All of the things she’d done had come to light.
Although some of the victims had been too scared to testify in front of her, Ryan’s injuries, what she’d done to me, the pane of glass almost killing another sorority hopeful, and some of the other things she’d done were enough for the jury and judge.
The officers who’d dealt with it had stated they didn’t see her getting out in eighteen and that she’d probably end up doing a full twenty-two. As soon as she was out, we’d all get a restraining order against her.
Who knew, maybe being someone’s bitch in there would change her ways?
Now, though, we were all free to live without the fear of Fita Rogers darkening our doorsteps for a while. And the man she’d gotten the weapons from, one who was holding them for a gang who were under investigation for the murder of four high school seniors, was also in prison, and the guns were off the streets.
The world could breathe a bit easier without either of them free to wreak havoc in it.
Which was a good thing, because there was a lot of havoc in my life just now as it was.
After we were married, we’d be moving to Gainesville to our new house, so right now, all of our stuff we’d brought back from Arizona was in storage, and we only had the boxes we’d kept behind before it’d been collected. My Mini was in the driveway of the house, though, so at least I had my wheels here.
My dads' house had been fixed after all of the damage it’d sustained. I don’t remember the exact amount of casings they found on the ground, but it’d been enough to make the house almost uninhabitable for a while.
With the front wall being made out of glass, that’d suffered greatly when the bullets had first hit. The front door had been a mangled mess, and the walls looked like a bomb had gone off. All of the furnishings that made the house the home I loved were gone, but the replacements were fantastic.
In fact, out of everything in the living room, which had sustained the most damage, the only things that’d survived were the photo of my dads holding me the day I was born and the expensive rug that Sam loved so much.
What’d shocked most of us, and had proven how much ammunition had been used, was that the wall which separated the living room from the kitchen had holes where bullets had hit in the same place and punched straight through. They’d damaged appliances and cupboards and had taken chunks of tiles off the walls. Now it’d all been revamped, and my dads absolutely loved the new look of their home.
There was some irony in it all. Fita had been hit by a ricocheted bullet. Basically, she’d shot herself.
And people said there was no such thing as karma.
“How does it feel to be moving on to the next stage of our lives,” Jackson murmured in my ear as he wrapped his arms around me from behind.
Looking around my old bedroom, the one that’d been where I’d hidden from him when I didn’t want to go to his family’s as a child, I smiled at the irony.
“So long as all of the stages involve you, my answer will always be the same. Fan-fucking-tastically awesome.”
One week later…
Getting married is an exciting part of your life. You marry the person you love, and you look forward to the future ahead of you.
What no one warns you about is how hard it is to accept that you’re no longer the little girl that belongs to her daddies.
Looking at Sam and Ryan, both dressed smartly in slacks and shirts with ties on, one in pink, one in a turquoise blue like my bridesmaids were wearing, I was struggling not to cry.
“If you start, he starts,” Ryan gestured at Sam, then discreetly wiped his own cheeks. “I can’t have him showing me up by crying as we walk you down the aisle.”
“Like you didn’t spend all last night bawling into the blanket we brought her home in,” Sam snapped back, then grabbed a fistful of tissues out of the box next to us and wiped his eyes.
The mental image of Ryan doing that was what broke me. Ever since the shooting, I’d been a bit more fragile when it came to them. I hated being away from them, worried about them constantly, and was always looking at new things for Ryan to help him out, which was why he currently had the prosthesis he had.
And I needed them both that bit more.
A girl always needs her dad, they say, but when she has two of them and is doubly blessed, she needs them more. Add onto it almost losing one in a touch-and-go situation…