Chapter 166 A Pitch-Black Darkness
In the office, Samuel was still a no-show.
Virgil stared at Alexander, his face blank. "Something wrong?"
"This is bullshit!" Alexander yelled, eyes blazing. "Why bailed him out? Why?"
"Wasn't our call. Both the prosecution and the cops agreed."
"Are you kidding me?" Alexander pointed at his cheek, fuming. "If you couldn't nail him, you should've told me! We spent ages building this case, and now you bailed him out? What the hell?"
Virgil stayed quiet.
"This is insane." Alexander, beyond frustrated, ranted, "I get it. You knew from the start you couldn't get him, but you had me arrest him just to scare Adam away from William, right?"
Virgil still didn't utter a word.
"Is that what Samuel thinks?" Alexander pressed.
Virgil frowned and then, after a long pause, said, "Do you know how many times the district commissioner has overruled the police in Pine City?"
Alexander was taken aback.
"Just once." Virgil held up one finger. "We've done all we can, but the system's messed up. There's nothing more we can do, got it?"
Alexander clenched his fists, silent.
"You can quit if you're pissed. I can go yell at the folks helping with Zephyr's case. But can you change the outcome? Can you?" Virgil asked again.
The room went quiet.
After a while, the office door flew open, and John burst in, shouting, "He signed the bail papers and is about to leave. Uriel's here too, and he's losing it."
Alexander glanced at Virgil and then quickly walked out.
Ten minutes later, downstairs.
Four shiny new cars were parked by the curb, with seven or eight people standing in the snow, smoking and chatting quietly.
After signing the bail papers in the front hall, Zephyr didn't leave right away. He stood at the door and lit a cigarette.
"He killed someone, and you're just letting him go?" Uriel yelled hysterically in the hall. "What are you even doing in those uniforms?"
The shouting echoed, and the onlookers, along with a few new officers, just stared at him in silence.
Alexander and John rushed out, staring at Uriel in shock.
Zephyr turned back at the door, grinning. "Got any more tricks? If not, I'm outta here."
"I'm gonna kill you!" Uriel charged forward like a madman.
"Uriel!"
Alexander shouted and chased after him.
The entrance turned chaotic, with the lawyer and others shielding Zephyr, letting him go downstairs first.
At the door, Alexander grabbed Uriel. "Uriel, don't do it, not yet."
At the bottom of the stairs, Zephyr pushed away the lawyer, tilted his head, and looked at Alexander. "Hit me. Tase me. You really want me dead, don't you?"
Alexander stood there, teeth clenched, speechless.
"I'll kill you!"
Uriel shoved Alexander aside and charged down the stairs, reaching for Zephyr.
The people by the cars stepped in, not to fight, but to push Uriel away from Zephyr.
"Zephyr, your dad wants you to go home first," a young man advised.
Zephyr, still smoking, tilted his head and looked at Alexander. "You like solving cases, huh?"
"Fuck, if you're leaving, then go," John shouted, eyes wide. "We'll have plenty of chances later."
Zephyr grinned. "Yeah, plenty of chances. Alright, we're outta here."
With that, the group headed to the cars.
Uriel, eyes full of despair, watched Zephyr's back and collapsed in the snow by the roadside. "What's the point of living in this society?"
Just as he finished speaking, a roaring engine suddenly echoed down the street. A modified off-road vehicle, like a mad bull, charged diagonally towards the curb.
"Uriel..."
Alexander froze for a moment and then shouted.
Suddenly, a dull thud echoed, and Uriel, sitting in the snow, was hit and sent flying, crashing down by the steps of the main entrance.
"The brakes failed! Get out of the way!"
A shout came from inside the car, which continued to charge up the curb, heading straight for Uriel again.
The sound of a second collision rang out, and Uriel was pinned between the car and the steps, his eyes vacant and his body covered in blood.
At the entrance, at least thirty or forty people were stunned by the scene.
Silence. A profound hush where one could hear a pin drop.
On the other side of the steps, Zephyr sat in the car, touching his nose, and spread his hands towards Alexander, shouting, "Don't you like solving cases? Look, here's another one. Go investigate it! When you're done, give me a call, and I'll make you a banner."
Everyone looked at Zephyr in the car, their eyes vacant and their expressions shocked.
"Let's go."
With a sickly smile on his face, Zephyr stared at Alexander and slowly closed the car door.
By the steps.
The car door popped open, and a young man raised his hands and squatted on the ground, trembling, "I didn't mean to... I really didn't mean to... I stole the car and drove too fast. The brakes failed, and the ground was too slippery... I really couldn't control it."
Alexander turned his head numbly to the young man, feeling no anger, only confusion.
He couldn't understand why, in a place with relatively sound rules like District Nine, sometimes it seemed even more lawless than the ungoverned areas.
Uriel, pinned between the car and the steps, sat there, eyes wide open, leaving this world with a look of anger like a statue.
An hour later.
After breaking two belts, Adam pointed at the bloody and kneeling Zephyr and said, "Do you know how much money I spent on your mess?"
Zephyr, beaten to the point of losing consciousness, knelt on the ground, not daring to make a sound.
"Who are the people left in his family? Do they still have the ability to sue you?" Adam asked, panting.
"There's a kid and an...old woman," Zephyr stammered.
"Damn it, use your brain and keep an eye on that old woman. If she keeps causing trouble, you'll be in big trouble, understand?" Adam kicked Zephyr in the face. "I won't tolerate you anymore. If you keep screwing up, I'll treat you like trash."
With that, Adam turned and went upstairs.
Late at night.
Alexander sat dazed in the office, staring at the ceiling, his mind filled with Uriel's words and the scene of him being hit by the car.
A fire of anger burned in his heart. He clenched his fists, picked up the phone, and sent a message to Eric.
At the same time.
After getting his wounds cleaned at the hospital, Zephyr, with his face wrapped in bandages, was about to arrange for someone to go to Uriel's house when his phone rang first.
"Hello?"
"Duke is your friend, right? He owes me some money and can't pay it back. Are you going to take care of it? If not, I'll handle it my way," Joe's voice came through.
Zephyr, who had been beaten for days, was stunned by the words, "What did you say? You're asking me for money?"
"Duke said you could take care of him!" Joe nodded.
"Alright, alright, I can take care of it. Tell me a place, and I'll bring you the money."
"I'm at the Riverside District junkyard," Joe said and hung up.
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