Moira stared blackly out of the window. She saw places she had gone before, some she never would. She saw the town going by, families, young, old, random people; live that would be irrevocably changed in such a short time. She had finally stepped up to the plate and done something about it. She had finally said screw it to Malcolm and admitted her mistakes.
But had it been too late? How much damage would be done? How much could they avoid?
Sure, they had managed to grab her, put her in a police car, separate her from her family. But did they think simply putting her in jail would accomplish anything? She was no mastermind. Really, she was just another victim, another of Malcolm's chess pieced that he moved around to his content.
She stared out through her window as they approached the precinct. It was very likely that all charges would be pinned on her. They would not catch Malcolm. He would get away. Moira wasn't even certain the vigilante could pin him down at this point.
The police officers opened her door and pulled her out. She was sure they were going easier on her than they usually did. She had, after all, just admitted to all her crimes and come quite willingly. But who cares? Her daughter hated her, her husband had left her, and her son was once again nowhere to be found. If it weren't for the cuffs on her wrists, she could have sworn it was still 5 years ago.
They took her up the steps, into processing, removed all her jewelry and stuck her in a cage. This was her life now; incarceration. This was what she could look forward to. She just couldn't bring herself to see that as the worst thing to possibly happen.
Her family was ruined, for sure now. But that didn't really matter either, not so much. The impeding destruction of the glades, that was far more disconcerting. Why had she ever allowed herself to get involved in all of this? Malcolm had never really been an alright man, especially after his wife's death. Why in the world hadn't she found a way to get rid of him earlier?
Because she was too scared, a voice reminded her, because she had always depended on Robert to make these decisions and was afraid of making them for herself; because she didn't want to lose neither her daughter as well, nor her son again. None of this made it any better, it just added to her current self-loathing.
She closed her eyes and let the tears she had been holding back flow freely. She still had an image to maintain, as tarnished as she had just made sure it would always be. She cried for her dead husband, who would never come back, and might have been ashamed of her actions. She cried for the son she had been kept apart from for so long. She cried for her daughter, whom she feared might never trust her again, her baby girl who had had to put up with so much so far, and would need to keep putting up with more. She cried for the city she loved, had always loved and wanted to see flourish, for the city that would soon be destroyed and it would be partly her fault for having allowed it to come to this point. And she cried for her husband, soon to be ex, for the man that she had come to love as much as her first husband, and who she thought would stand by her but who had far more integrity than she.
She stayed in the same sitting position she had adopted until she felt the ground shake. She felt the shocks from the earthquake machine that had been set up. She was too late. She couldn't save them.
Then she cried even more.