Being Enthralling

79. The vicious one and the puppet.

ISSAC'S POV

We sat here in silence, the only sound audible in gallery was of Diana's sniffs and whimpers as she tried to stop crying.

My nails dig into my palms. I feel a wave of anger wash over me, I fight to keep it at bay. I sit dead, trying to ignore her trembling hands and her tears. 

"Are you done with your drama?" Derek asks. 

Diana blankly stared at him, her face stained with tears, "What?" She lowly mumbled. 

"All of us present in this room knows, what an amazing actor you are Diana. So please don't take the pain to act as if you are the one who is victimized here." Derek spats at her despitefully, Diana gapes at him and her mouth works but no sound issues forth. 

I controlled the irresistible urge to slap the life out of him.

Diana bites down on her trembling lip, her face displayed every emotion she was going through.

She wipes away the traces of tears from her cheeks. "I was expecting this." She stood up and changed the slide. It was a CCTV footage. 

Diana tries to speak, but her voice breaks. She took a deep breath and swallowed the sobs that were rising in her throat. Seeing her struggle to speak, I stood up and went to the right side of the room where I had previously noticed packed water bottles. I handed one to her and rubbed her upper back with left hand in hope it will provide her some comfort. She weakly smiles at me and took a few sips of water. 

"Tears do not indicate weakness, Diana. You are brave to face your bullies. By far you have done a splendid job. Go ahead and tell them why not to mess with Diana Forbes." I wiped down a tear that escaped her left eye and gently encouraged her. She nods her head. "After the presentation we can go and have muskmelon milkshake and loaded fries." I suggested and her little smile turned into a goofy grin. 

"Oh, just get a room already!" Scott, whose existence was long forgotten speaks from the floor. 

"If you don't want another shot of tranquilizer shoved in your ass, then keep pretending that you are dead. " I threaten him and go back to my seat. 

"Woah! You and Diana have perfect compatibility." Max amusedly said. 

"Although, Anna's eyes are filled with tears I can sense her eyes popping hearts for you." Blake comments, with a lopsided smile.

"This the footage of the CCTV from the night of the gala before the fire started. This was the major reason why I was off from the suspects list." Diana clears her throat. She clicks on the play button. As Diana mentioned before, the leech sprints into the basement and Diana follows her grumpily. 

"There were no cameras inside the basement, this footage is from the western side of the town hall. You can see we both went inside at 8:47. After fourteen minutes Allison leaves the room exactly at 9:01." She fast forwarded the video and stops when the leech gets out. 

"According to the reports, the fire started around 10:45. Till 10:54 cameras were working and if you sit and watch this footage for 113 minutes you can see I have not left the room." Diana changes the slide and a picture of a report appears. She enlarged the highlight paragraph. "The fire started on the east side of the town hall, that is the conference room of the society members." Diana coughed and continued. "The town hall was evacuated within fifteen minutes, from the security camera installed in the main gates you can see in the next footage that I escaped the burning premises at 11:23pm."

Diana looked straight at Derek, "These videos and reports here screams loudly, that all the allegations you having been spraying at me like a confetti is nothing, but a bunch of hypothetical lies-"