Snowed (The Bloodline of Yule Trilogy Book 1) by Maria Alexander

Author:Maria Alexander [Alexander, Maria]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Children & Teens
Publisher: Ghede Press
Published: 2018-08-03T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter 21

“Charity? Come here, baby.”

It’s later that night. Judy, Leo, and Michael have gone home. Dad’s eyes are still bloodshot and puffy. My heart hurts seeing him like this. He holds out his hand to me. His oversized 8-bit Batman t-shirt is wrinkled and stained with fast food. I slide off my bed. I take his hand in mine.

My hands ache from the work we did today but I hold on. I briefly worry that he’s found the tool shed modifications, but he and Mom and have only been home a few minutes. They arrived bearing Chinese food. I can smell it from my room.

Mom lays out dishes and silverware as we sit at the table. Dinner feels funereal, but I’m starving.

“Your brother and his friends were arraigned today,” Mom says. “It’ll probably be in the papers, even if they don’t use his name, so we should talk about it now.”

“It’s bad, isn’t it?”

Mom looks like she’s about to fall apart. “The DA is going for a series of felony charges, including attempted murder. All the boys might be tried as adults.”

“Has Noah woken up yet?”

Mom shakes her head so she can get a mouthful of food.“Until he does, the judge has ordered that they continue Charles’s detention. They’ll have a pretrial hearing in a couple of weeks—on Monday, the eighth, I think—and then the adjudication hearing a few days later.”

Tension drains from my muscles. Charles behind bars. I thought I would feel worse about this if it ever happened, but it’s just the opposite. I feel secure. Like I have a normal family for once. No tantrums. No drama. Okay, maybe some drama, but no fighting or yelling. No door slamming. No simmering violence. Just quiet.

Just us.

“What’s a pretrial?”

“That’s where all the evidence will be shared between the attorneys,” Mom explains. “If everyone is ready, they’ll then hold the adjudication hearing, probably within the week. In fact, I think they’ve already scheduled it for the following Wednesday.

“Adjudication hearing?” I wrinkle my nose. “Isn’t there a trial?”

Mom shakes her head again. She puts food on her plate but doesn’t eat anything.

“That is the trial, baby. It’s different for juveniles,” Dad says. He eats standing up. His back must be hurting. “They don’t get juries. Just a judge. Remember last time? It went so fast because he didn’t have to go through that process of putting together a jury. If they wait, these kids could turn eighteen, and then everything changes.”

“But just like at a regular trial,” Mom continues, “the judge will look at the evidence and the charges, and decide if he’s guilty.” She wipes her chapped nose with a napkin.

“The legal fees are going to be hard on us,” Dad says. “We’ll have to make some sacrifices.”

The air goes dead. I realize what they’re saying.

“What you mean is Charles has destroyed my college fund.” I want to shove the table the way Charles did the other night. Instead, I sit there, seething.

“You’re going to be fine,” Dad says. “You’re extremely talented.

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