Chapter 10 - The Cookie Crumbles
The police sirens wailed in the distance, cutting through the heavy snowstorm like a distant, approaching judgment. But they weren't coming for Sarah or the boy. Clara had already fled into the night, terrified of what she had unleashed, leaving her phone behind on the kitchen counter—a phone that was currently recording an automated live-stream feed directly to a local investigative journalist’s cloud storage.
Arthur lay on the floor, gasping for breath, clutching his ruined knee while the blood from a minor head gash trickled down his temple. The invincible pillar of the community was gone, replaced by a pathetic, whimpering coward begging for mercy in a freezing cabin.
The boy stood beside his mother, his injured right hand still wrapped tightly in its white fiberglass cast. He reached down to his pocket, pulled out a stale, unbroken chocolate chip cookie he had pocketed from the emergency room vending machine earlier that night, and let it slip from his fingers.
It hit the floorboards right beside Arthur’s bleeding face with a dull, hollow thud.
May you like
Sarah looked down at the cookie, then down at her son, and finally back at the man who had tried to break them both. For the first time in five years, she didn't look tired, and she didn't look afraid.
"Leave it there," Sarah whispered, stepping back as the red and blue flashing lights finally illuminated the cabin windows through the snow. "Let them see where it happened."
