Page 102 of Dirty Judge

“Okay…” “Alright, Dad.”

Restless in the back seat, it took me half an hour to ask if I could step out and stretch my legs.

“Sure, Little Liam,” my friend’s mom smiled. “Just don’t go too far.”

“I won’t.” I slid out and gagged at the smell of smoke and “spillage.”

It wasn’t awful enough to return to the car, though, so I just paced on the road’s shoulder.

Traffic still hadn’t moved half an hour later, and I couldn’t take the wait anymore.

They should’ve cleared the road by now…

I weaved between the cars ahead and dropped to my knees when I saw the sight ahead of me.

It was our family car—wrapped around the metal railing so tightly it looked like a ribbon.

There was blood splattered in the windshield, glass shattered all over the concrete.

Another car was pushed against the other side of the road, its red luxury frame heavily dented on the driver’s side.

And that scent in the air wasn’t spillage.

It was death.

“Dad! Mom!” I screamed and crawled toward the car, but a group of men grabbed me and pulled me back.

“Get off me!” I kicked at them. “Get the fuck off me!”

“Son, you need to calm down.”

“That’s my parents’ car!” I wailed. “Are they already at the hospital? Where are they?”

They pulled me far away from the scene, not answering me.

The moment they let me go, I raced toward it again, but this time they set me in the back of a police car.

“Are you Little Liam?” A cop in the front seat looked at me through the rearview mirror.

I didn’t answer her.

“We had a team of officers heading to Ithaca to look for you.”

“For what?”

She didn’t answer. Instead she pointed to the toddler in the car seat next to me.

“That’s Little Ryan,” she said, holding out a baby bag. “Do you mind grabbing the sippy cup out of there and helping him drink this until someone comes back to explain what’s happening?”

“I want to see my parents,” I said. “Which hospital did you take them to?”

She offered me a sympathetic smile and stepped out of the car.

I sat there with Little Ryan for what felt like forever, even changing his diaper at one point because the police were taking too long to come back.

After what felt like forever, the traffic to my right was moving again and I remembered that I was supposed to be in the car with Nico’s parents.

Before I could bang on the window to get an officer’s attention, I saw Nico’s mom standing on the side of the road.