Pride (Shifters #3)(11)

Malone tried to look angry, but his satisfied smirk ruined the image. “Miss Sanders, if you lose control of your mouth one more time, we will have you removed from the room.”
“Like it matters,” I mumbled, staring at the battered stress ball clenched in my fist. I can hear just as well from the living room.
Michael pinched my arm hard enough to leave a welt, and I glared at him. I would have pinched him back if I hadn’t seen concern behind the irritation etched across his face.“I don’t think you understood what I was saying,” Dr. Carver said, shifting attention away from me. “Because I wasn’t finished.” His pointed look at Malone made me smile. “Yes, Faythe killed Andrew Wallace. She’s never denied it. But she says she had no choice, and I have no reason to doubt that.”
Uncle Rick leaned forward in quiet eagerness. “So you could tell it was self-defense based on the body?” I have no doubt he meant to help my case. Unfortunately, his question forced Dr. Carver to backtrack.
“Well, not for sure, no.” He moved uncomfortably in his chair. “But neither could I say for certain that it wasn’t. But beyond that, her story checks out, medically speaking.”
Uncle Rick nodded encouragingly. “Meaning…?”
“I also examined Faythe that night, and her injuries are consistent with her explanation of what happened. Cuts on the backs of her arms, from being pinned to the floor on top of broken glass. Severely bruised cheeks, from several blows to the face. Bruised ribs from blows to the torso. She was obviously the one on the ground—that much is clear from her injuries. And that implies that Mr. Wallace was the aggressor. Faythe says she was acting in self-defense, and I believe her.”
I exhaled in relief. I wasn’t out of the proverbial woods yet, but it felt so damn good to know someone else was willing to stand up for me. Someone who had no personal stake in my future.
“Dr. Carver, we have no doubt that Ms. Sanders was injured in the exchange. But we can’t ignore the possibility that Mr. Wallace was the one acting in self-defense, injuring Ms. Sanders in an attempt to preserve his own life. An effort which ultimately failed. So, implications aside, can you say for certain, based on the state of his remains and Ms. Sanders’s injuries, that this was not the case?” Malone’s voice was as persuasive as he could get.
“I most certainly can say that.” Dr. Carver’s tone was firm, and anticipation pulled my spine straight in my chair. “I just can’t prove it.”
The frustration in his voice was mirrored in my posture as I slouched lower in my seat.
Malone rolled his eyes. “Dr. Carver, we are interested in actual evidence here.”
“Only because you don’t have it,” the doctor snapped.
The room went completely, eerily silent as all eyes settled on Danny Carver, in his chair at the end of the table, face pink with irritation, gaze focused intently on Malone.
“If you had proof it was an accident, you’d want expert testimony to tell you that proof was wrong. But there is no irrefutable evidence in this case, and when that happens, you have to make your decision based on the testimony and opinions of others. And my testimony—my gut instinct—is that Faythe had no choice but to defend herself against Andrew Wallace. As she’s said repeatedly.” 
“So she has.” Malone’s disbelief sent a fresh surge of irritation through me. My fist clenched around the stress ball again, and I glanced down to see that I’d carved a new tectonic-plate boundary down the middle of Central Europe. Thank goodness I wasn’t into voodoo.
“Speaking of Ms. Sanders’s testimony…” Blackwell began. “Are you aware of her claims that the infection was an accident, caused by a—” he glanced at his notes “—‘partial Shift.’”
The doctor nodded curtly.
“And have you ever seen this…phenomenon?”
“Unfortunately…no.”
“What a coincidence,” Malone spat. “Neither has anyone else.”
I shot up from my chair in indignation, my latest warning forgotten. “That’s—” Michael’s hand clamped over my mouth again, and he shoved me back into my seat, much harder than necessary.
—not true! My protest ended in my head, as my teeth sank into my brother’s finger. He snatched his hand from my mouth, shaking it. And too late it occurred to me that biting was probably a bad idea, considering I was on trial, in part, for that very offense.
