SO COLD (18+) currently editing

Chapter 10

It was at that moment Chief Michaels locked gazes onto mine; he squinted his eyes as if he was trying to remember where he'd seen me before, realisation came and he asked. "What are you doing here?"

Almost everyone turned to look at me and I gave a small awkward shrug. "I was having breakfast."

"Until someone interrupted," Irvin said.

"You can get up," Chief Michaels was a lot nicer to me than he was to anyone in the room, the glare slipping off his face. "I wouldn't think you'd have drugs on you, would you?"

"I don't think so. You can search me if you like, though." I felt uncomfortable and out of place and pulled my dress down lower.

"White privilege," Daniel scoffed in disgust.

"Rich white privilege," Irvin corrected.

Chief Michaels spun around to shoot them both a glower. "Would you like me to take you both down to the station? Antisocial behaviour is, at the very least, a night in the cells."

Behind the Chief's back, Cole shook his head discreetly at Irvin and Daniel, an icy look in his dark eyes.

"Sir?" A police officer called, stopping at the door to the kitchen. "We've searched the rooms, there's not much there but it looks clean."

"You really shouldn't be trusting this source of intelligence, Scott. How many times is it going to let you down?" Cole held his arms out as one of the police officers began patting him his body.

"I want this room searched now!" Chief Michaels grew an furious red. Marching over to the fridge, he yanked the door open and began throwing out packets of frozen food and dropping juices on to the floor messily; food spilled.

"Watch what you're doing!" The girl with the dreadlocks yelled, moving away even as the cranberry juice lid popped open and splashed her.

"You should check inside the bacon, your imaginary drugs might be in there," James informed the officer who had finished searching him. He said it so sincerely and convincingly the officer looked doubtful, glancing at the food before Chief Michaels screamed at him to stop being an idiot.

Cole stood silently, his jaw firmly set and his eyes alight with flames of wrath as Chief Michaels and the rest of the officers trashed the kitchen. "Satisfied?" He said quietly, his arms crossed across his chest.

"You're a sneaky man, aren't you, King?"

"No. You're just paranoid. I'm a law-abiding citizen, why can't you accept that?"

"A criminal never changes. You'll always be the lowest of the lows, corrupting and ruining society for your selfish ways."

"You sound like my sociology teacher, sir," Irvin said earnestly even as he grinned in delight. "But real criminals aren't the ones in jail. Real criminals are your higher-up bosses, the ones in suits and the ones you'll never see."

"What was that?" Chief Michaels barged his way over to Irvin, rage twisting his features. "Are you trying to be funny, son?!"

"Nah, I'm just telling the truth. Criminals aren't the ones you wrongly imprison. They're the ones causing death and hardship of millions because they and their greedy fucking fathers before them steal wealth and then pay filth to workers they manipulate and work to illness and death."

Cole sighed deeply even as a few people cheered on Irvin as he was slammed against the wall, his phone crushed under a boot as his arms were twisted behind his back and he was arrested. "Let that serve a warning to the rest of you thinking of being smart," Chief Michaels shot the stink eye to everyone in the room. "Come on, let's go."