Chapter 11: Twelve Years
Chapter 11: Twelve Years
The heavy wooden gavel hung suspended in the stale courtroom air. The entire gallery held its collective breath.
"The court acknowledges the severe, irreversible trauma inflicted upon the victim," the judge’s voice droned, clinically detached. "However, bound by the statutory limits regarding diminished mental capacity due to severe intoxication..."
David stopped breathing. The oxygen in the room suddenly turned to lead.
"...the defendant is sentenced to twelve years in state prison."
Crack.
The gavel struck the block. The sound was deafening.
Twelve years.
David didn't scream. He didn't violently lunge over the barricade. He just sat completely paralyzed as the hollow numbers echoed against his skull. Twelve years. Chloe had been handed a life sentence of agonizing surgeries, permanent physical disfigurement, and suffocating night terrors, while the monster would walk free before she even graduated high school.
Beside him, Sarah let out a sound like a wounded animal—a sharp, fractured wheeze. She doubled over, clutching her stomach as if she had just been physically disemboweled by the judge's words. The sheer, unfathomable injustice wasn't just an abstract concept; it was a rusty knife carving out their insides.
Down at the defense table, the monster slowly stood up to be escorted out. He lazily adjusted his handcuffs. For a fraction of a second, his dull, apathetic gaze drifted over his shoulder, finding David in the gallery.
The corner of the monster's mouth twitched just a millimeter upward. A microscopic, fleeting smirk.
May you like
He had won.
David’s soul didn't just break in that moment; it turned to cold, dead ash. The law hadn't just failed them. It had looked down at his daughter's shattered, bleeding body, and simply shrugged.
