Conviction: Devine by D H Sidebottom

softer this time, the tone of his voice more accommodating to my confusion. “Please,” he grated out as if it physically hurt him to be polite.
    After rolling my eyes and huffing in frustration, I did as he asked and closed my eyes.
    “Good. Now think back two weeks to when I asked you to go into Jake’s office.”
    I snapped my eyes open not wanting to relive the painful day and shook my head frantically. “No, please, Kris.”
    “Trust me,” he whispered as his fingers slid over my eyes and closed my lids. “Just trust me. You walked down the stairs. You went towards Jake’s office. I went left.”
    I swallowed back the need to vomit as I mentally walked with Kris, my feet padding along the hallway to Jake’s office.
    “You keyed in the code then walked up his stairs into his reception area.”
    My heart clenched as my mind relayed Kris’ story in real motion, a small sob breaking free when I envisioned turning to look at Jake and Gen fucking.
    “Shush,” Kris said, and placed his finger tenderly over my lips. “Look, Isla. Look closer.”
    I pushed back the nausea and braced myself. The image of Jake and Gen was engraved in my mind so doing as Kris asked wasn’t too difficult.
    “Look, chicken. Look at Gen.”
    I bit my lower lip as I zeroed my mind onto the bitch that had ruined my life. My mind focussed on her long blonde hair that fell down the centre of her back to her bra strap. Going lower, I gasped and tried to peer closer. My eyes snapped open and I stared at Kris. He nodded slowly. “Now you see.”
    For a moment I couldn’t talk, confusion rendering me mute. Eventually, I coughed, clearing the clog in my throat. “They were acting! Jake still had his fucking shorts on! She still had her knickers on. They weren’t fucking!” I babbled crazily, “Why? Why would he lie to me? Why would he do that?”
    Kris closed his eyes and let go of me then stood up. “That’s the second thing I’m going to tell you and risk my friendship with a man that has nearly died for me.”
    I cocked my head, shocked by his revelation. “I don’t understand.”
    He shook his head. “I don’t expect you to. Always the martyr, Isla.” I gulped at his disgust of me but then his expression softened again. “Sometimes we have to hurt the ones we love to stop them hurting.”
    I frowned at him, bewildered by his cryptic statement. “Kris. He murdered my brother and my mum. How do you . . .”
    “But did he?” he spat as he thrust his face to mine, making me jump back. “Just because he was arrested doesn’t make him fucking guilty.” He curled his lip at me, his angry glare burning a hole into my head. “He was trying to set you free, you stupid blind bitch!”
    I reared back, shocked by his hatred once again, his mood swings difficult to keep up with. “By killing my family?”
    “BY TAKING THE RAP FOR SOMEONE KILLING YOUR FAMILY!”
    His eyes widened when he realised what he’d said, the angry flush on his face paling until a deathly white sheen covered his skin.
    I couldn’t breathe. The bench seemed to slide from beneath me as the day turned back to night and darkness once again descended.

I STARED AT THE burnt toast and lukewarm sludge that had been thrown into my room an hour earlier. I only studied it because there wasn’t much else to look at in the small concrete box I’d been shoved into the previous night. I’d waited for my father to visit, yet strangely no one bothered apart from a young training copper who’d brought my breakfast, not even to open the metal flap in the door to check on me.
    I rubbed at my eyes, my chest aching when the image of Isla’s devastation chilled the marrow in my bones for the hundredth time since my arrest.
    Brook was a dead man. Although I was looking at a life sentence it didn’t mean things wouldn’t still be run as they should on the outside. Adam and Kris had their orders and their first new one would be tearing that little bastard apart slowly and