A scream tore from my throat as I lunged at them, clawing, sobbing.
"You animals! You're all animals! They were only five years old! How could you do it?! How dare you?!"
Officers scrambled to pull me back. My sister-in-law wrapped her arms around me, holding my thrashing body tight.
"Marina, please—don't do this, you have to calm down!" Ramona held my trembling body so tightly she was nearly crushing me into her arms. Her tears splashed hot against my back, scalding. "I promise you, the police will handle this properly. Those monsters who hurt the children—every last one of them will pay! The Simmons family won't let this go. Grandfather won't let this go. Louise Pruitt and Zelda Pruitt won't have suffered for nothing. We'll make them pay in blood!"
Her comfort was warm and urgent, but to my ears, it was nothing but bitter irony and despair.
I went limp in her arms, sliding to the floor. My gaze locked onto the men in black uniforms huddled in the corner—them. Yesterday, they had dragged my children into that van with their own hands. They had tortured my five-year-old babies to death.