WILD BUT NEVER FREE

The Photographs

Hey everyone! Thank you so much for tuning in to my updates, this chapter delves deeper into the past which I'm really excited about, Hope you enjoy it! Elz <3

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Westley Oaks was the best prosecution lawyer in the country.

Since he had heard of Cassi's case, the two of us had spent hour after hour, day after day, planning a testimony against the man that had murdered my sister that would not be questioned by anyone with a sane eye. My confidence coming into this room was undeniable, rage and revenge seeped through my blood and not even the appearance of a father I despised could have put me off my track.

As soon as I saw York, my confidence halved and the emotions settled in. I was sat next to a man who hadn't even known my sister yet had spent the last month drowning in all things Cassi and was now as determined for justice as I. Sat on the other side of the room, was a man who had known Cassi all her life, had claimed to love her more than anyone in the world, but decided for her that her life wasn't worth living.

Betrayal enveloped me from all angles. York to the side of me, My father behind me, and Cassi above me. The air was getting thicker and my lungs seemed to be getting smaller.

When the judge called for the prosecution's opening statement, I felt as though I was about to pass out. Westley noticed something was wrong, and gave me a reassuring squeeze on the shoulder before he stood up to address the jury, jolting me out of my world of panic.

My gaze drifted between Westley, the judge and the jury but despite my attempt to focus on individual visages, everyone's face seemed to merge into one inhuman featureless head.

"Your honour, members of the jury, my name is Westley Oaks, I am representing the Wild family in the investigation into the death of their beloved daughter and sister, Cassiopeia Wild."

Westley turned to me, for a brief moment, and gave me a sad smile. His face, his words, stood out from the rest, so I focused on him and I began to calm down. I had heard this speech a trillion times, it would be the moment York realised he wasn't getting away with this, which was the exact reason I was here. Westley conducted himself in a manner that was so calm, that his words spoke truths even without evidence attached. He would have York quaking in his boots and that was something I was ready to see. To knock that constant smug smirk off his stupid face.

"I intend to prove that on the day of April 16th, Mr York Yardley ended the life of nineteen year old Miss Wild in a traumatic romance that went horribly wrong. Cassiopeia Wild was last seen by her brother, Atlas Wild, at around 4pm in the afternoon, where he understood she would meet Mr Yardley at the house of his old foster family, to where she never arrived. As caught by evidence in fact provided by Cassiopeia herself before her death, in the medium of a series of photographs she had taken of the defendant, York Yardley's suspicious behaviour is paramount to this investigation, as the evidence and witnesses prove a series of motives that Mr Yardley would have had to kill Miss Wild."

I glanced over at York. He looked dumbfounded. Of course he hadn't known about the photographs that I had found and how they proved that something had gone wrong between him and Cassi before her death which gave him a clear motive. He had been keeping whatever happened a secret and I was determined to get it out of him now we had opened up the cracks of the wall he had quickly built to conceal his secret.

"Cassiopeia Wild was a passive, kind-hearted young woman with a long and prosperous life ahead of her. Her passion and skill in photography shaped her life and she would've gone on to pursue a generous career in the art she so enjoyed if it wasn't for the man who took every opportunity away from her. My only happiness in this case is that Cassi's skill and passion for photography helped us understand her tragic death and gave us an opportunity to fight for her justice."

Focus on Cassi, her photography. Focus on what she was trying to tell me through those photos and show that to everyone in the room; that was the plan. So far, so good.

When Cassi died, it took me an eternity to gather the courage to pick up her most prized possession, the camera I had saved up for and given to her on her fifteenth birthday. She had rolls and rolls full of video; photos that would take me through the journey of her life that I had no hope in saving.

The day I finally decided I was stable enough to look at them, I had spent hours sitting in her room, looking through the hundreds of pictures so intensely that it felt as though she was sitting right in front of me, talking me through the meaning behind each one. Most, if not all, of the pictures were taken in the moment, there was no posing, no falseness, which summed Cassi up entirely.

It was only when I got towards the end of the hundreds of photos, that an odd feeling began to simmer in my gut. I knew she and York had been seeing each other and her feelings for him were certainly evident through the multiple candid shots of him looking naturally and peacefully happy in her company, that appeared through the series, but towards the end, her photos of nature, of her friends and of happiness seemed to gradually disappear. All of the photos that were taken only a few weeks before her death were blurry shots of York taken from a distance in strange places that I didn't recognise at all. All the fun had drained from the camera, these pictures seemed to be intrusive, seemed to picture my best friend doing things that she seemed suspicious of. I must have looked through these pictures for over an hour before I started to rationalise what they may have meant. Even then I hardly believed what I was looking at.

Cassi had obviously been suspicious of York towards the end of her life. These photos were drowning in a sea of dubiousness which began to flood into my conscience. She wanted to catch my best friend, her boyfriend in an act of something; that something I didn't have a clue about. I knew I had to follow it up, so I did. I wanted someone to deny the part of me deep down that knew exactly what these photos meant. They meant that my entire life was about to fall apart even more than it already had.

Not wanting to directly confront York about the photos, I decided to go to the only other person on the planet who knew my best friend as well as I did. She invited me in as though she knew exactly what I was there to talk to her about. We both walked solemnly into the kitchen of the house in which she used to share with York, her foster brother.

I took a seat on one of the old wooden chairs around the small table and she offered me a drink, which I declined. I had bought the photos with me, to use as evidence to back up what seemed like absolutely absurd claims about my best friend and her foster brother. But by the look on her face, it seemed like I didn't need the evidence, her solemness only assured me that the horrible feeling in my gut was here to stay.

"You need to tell me what happened." My voice was coarse, I was surprised the words even managed to escape my raspy throat.

"I was going to tell you, Atlas. I knew about the photos, York has disappeared, I haven't seen him since last night. I've already called the police."

It was at that moment, the only two people York Yardley considered his family realised that they were the only people with the knowledge that he was far from the person we thought we knew for our entire lives. From that moment on, I realised my life was about to fall apart completely. I knew I had to hold onto every photograph Cassi had taken; she always wanted her photographs to be noticed by people, now they were going to be shown in front of an entire trial of people and would be the key to getting her justice.