Page 36 of Thunder with a Chance of Lovestruck
ChapterThirteen
Rachael
A year and a half later…
I stared out at the onlookers in the courtroom, trying to concentrate on the prosecutor’s questions. He’d been asking them for what felt like forever. I knew he was only doing his job, but I was emotionally and physically spent. The trial had been grueling and going on for nearly a year. There had been a gap between Nile’s arrest and the start of the trial. Once it kicked off, it had been all-consuming. It was my second time being called to the stand, and I was hoping it would be my last.
The courtroom was so full that people were standing along the walls, staring at me with a mixture of horror and fascination sprawled across their faces. There wasn’t a friendly face in the mix. Most were from the media, reminding me of jackals, all there for a scrap of meat—a juicy tidbit of the story. The entire ordeal had left me questioning my chosen career field. If this was what would be expected of me when I became a journalist, I didn’t want anything to do with it.
The jury was hit or miss, so I did my best to avoid making eye contact with them. Some days, they seemed as if they felt bad for us. The rest of the days, they looked at my family as monsters. Today was a monster day. I wanted to fade away, but that option wasn’t available. Instead, I was on display for all to see and judge.
I hated everything to do with the trial and wished it would end.
Part of me had thought Drest would be here when I testified in my uncle’s court case. Considering how little I’d seen of Drest since the night of the dinner party, having him here to support me was a foolish thought. The night I’d discovered what my uncle had been doing in the basement, my already over-the-top weird and wacky life took a turn for the worse.
Nothing had been the same since.
Nile’s actions had put the Frankenstein name and family at the forefront of the media on the human side of things. I’d always thought matters involving us would only be handled by the supernaturals in our lives—the Nightshade Hunters.
But the story had somehow been leaked to humans, and it had blown up instantly, turning into a media circus. The headlines had been sensationalized (not that they’d needed to bother being more salacious since the truth was shocking enough), making it seem as if we’d all had a hand in what my uncle had done. Like I’d somehow been an accomplice to his perverse actions. I’d been as clueless as everyone else. Each day I woke, I found myself stunned all over again by thoughts of what he’d done. And it had been nearly impossible to get the images of the hacked-up body parts hanging from hooks like slabs of meat in a butcher freezer from my mind.
But the media didn’t know my suffering. Either that, or they didn’t care. I was someone they could print pictures of and make up stories about.
More than once, I’d seen my photo splashed across the front page of the paper, with some random person I’d never heard of being quoted as having always known I had it in me. Of course, the publication cited them as a trusted family friend when, in all honesty, none of us knew them. Most weren’t even local to Tarrytown.
Everyone had wanted their fifteen minutes of fame from the ordeal.
Everyoneexceptthe Frankenstein family.
We simply wanted to be left alone and fade away into as much oblivion as we could, considering Mary Shelley had made our family name infamous centuries ago.
I kept waiting for my Uncle Victor to make an appearance. For him to come walking through the manor doors, telling me everything would be fine, not to worry. But I’d heard nothing from him. No one had.
I’d asked Amice if she’d heard anything because they’d been such close friends. She had sighed and let me know he’d basically vanished. She thought it was for the best and that maybe he was worried that coming around could cause one of the reporters to dig further into his past. That they’d somehow uncover the fact he was immortal, and that there was truth to Shelley’s story after all.
Maybe she was right.
I wasn’t sure about anything anymore. That included my own sanity. It had been hard to get a moment alone to think. Our house wasn’t the haven it had once been.
For a while, after it all happened, reporters had quite literally tried camping on the estate grounds. The local police refused to do anything to stop them. I’m sure it was because Nile’s actions left their department with a giant black eye. He’d done this on their watch.
They weren’t the only law enforcement agency with mud on their face. They were simply the only ones the humans knew about. The Nightshade Clan wasn’t exactly looking competent at the moment either.
Ultimately, the full weight of the blame fell on us—on the Frankensteins. We should have seen the signs. We should have stopped him. Yes, I’d been away in London for a year, but that didn’t change anything.
I’d tried to ask my brother about it all. He’d ignored me and focused on the reporters who had invaded our lives and our property. He hired private security to come and assist in keeping them at bay. Shortly after that, the Nightshade Clan assigned a number of men to us as well, tasked with protecting our family. I was fairly sure the men were really there to prevent the rest of us from doing anything else drastic, not actually to protect us. One of the men they’d sent was nice to us (well, Amice, Astria, and me, that is).
Drest, our actual official Hunter, had been decidedly absent from almost all of it. Henry had mentioned seeing him more than once and having to deal with him again. But with me, Drest had basically turned into a ghost.
I honestly thought there had been a spark (no pun intended) between us—a connection. He’d gone from holding me when I’d happened upon Nile’s secret in the basement to totally gone from my life in any real capacity.
I’d seen him in the courtroom nearly daily for months now, but he didn’t acknowledge me. In fact, he seemed to go out of his way to avoid any type of interaction with me. During his testimony, Drest had nodded in my direction when he’d given his account of the events leading up to finding the body parts and the embalming room, never once actually looking at me. Oddly, he’d left off any talk of having made out with me in the wine cellar. He made it sound as if he’d been at our home on unrelated business and that he had no real personal connection to any Frankenstein.
It hurt hearing him talk about me specifically like I was nothing more than some random woman he’d had a brief dinner with. Honestly, it had made me start to question my recollection of the night and if I was losing my mind. I’d really, truly thought there was something between us.
Amice, who had been seated next to me in the courtroom at the time of Drest’s testimony, had grabbed my hand and held it tight as Drest acted as though the connection we’d shared had never happened. That was the only time during the entire trial that I’d lost my battle with my tears. They’d broken free and fallen silently down my face as I sat there, feeling more betrayed by Drest than my uncle. Having lived my life as a Frankenstein, I knew what our family was capable of.
I was only just beginning to really understand what a Hunter was capable of though. They were liars, and Henry was right. They hated our kind. I’d been a fool to think otherwise.
