The tears blurred her vision again, but she tried her best to push them back down. “Why did he do it?”
Holding her broken arm to her chest, Elle winced. “When we came out of class, I saw him buying weed off a senior in the halls. I thought I turned my head away fast enough, but I guess not.”
That was why she had no clue what had pissed him off and why he had wanted them to keep their mouths shut. She always kept her head to the ground, so she never noticed what went on in the halls and didn’t see the faces of those who called her a freak.
Chloe picked up Elle’s satchel from the ground and put it on her shoulder with her own book bag. “Come on. I’ll walk to the hospital with you.”
The hospital was thankfully just a street over from the school.
“But isn’t your mom waiting to pick you up outside?” Elle asked.
“No, she’s always an hour late. I’ll text her to pick me up there.”
Elle nodded. “I’ll call my mom and tell her when we get there that my last indoor soccer game didn’t go so well.”
It was wrong for them to chuckle at that, but the two had to make light of the situation somehow.
Walking through the rest of the school, Chloe noticed how the teachers turned their heads or ducked into a room as they passed. There was one fact Cassandra and Sebastian Ross made clear to the whole school the moment they had first walked through the school doors, and that was how their father had funneled donation money to the school. The principal and the teachers would look away from the murder of Elle Buchanan for a million dollars. The beating of a girl whose parents couldn’t afford to donate a dime came at a much cheaper price.
No one ever fucked with the Ross’s, and no one ever would, because the Ross’s were one of the richest families in Kansas City, if not the richest.
“Why’d you do it?” Chloe quietly asked her.
“Do what?”
“Stop him from hitting me.”
Elle waited until they reached the freedom from the school before she spoke.
“I haven’t been able to sleep since you told me, and I’m hoping now I’ll be able to get one night’s rest without having my own nightmares of what happened to you.”
Thirteen
So Help Me God
Staring at her new bedroom, in her new house, it should have brought her peace to start over fresh with the New Year ringing in. It didn’t. It just solidified what she had lost, and now she added the house she had grown up in to that list.
A knock on the door came a moment before the door swung open.
“Ready?” her dad asked.
Wringing her hands, she tried to give it one more shot. “You can’t tell them that I’m sick?”
The door came to a close as her father stepped into the room. “No. Get fucking used to the spotlight. Now come on.”
Feeling the impending doom in her stomach, she stood and adjusted her black dress that her mother had picked out with long sleeves to cover up the real horror show she was.
“Remember, none of that germaphobe bullshit. Suck it up and pretend to like it when they shake your hand. Do you understand me?”
Solemnly, she nodded.
“And try not to stutter,” he added harshly.
“Yes, Father.”
When Maxwell was satisfied, he opened the door for them to leave.
Walking through the house, she felt the bile in her stomach started to rise. The city liked to call it “the little white house,” but to her, it seemed like the opposite. Everything was so white, cold, and empty that it made her feel as if she were locked up in an insane asylum.
I am … and the people who were holding her hostage there certainly made her feel as if she would be classified as insane.
Hearing the commotion draw closer, she wanted to turn back. However, her father was a step behind her, watching her every move. She had no option except to face what was coming.
Reaching the room, she saw there were TV crews and cameras filling up the space. Again, if it weren’t for her father behind her, she couldn’t have made it to her place beside her mother.
The ceremony started within minutes. A man handed a Bible over to her mother, and she watched as her father placed his hand upon it.
“I do solemnly swear that I will support the Constitution of the United States, the Constitution and Laws of the State of Missouri, and the Laws and Ordinances of the City of Kansas City, Missouri, and that I will, to the best of my ability, faithfully perform the duties of the Office of Mayor in the City of Kansas City, Missouri, during my continuance therein.” Maxwell paused for just a moment. “So help me God.”
At that moment, Chloe tried her best to smile next to her parents as the cameras began flashing a mile a minute. The oath her father had just taken solidified the truth of what had happened to her never coming to the light. Maxwell had successfully achieved everything he had been working for to become the mayor of Kansas City, and it had come with a price.