Hey there and welcome back to The Quoted Blog! I'm here today with a new chapter of Innocent Until Proven Guilty! (Fun fact: I just spent like three hours sitting outside planning out the rest of this short story. I think you're going to love it, if you don't already!)
Okay, let's get into it...
Chap. four
The jersey. The blue and white jersey, Astrid. And the black bird. Specifically the black crow.
Astrid was laying in bed later that night, thinking about the phone conversation with Amylee. All she could get from it was that Amylee had been scared of something before she had hung up the phone, and she hadn’t told the whole truth. There was something missing, Astrid knew it. But, she also knew that she was going to have to find that information that was missing elsewhere. Amylee was in trouble, and Astrid wanted her to be safe, even though she didn’t really know her. And if she knew anything about mysteries, it was best not to mess with things when they could go horribly wrong. Unless it was really worth it.
…And the black bird. Specifically the black crow.
As she continued to think about the phone call, she recalled the moment at the beach when she saw a black crow herself. It was weird because it disappeared as soon as she saw it, but in that moment, she knew there was something weird about it. But, she had forgotten about it completely until it had popped up again. Now she knew for sure that there was something about that black crow she had seen that was important. She just didn’t know what it was just yet.
The next day, Astrid woke up to the sound of her mom yelling her name from the kitchen.
“Coming!” she yelled back, slipping on some socks and pulling her red hair back into a ponytail.
When she made it to the kitchen, she stopped in her tracks when she saw who was there, sitting at the kitchen table, staring at her.
“Jaydin?” She said as if it were a question, even though she knew exactly who she was staring at.
The twenty year old dark brown-haired boy gave his sister a small smile as she ran to the table and gave him a huge hug.
“How? Are you cleared? Did they find the real killer?!” She asked, sounding very excited until she composed herself and pulled out a chair to sit in.
Mom sat down in another chair, beside Astrid.
“Mom?” Astrid asked, looking over at her mother. “Are you gonna tell me what’s going on?”
Mom sighed. Then, before she could say anything, Jaydin cut in.
“They’re still investigating. There are other leads. Since I was the one who turned myself in, and since they still have other leads to follow, the court decided they would put me on parole. I’ll have one month at home before we go to court again. I’m not sure what the judge will say then, but for now I’m just thankful to be home.”
“You know you’re not guilty, right? You were just lying. Making a dumb decision. And they believed you. Right? You didn’t actually kill your best friend.” She said it like she was certain of herself, but when she saw the look in Jaydin’s eyes, she swallowed nervously.
“It’s a long story, and it’s not the time for it,” Jaydin replied, getting up from the table and heading towards his room. Before he opened the door, he stopped and looked back at Astrid. “It’s good to see you,” he said, then went into his room and closed the door.
Astrid stared at the door, dumbfounded. “Did that really just happen?” she asked, looking at her mom.
Mom nodded. “It sure did. I’m sorry honey. This was all kind of weird. I didn’t know he was coming home until last night. They told me he would be in prison for several years. This is a complete surprise.”
“And a weird one,” Astrid said, head spinning. “Is it alright if I go hang out with Frank for the rest of the day? We can go to the park and have a picnic or something. I just need to get away for a while.”
Mom nodded, looking a little worried as she met Astrid’s eyes.
As Astrid headed back to her room to text Frank and get ready to go out into the world, she couldn’t help but think that things were not going how she thought they would.
She knew for a fact that this mystery still wouldn’t be easy, but at least her brother was back for a month, even if that didn’t help much.
Astrid was going to figure out what her brother knew. She wasn’t giving up until the real murderer was found.
But as she stepped into her room, she couldn’t help but feel a little scared because outside her window, sitting on the grass, was a black bird. Specifically a black crow.
Okay, so that was chapter four! It might seem like not a lot happened, but I promise there's a lot more to come! Stay tuned...~Ella
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