reviewed his academic history? His medical files? Talked to his teachers?”
“No.”
“Then your assessment is based entirely on generalized research and your interpretation of his charges.”
She straightened. “I’ve studied patterns of youth aggression for a decade. I’m offering context.”
“Right,” Markus said. “Context.”
He turned to the jury.
“Let’s talk about that. The studies you mentioned—how many of them are based on white, middle-class teens from two-parent households?”
She paused. “Many studies draw from nationally representative samples—”
“But not all?”
“No.”
“Have you ever studied kids from neighborhoods where funerals outnumber graduations? Where public schools have metal detectors but no working bathrooms?”
“Objection,” Babin snapped. “Irrelevant.”
Markus kept his gaze steady. “Goes to the credibility of her framework.”
“Sustained,” the judge said.
Markus took one step closer to the jury box, hands loose at his sides.
“My client has never raised his voice in this courtroom. He hasn’t threatened anyone. He hasn’t made a scene. Even though his life is quite literally on the line. But the state brought you someone who’s never met him to tell you he might be dangerous because the numbers say so.”
He turned back to the therapist.
“Would you say it’s easy for a Black teenage father with no prior violent convictions to be mistaken for something more threatening than he is?”
“Objection.”
Markus didn’t wait.
“Withdrawn.”
He turned to the jury.
“Of course, my client would look like a monster when compared to the kids studied in ivory towers. But that doesn’t make him a criminal.”
The judge gave him a look. A warning.
Markus nodded.
“Nothing further.”
He sat.
Nicole didn’t say a word. She just underlined something in her notes twice and circled it.
Markus didn’t look.
He was watching the jury.
And for the first time all day, one of them looked back.
~~~
They were waiting for him by the railing, just behind the defense table, just before the bailiff would lead him through the side door.
Sara. Mireya. And Camila in Mireya’s arms, legs dangling from her hip in little pink sneakers.
The courtroom was mostly empty. The hum of papers shuffling, chairs scraping, low voices fading into hallway echoes. But when Caine stood, the sound that cut through all of it was Camila’s voice.
“Dada!”
She said it like it was the only word she knew.
Caine froze.
The shackles at his ankles clinked when he took a step toward them. The deputy behind him didn’t rush. Didn’t stop him either. Just stood nearby, watching.
He looked at Camila—her hands reaching, her mouth open in a smile that had no idea what courtroom air tasted like.
Sara stepped forward first. “You okay?”
“Yeah,” he said automatically. Voice low. Rough.
Mireya didn’t speak. She just adjusted Camila’s weight, holding her tighter. Caine’s eyes flicked to her for half a second, then back to the baby.
“You said she was saying words,” he said, still watching his daughter. “But I ain’t know she meant it.”
“She meant it,” Sara said.
Camila reached toward him again, fingers flexing.
He wanted to touch her. Just her hand. Even for a second.
The bailiff cleared his throat behind him.
Mireya finally spoke. “I’ll be here. Every day.”
He met her eyes.
She looked like she hadn’t slept. Like something inside her was knotted too tight. But she was still there. Still holding his daughter.
“I love y’all,” he said.
Mireya blinked fast but didn’t answer.
Sara said, “We love you too.”
He turned slightly, letting the chains pull him back into motion, letting the moment pass before it hurt more than it helped.
Camila’s voice echoed behind him as he was led away.
“Dada! Dada!”
He didn’t look back.
But he carried it with him, all the way down the hall.
-
Chillcavern
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American Sun
I’m loving those defense attorneys of his tbh. They’re trying their hardest. I know Louisiana court is its own beast and half too - they’re real heroes tbh.
Of course Dre goes right to the trial instead of something more clandestine
So very him
Poor Mireya, she’s probably never going to fully wash the gross of Leo off (that man had no hesitation to 3x on the poor high school girl he’s grooming, he’s got full on Roy Moore / Karl Malone vibes).
How dare you make Camila so precious. Caine may have missed her first words, but he at least has this moment.
Of course Dre goes right to the trial instead of something more clandestine
So very him
Poor Mireya, she’s probably never going to fully wash the gross of Leo off (that man had no hesitation to 3x on the poor high school girl he’s grooming, he’s got full on Roy Moore / Karl Malone vibes).
How dare you make Camila so precious. Caine may have missed her first words, but he at least has this moment.
American Sun
binged. caught up. have questions but i'm just gonna sit here quietly and read.