Sia’s POV

The courtroom was freezing, the sterile scent of polished wood and cold air stinging my nose. I sat stiffly at the defendant’s table, my fingers gripping the edge of my seat so hard my knuckles turned white. The cuffs around my wrists chafed at my skin, a constant reminder of the weight pressing down on me. My lawyer, Bret Langston, sat beside me, rifling through papers, his face calm but intense, while the prosecutors whispered among themselves across the aisle.

The judge’s bench loomed before me, high and foreboding, draped in the heavy crimson curtains framing the Texas state seal. Judge O’Connor, a tall, imposing figure with sharp,...