I’ll be in the third row. I’ll intervene and we’ll make it official. Understood. And Khloe? Dr. Morrison’s voice softened.
Whatever happens in that courtroom, remember you’re not alone. Even when it feels like you are, we’re watching. We’re with you. The line went dead.
Khloe took a breath, then another, then another. She stepped out of the car and walked toward the courthouse. The security line moved with agonizing slowness. Khloe observed the people around her.
Black families clustered together, voices low, children fidgeting with boredom and fear. Mothers in their best church clothes, trying to look respectable for judges who would never see them as respectable no matter what they wore. Fathers standing rigid, jaws tight, already bracing for the worst. These were her people, the ones the system had failed for generations, the ones Harold Whitmore had spent 32 years grinding beneath his heel. today.
She would fight for all of them. Next. The security guard barely glanced at her ID. Case number. 2024-CF-4812. Courtroom 4. Move along. She moved along. Just another Black face in an endless stream, invisible. Perfect.
Inside courtroom 4, the gallery was already filling with the morning’s crowd. White attorneys claimed the front rows, expensive suits, leather briefcases, collegial handshakes. They chatted easily, laughing at private jokes, utterly comfortable in a space designed by and for people like them. The Black families sat in the back, cramped together on hard wooden benches, clutching documents and prayers with equal desperation.
No one talked much. They knew better. Khloe noted everything as she entered. Court reporter in the right corner, fingers poised over the stenotype machine.
Security camera in the left corner. Red light blinking steadily. Bailiff by the main door, bored, checking his phone. Dr. Morrison sat in the third row exactly as promised, a book open in her lap.
She didn’t look at Khloe. Didn’t acknowledge her existence. Professional. Raymondd Foster was nowhere to be seen. Not yet. At 8:52, a rumpled figure rushed up to Khloe.
Daniel Reeves, public defender. Her court-appointed attorney. His suit was wrinkled. Coffee stained his tie.
He flipped through her file with the exhausted efficiency of someone who had done this 10,000 times. Khloe Brooks. He didn’t wait for confirmation. Disorderly conduct. Resisting arrest. Did you do it? No, sir. I didn’t do anything wrong.
He sighed, not dismissively, wearily. The sigh of a man who had heard that exact sentence from hundreds of innocent people who were convicted. Anyway, here’s how this works. Best case scenario, I plead it down to a fine and probation.
Worst case, Whitmore decides to make an example of you and you spend 6 months in county. My advice? Say as little as humanly possible. Yes, your honor.
No, your honor. Don’t explain. Don’t argue. Don’t give him any reason to notice you. What if I want to present a defense, evidence that proves? Then you’ll make him angry.
Reeves looked at her. really looked for the first time. Listen to me carefully. I’ve watched Harold Whitmore destroy people who talked back.
Smart people, innocent people. He doesn’t care about evidence. He doesn’t care about rights. He cares about control.