“Yeah, you went and got stabbed to avoid our last game,” Jonathan jokes.
I laugh, appreciating the lightness of this moment despite the dark topic.“Yeah, well, just you wait.I’ll be back and better than ever.”
As they leave, a silence settles around me, and I close my eyes.
I can still picture the day I walked into this place.The walls of this office were covered in peeling wallpaper, and the basketball hoops on the court were broken, the nets long gone.
Kids didn’t want to be seen here, so they’d go out and spend their afternoons doing whatever else felt interesting at the time.And a lot of times, those interesting things were not at all what they needed to be doing.
What I don’t think they realize, though, is how much they savedme,too.
When I moved to Stormwatch Landing, I’d been a shell.A soldier merely following orders.I hadn’tlivedin a long time.These kids breathed life back into me.They gave me purpose that went beyond simply following the next set of orders.
This is my happy place.
I may lay my head to rest in my apartment, but this community center is home.
There’s a knock on my office door moments before it opens and Susie pushes it open.Her expression is grim, her eyes full of unshed tears.
“What is it?”I demand, pushing up as quickly as I can despite the agonizing pain in my side.
“I just got a call from Kyle Harding’s mother.He’s been arrested.”
“For what?”
Her face pales.“He got caught with a knife at school.”
“Thank you so much, Garrison,” Ursula Harding cries as she reaches forward to hug me.I accept the embrace and wince silently when pain shoots through my side.Kyle’s mother is still wearing her animal print scrubs, likely because she came straight over from Stormwatch Animal Hospital where she works as a veterinary technician.
“It’s going to be all right,” I assure her, sincerely hoping I’m right.But bringing a weapon to school?Especially in today’s world?That’s not a minor infraction.
She nods and wipes her face.Ursula has been trying so hard to support her family ever since her husband left.But life has not been kind to them, not with Kyle behaving the way he has been and her younger daughter, Pauline, in and out of the hospital.
“I know it is.I just can’t—why would he have a knife?”she asks, eyes wide.“What possible reason could he have for taking a weapon to school?”
I reach forward and pull open the door to the police station.“We’ll get to the bottom of it, okay?”
She nods and takes a deep breath.
Captain Alan Leopold steps out of his office and greets us with a strained smile.I know that if he’d been able to avoid putting Kyle in cuffs, he would have, which makes me wonder exactly what happened that caused him to actually book the teen.
More than likely, Kyle argued and resisted, giving Leopold no other choice.
“Where is Kyle?”Ursula asks, her tone shaky.
“He’s in our interrogation room.”
“Interrogation room?”she repeats, her voice cracking at the end.
I wrap an arm around her for support.
“Can I see him?”
“Of course.”He gestures toward the room, so I release her.
As soon as the door closes, I shift my attention to Leopold.“How bad?”
He runs a hand through his greying hair.“It wouldn’t have been so bad if he hadn’t been combative with the teacher.She tried to get him to turn in the knife, but he refused, saying that she was going to ‘kill him’ if she took it.”Leopold lifts an evidence bag with a knife the size of my forearm in it.