Read Guilty for Free Online

shooting exactly because she still couldn't move. At the same time, panicked confusion erupted everywhere. In the space of just those first few seconds, the courtroom turned into a terrifying kaleidoscope of color and sound and movement.
    Ducking low, Soto and the newcomers ran toward the front of the courtroom as one of them—the one in the orange jumpsuit—shouted at him, "What the hell did you just do?"
    "I killed him, so what?" Soto yelled back.
    ''You stupid shit!"
    "Go to hell!"
    With two of the three cursing at each other, they converged, dashing around the side of the bench toward the window, dodging bullets and snapping off shots as they ran. Curry hit the ground in front of the bench, his arms flying to cover his head as a bullet smacked into the smooth mahogany not two feet above where he lay. Hands in the air, the court reporter fled shrieking toward the jury box. The deputy nearest the bench—the one whose sleep-inducing drone Kate had tuned out earlier—screamed and dropped; he'd been shot, she knew, even before she saw the blood rolling out from beneath his head. Screams and curses and pounding feet and gunfire—even after all these years, Kate would recognize those sharp bangs anywhere— mingled hideously, exploding off the walls and floor and ceiling like rapid-fire thunder, filling the room with deafening, terrifying noise. The smell of cordite and carnage was everywhere.
    The blood now pouring from the slain deputy's head continued to roll toward her like a scarlet river across the black-speckled stone floor.
    The smell hit her.
    Human blood smells like raw meat. Oh, God, I remember that smell...
    Kate's stomach turned inside out. She wanted to gag, but she couldn't. She seemed to be paralyzed. Shock—it was good that she could at least recognize that cold, dead feeling as shock, wasn't it?— rendered her immobile, rooting her to the smooth, hard terrazzo beneath her bent legs.
    Blood — so much blood... blood everywhere ... splashes of scarlet on the walls, splatters of scarlet on the floor, gushers of scarlet pumping from destroyed flesh ...
    Time seemed to slow to an impossible crawl. Her stomach churned sickeningly. Her heart pounded in hard, fast strokes. Icy with horror now, she knew there was nothing she could do to save herself or anyone else as the nightmare unfolded around her.
    "Where are they?" the guy in the orange jumpsuit screamed, sharply enough to pierce the explosion of noise, which was so loud she felt her brain might self-destruct from the sheer, unbelievable volume of it.
    "The fuck should I know?" Soto screamed back.
    "They oughta be here!"
    "Get out, get out, get out!" This, from the gallery, was some other, innocent, man's yell, rising over the tumult, urging others to flee.
    "Mama, where are you?" It was a child's frantic screech, also from the gallery.
    "God help me, Jesus help me ..." a nearby woman wailed.
    These and other disembodied voices reached her ears through the hair-raising sounds of dozens of people screaming and fighting to escape what in just a matter of seconds had turned into an abattoir. If she'd been able to move, she would have clapped her hands over her ears, but her muscles, seemingly heavy as lead, obstinately refused to respond to her brain's signals. Her breathing came fast and shallow. Her pulse raced. Cold sweat poured over her in waves. She knew she should move, run, hide, right now on pain of death, but she didn't. She couldn't. For the second time in her life, she was frozen to the spot with fear. Only her eyes moved, glancing desperately around.
    Oh, God, how many dead?
    Some people in the galleries were hunkered down, she saw as her terrified gaze darted toward them, doing their best to hide from the flying bullets as the remaining deputies and prisoners exchanged fire. Others jumped screaming over the backs of the benches or charged down the center aisle, bent double, pushing and slamming into one another as they tried to escape by way of the