My Great Escape Led Me to You (Emily Blair) novel Chapter 1166

One of the kids had lost a front tooth in the fight. After the bleeding stopped, he buried his face in his mother’s arms and sobbed so hard the whole room shook. Another was howling while a teacher dabbed ointment on his scraped knee. His cries were so loud it seemed like the ceiling might fall in. The last child had a huge bump swelling on his forehead, looking both painful and scary.

Dennis Lane, though, stood there with nothing but messy hair and a wrinkled shirt. He hadn’t even scratched himself.

The wailing echoed around the small room, giving the kindergarten teacher a pounding headache. The three sets of parents all wore dark, stormy expressions. Dennis stood there, stiff and angry, his lips pressed together, refusing to look down or admit any fault.

Kevin Lane didn’t rush to scold Dennis. Instead, he calmly asked the teacher and Dennis exactly what had happened.

It all came out. The three kids had heard rumors about Isabella Austin. They’d already disliked how Dennis acted like he owned the place, so they ganged up on him, making fun of him for not having a mom anymore. They said she didn’t want him, that she’d done something terrible and was now in prison. They even said, “Like mother, like son,” and called Dennis a bad kid because of his mom.

Dennis snapped. He grabbed a chair and hurled it at one of them, then knocked all three to the floor and started swinging.

That’s how things got so out of hand.

After hearing the whole story, Kevin nodded, understanding. He gave Dennis a few words of comfort, then handed him over to Amelia.

The other parents were still furious, but they knew their kids had started it. Plus, Dennis was a Lane. They didn’t dare make a scene, so they bit back their anger and stayed quiet.

The kids, though, didn’t get it. Still fuming, they shouted about how bossy Dennis was and how nobody liked him at school. One of them started yelling again that Dennis’s mom was a criminal and he’d end up in jail too.

Dennis’s eyes burned with anger. He tried to charge at them again.

The parents nodded desperately, apologizing again and again. “You’re right, we were wrong, we shouldn’t have said that.”

Still sniffling, Dennis let Kevin lead him away.

As soon as they got in the car, Dennis started up again, voice trembling. “Grandpa, Mom isn’t a bad person. Can you please talk to the police? Tell them she didn’t do anything wrong. Can you ask them to let her come home?”

By that time, Isabella Austin had already been at the police station for days.

Kevin couldn’t tell him the truth. He wrapped Dennis in a hug and tried to comfort him, insisting that the other kids were just making things up. He told Dennis his mom wasn’t in jail, she was just on a trip somewhere far away, and nobody knew when she’d be back.