Gears and Steam

Former Friends

Jules

I escaped from Edmund and Theo a little bit later by saying I was going to see my sister. Edmund wanted nothing to do with Phoebe Vincent, which was surprisingly helpful in sneaking around. My two teammates had gone back to the house. Edmund was still shaken from his encounter with Augustus. Theo was too, after Edmund told him about it.

I set out on a mission to find Augustus. He was supposed to be working today; that would make it easier to find him. I needed to know...I needed to hear it from him. I wanted to hear his side of the story.

Three broken ribs, two broken fingers, a broken arm, Theo's eye swollen shut. August couldn't have done all of that damage, right? Some of it had to be exaggerated...but that was pretty specific data. Edmund never did mention Floyd; I wondered what had happened to him. I found myself hoping that he was the worst off out of all of them. I liked Edmund, Freddie, and Theo immensely, but Floyd Thompson made my blood boil. I had met him once, and he was already top on my small list of people I hated.

I couldn't focus on Floyd right now. I needed to keep my mind on Augustus Black. While we were sitting in the rain, Edmund told me that the police officer who nearly killed him had messy blond hair; I should have put it together. There were plenty of officers with messy blond hair, and my mind hadn't wanted to jump to that conclusion at the time.

I took a deep breath before pushing through the doors of the police station. Robbins was no longer behind the desk. He had been replaced by a gaunt man with greying brown hair and an unpleasant look on his face. They seriously couldn't find nicer people to run the front desk?

"You here to see Smith?" The man grunted when I showed him my badge. I was lucky that I had thought to bring it today. I always kept it in the concealed pocket in my trousers.

"No, actually. I'm looking for another officer. You seen Augustus Black today?" I tried to keep my voice calm, but inside, I was bursting with emotion. It was hard to keep my expressions under control.

"Check his desk," the man grumbled, returning to the newspaper he had been reading.

I rolled my eyes and shoved my way past the front desk. Past the hallway that held Smith's office, there was a room with rows upon rows of wooden desks, one for every officer that worked for the force. There are thirty, at least. Thirty officers and not one had been able to shut down the races, until me, that is. None of them even knew about the trolley tracks until I had told them.

Augustus was, in fact, at his desk. My desk, right next to Augustus's, in the back of the room, was covered in a fine layer of dust. I sunk into the dust-coated chair and tried to figure out what to say to August.

"Hey, Jules," August said brightly, grinning at me.

"Did you really hurt them," I muttered, trying to avoid looking him in the eye.

Augustus chuckled. "Does it really matter?"

"Yes," I said, dead certain that it did.

"Yeah, I hurt them. With the looks of them, they were going to do something wrong anyway. They're worthless, it's not like it mattered anyway. They are criminals, in fact."

"They're not worthless," I mumbled.

"What was that?"

"They're not worthless!" I nearly yelled, before realizing that there were other people within earshot.

"What do you mean?"

"Edmund, Theo, Freddie, they're all amazing people. Yes, they're technically doing something illegal, but that doesn't mean they deserve to be hurt. And you didn't know they were racers."