Still, Malone’s crack was an outright lie. Several people had seen the partial Shift. Of course, one of them—Eric, the psycho kidnapper—was now dead, so his testimony would be pretty damn hard to scrounge up. And none of my other potential vouchers—Marc, Michael, my father, and my cousin Abby—were considered reliable witnesses because they all loved me and would presumably lie to save me.
The tribunal had voted in favor of excluding their testimony by a margin of two to one, and no matter how fiercely Uncle Rick had argued, he was unable to gain even one vote. Stubborn bastards.
But he wasn’t done trying to help me. “Dr. Carver, do you think such a Shift is possible, medically speaking?”
Dr. Carver sighed. “No. Medically speaking, no Shift is possible. Our very existence should be a physical impossibility. But we do exist. And so does the partial Shift. I see no reason for it not to. It takes intense concentration to Shift intentionally, so it stands to reason that intense concentration focused on a particular part of the body would cause only that part to Shift.”
His gaze swung left to include only Malone and Blackwell. “What makes no sense to me is that men like you—creatures whose very existence humanity has denied for centuries—refuse to believe something that requires only a small portion of the transformation you put your entire body through on a near-daily basis. The only reason you don’t believe in the possibility of the partial Shift is because you don’t want to believe.”
Yeah! I wanted to stand and clap, or cheer, or…sing the national anthem. In a matter of minutes, Dr. Carver had driven home the very point I’d been trying to make for the last five months. And he’d made it look easy, and honorable, as if he were saying something that needed to be said, for the moral well-being of all involved.
To my utter surprise, though Malone still scowled, Paul Blackwell looked half-convinced. He placed one thin, wrinkled hand on the table. “Dr. Carver, I have to admit this partial Shift gibberish is starting to sound less and less like nonsense. But we still need proof Ms. Sanders can actually accomplish such a thing, even if it is possible.”
Okay, it could have been worse. Blackwell was the swing vote, and he was definitely coming around. But he wanted proof—which I still didn’t have.
In a real court of law, where the burden of proof was on the prosecution, I would have been good to go. There was plenty of doubt about my guilt. But here, I had to prove myself innocent beyond all doubt, which seemed less and less likely with each hour that passed.The doctor nodded. “Of course. But let me point out that Faythe’s explanation for why she can’t prove it yet makes sense. Medically speaking.” Carver was taking no chances on his testimony being thrown out because it didn’t pertain to his area of expertise. “We all know most werecats experience their first Shift at puberty. But you may not know, or recall, that many of these first Shifts are actually brought on by bouts of strong emotion. Anger, fear, excitement…even lust.”
Calvin Malone squirmed in his chair. Rumor had it his first Shift was triggered at age fourteen by heavy involvement with his human girlfriend. He’d reportedly barely made it into the empty field behind her house, shedding his clothes along the way like a madman.
So if anyone understood about emotion bringing on a Shift, it should have been Calvin Malone. But his stiff posture and angry eyes said Malone was not pleased by the trip down memory lane. Nor was he willing to acknowledge it, even indirectly—especially not to help me.
“Dr. Carver, what happens to preteenagers at the mercy of their hormones is not relevant to this hearing,” he snapped. “Ms. Sanders is twenty-three years old. She had her first Shift at least a decade ago, and should long ago have learned to rule her emotions, rather than being ruled by them. The fact that she has yet to reach that level of control does not speak in her favor here. It is simply one more example of her inability to restrain her impulses, which no doubt led to both Mr. Wallace’s infection and his death. If you have another point, I suggest you make it before you bury the defendant any further in the pit you’re digging for her.”
That son of a bitch!
Every pleasant, tingly feeling left over from Dr. Carver’s speech drained from me, leaving behind a cold, clammy feeling of exposure. And…shame. Had my lack of control really caused all my problems?
Before I could decide whether I should be ashamed or royally pissed, footsteps pounded down the hall, and all heads turned toward the door as it flew open. On the other side stood Jace, his face grim, full lips drawn into a taut line.
My father rose in one easy, graceful motion. “What’s wrong?”
“They found a body.”
“Who found a body?” Dr. Carver asked, rising just as Michael said, “Is it one of the hikers? The man or the woman?”