Page 7 of The Prince of Broken Crowns

“She knows where to go. She’s more familiar with this building than the bar.” Shaking my head, I return to the bench. “She screwed me over. Again.” I let my head fall back against the wall hard enough that it hurts.

“Do you need to call someone else?” Officer James wonders. “You can get another phone call if you request it.”

I shake my head from side to side. “There’s no one else to call.”

“I …” He trails off as another officer approaches him.

They talk for a second, and then the officer hurries off.

Officer James gives me a remorseful look. “I have to take care of some stuff, but I’ll swing by in a bit and check on you.” He pats the bars. “Try to think of someone else to call, okay? You don’t want to be in here for days.”

I give him a thumbs-up, and he jogs off, keys jingling on his belt.

“You could always suck his dick,” the woman with bleached hair says. “He might let you out if you did.”

We’re the only two people left in the cell, and it’s been quiet, for the most part. I’ve been grateful for that.

“Leave me alone, Nadine,” I mutter with my eyes shut. “I’m not going to suck anyone’s dick. And besides, he seems like a nice guy.”

She snorts a laugh. “Yeah, because you’re at the ripe young age of just legal. If you were ten years older, he wouldn’t even acknowledge your existence.”

Sighing, I crack an eye open and look at her. “I get that a lot of guys are assholes, but I don’t think he is.”

She releases a condescending laugh. “You naïve little girl. All men are assholes. And the sooner you realize that, the better your life will be, because you can use it to your benefit.” With that, she stands up, and her heels click against the floor as she wanders to the bars. “Hey, Officer Tony, come get me out of here, and I’ll suck your dick for free,” she calls out.

An instant later, a fifty-year-old man with gray hair and a beard approaches the cell. “What was that, Nadine?” he questions with a firm tone, but the corners of his lips threaten to turn upward.

She reaches through the bars and rubs him. “You heard what I said.”

I expect him to push her away, but he reaches for his keys instead. “I was waiting for you to get tired of being in here.” He unlocks the door and opens it.

Nadine winks at me before sauntering out.

As I sit there with my jaw hanging to my knees, Officer Tony fixes his gaze on me as he’s locking the cell back up. “You new here?” He twists the key in the lock.

“Nope,” is all I say.

I can tell what he wants, and I’m so not going there.

He narrows his eyes. “If you know what’s good for you, you’ll keep your mouth shut about this.”

My lips remain fused, and he blasts me with a nasty look before hurrying off with his hand on the small of Nadine’s back.

“Yuck,” I mutter with an exaggerated shudder. Then I slump back against the wall and start waiting out my time.

For the next ten minutes or so, I sit in peaceful silence, lamely attempting to convince myself that maybe my mom just forgot to bail out. Or perhaps something happened to her. Deep down, the truth brutally sits in my stomach like a bad case of diarrhea.

I’m tired, hungry, and one step away from lying down on the dirty bench so I can attempt to sleep off this shitty night when footsteps approach my cell again. I expect it to be Nadine and Officer Tony, but it’s Officer James again, and he’s wearing a bright smile. It makes me a bit uneasy as I recall what Nadine said right before she left.

“I have good news, kid,” he informs me, and it’s kind of funny he calls me “kid” when he’s not that much older than me. “You made bail.”

So much relief washes over me as I stand up and hurry over to the door. “My mom showed up?” My shock is evident in my tone.

He sticks the key into the lock. “No, an anonymous person paid for it.” He pulls open the door.

Confusion webs through me. “What? What does that even mean?”

He clasps the keys back to his belt. “It means the person who paid your bail doesn’t want you to know who it is.”

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