#Chapter 161: Sentencing

DEREK They were already seated when I arrived. The sentencing chamber in the central courthouse had the hushed, heavy atmosphere of a room waiting to breathe. The kind of place where sound never echoed quite right, and even the air felt weighted—thick with old grief and new judgment. Stone walls loomed high and unmoving, washed in the pale gray light that filtered through narrow windows near the ceiling. Wooden benches, smooth from decades of use, creaked beneath shifting bodies. The faint scent of floor polish hung beneath everything—mixed with something colder. Sterile. Final. I kept to the back. Didn’t announce myself. Didn’t want to be seen unless she wanted to see me. I stood just inside the arched door, near one of the pillars, my hands in my coat pockets, my back to the exit. Close enough to witness. Far enough to give her space. Maggie sat at the defense table, her posture so perfectly straight she might’ve been carved from stone. Her hair was braided tight d