Chapter 16
711 Words
Michael’s POV – County Jail, Cell Block C – 3:27 AM
The nights were the worst.
Not because of the cold concrete or the fluorescent hum that never quite shut off. Not even because of the sounds — the yelling, the steel on steel, the maddening silence between.
It was the stillness.
He couldn't outrun the silence. Not anymore.
Michael sat on the lower bunk, elbows on his knees, staring at his palms like they might still hold some trace of Ethan.
They didn’t.
The last time he’d held his son, he’d promised him they’d be safe.
He’d whispered lies, soothing ones. Told himself it wasn’t kidnapping. Told himself no one else could keep Ethan safe, that the world was poisoned and he was the antidote.
But now?
The boy wasn’t sleeping beside him anymore.
He was with them.
And Michael was here.
“Carrington,” a guard had muttered earlier that day, tapping on the bars like it was just another name.
Michael didn’t answer. He didn’t have much left to say.
Evelyn hadn’t sent a letter. Hadn’t called.
For all her talk about loyalty and blood and legacy… she’d vanished.
Like she always did.
His hands curled into fists. He wanted to hate Liam, Noah, and Nadyia. Wanted to conjure that old, steady rage. But it flickered out fast now.
They had protected Ethan. They hadn’t stopped looking.
And Michael had lost.
Not just the war.
The boy. The dream. Himself.
In the far corner of the cell, a flickering camera lens blinked red. Watching.
He stared back.
And for the first time in a long, long time
Michael Carrington didn’t believe he had a message worth sending.
Jail – Visitation Room A – 10:08 AM
The room smelled like bleach and old decisions.
Michael sat alone, cuffed at the wrists, staring at the door. He didn’t expect Evelyn to come. Not here. Not in chains.
But then the guard stepped aside and there she was—orange jumpsuit, wrists shackled, eyes sharp as ever.
Evelyn Carrington did not look defeated. She looked inconvenienced.
“We match,” she said dryly, sliding into the seat across from him.
Michael didn’t return the smile. “Guess you ran out of militia cabins.”
Their lawyer followed in after her, dropping a leather folder onto the table. “Let’s keep this short. You both have decisions to make.”
Michael barely looked at the file. “What? We get adjoining cells if we behave?”
“You still have one chance to control the narrative,” the lawyer said. “You both plead. Quietly. No interviews, no testimony. Evelyn gets minimal press. You get time off for cooperation. It’s salvageable.”
Evelyn scoffed. “They’ll make me out to be a domestic terrorist. Again.”
“You are one,” Michael muttered.
She turned to him, cold slicing through her stare. “Don’t confuse your weakness with my ideology.”
“Your ideology got my son taken from me. Got me put in here.”
“You made that choice,” she snapped. “You fell in love with a dream instead of the war. You lost your edge.”
“No,” he said quietly. “I lost my soul the second I listened to you.”
The lawyer held up a hand, emotionless. “This is what you’ll tell the prosecution. You were coerced. Manipulated by a radical mother. Michael, your case hinges on how far you’re willing to distance yourself.”
“So she burns,” he said, eyes on Evelyn.
Evelyn lifted her chin. “Let them come. I’ve lived underground before. I’ll do it again.”
“You’re not getting out this time,” he said. “Neither of us are.”
“Then we rot with our convictions.”
“No,” Michael said, voice bitter. “You rot with yours. I’m done carrying the weight of yours.”
Evelyn narrowed her eyes, something almost wounded flashing across her face—before it hardened back into steel.
“You always were too soft for this world,” she said.
“And you were never meant to raise a child.”
When the guards came to pull them apart, neither looked back.
- Writer
