Sadly, Jim and Tim's enjoyment of Kim's takedown was only a temporary reprieve for them. It wasn't long before they reverted to the same fearful, desperate state they had been in ever since Kim found them crying in their sleep. Still, simply having their family present with them seemed to bring them comfort. As night fell, the hospital staff brought out cots for Kim and her parents so they could spend the night with the boys. Kim crashed almost immediately—she had missed an entire night's sleep, after all—so James and Ann stayed up with their sons to help them fall asleep.
Kim woke up fairly late the next morning. Rubbing her eyes, she slowly got off of her cot and headed over to Jim and Tim, who were eating breakfast. The calendar next to their beds noted that it was April 13, a fact that Kim found ironic. Friday the 13th was supposed to be bad luck, but absolutely nothing that happened today could be worse than what her family was already dealing with. The events of the past two days were a million times worse than "bad luck".
"Hey. How are you guys doing?"
"Okay, I guess. But it still hurts a lot when we go to the bathroom," Jim admitted, prompting Kim to bite her lip to keep from crying. She looked down at their breakfast of scrambled eggs and bacon. Normally the twins liked them, but the version served by the hospital looked like cafeteria food. It was obvious they weren't enthusiastic about eating it.
"Sit tight. I have something you'll probably like better than this." Kim headed over to her bag and took out a bag of mini donuts. She had picked it up from the hospital convenience store the previous day for her own breakfast, but she felt the boys deserved it more. Besides, she could easily buy another one later. She brought it over to their beds and gently smiled at her brothers as she showed them the bag. "What do you guys think of mini donuts for breakfast?"
Sure enough, the boys smiled a little—just a little, though—and nodded their approval. Kim handed them the donuts and sat down in between their beds as they ate. They seemed to be doing a little better, but they were still acting nothing like the tweebs she knew. Those boys would be jumping up and down, eager to get into mischief. It used to drive Kim crazy, but right now she would give anything to see her brothers happily wrecking something again.
Her thoughts were interrupted by her parents returning to the room, along with two doctors. "Kimmie, we'll need to let the doctors do their thing for right now," James said to her. "Detective Miller's also here, and he wants to talk with us."
Kim hugged and kissed the boys, then went with her parents to a room where they could talk privately, away from any eavesdropping. Waiting for them there was Detective Miller, along with a dark-haired woman who looked like she was in her forties.
"Everyone, I'd like you to meet Mrs. Lisa Cunningham," the detective said. "She's the prosecutor handling Jim and Tim's case and wants to give you a briefing on where things stand."
"I was pretty upset when I heard about this one," Mrs. Cunningham told them. "I'm a mother myself, so I take crimes against children personally." She opened a file folder next to her. "We have an extremely strong case against Mr. Gray. The physical harm Jim and Tim suffered speaks for itself. And after he was taken into custody, the police reviewed his phone and found several videos of the boys that were incredibly disturbing."
"Worse than what I saw yesterday?" Kim asked in surprise.
"Much worse," Detective Miller agreed sadly. "This guy is one of the worst SOBs I've dealt with in my career. He recorded himself inflicting all the damage that Jim and Tim are here for. It was awful."
"We really do have him dead to rights. But his attorney's made it clear that he's not interested in a plea deal," Mrs. Cunningham went on. "The charges he's facing are so serious that if he took a deal, he'd likely still go to prison for the rest of his life. So he's choosing to fight to the bitter end."
"What charges is he facing, exactly?" James asked the prosecutor.
"Well, there are four major crimes that he's being charged with. Each has a maximum penalty of life in prison, and he's facing two counts of each, one for Jim and one for Tim. That's a potential eight life sentences." Mrs. Cunningham starting counting on her fingers. "First of all, there's child molestation. Jim and Tim were only twelve and the attack was pretty extreme, so we're hitting Mr. Gray with two counts of first-degree child molestation, the harshest degree available. Next, there's statutory sodomy."
Kim got a confused look. "What's sodomy? I've heard that a couple times, but never really understood it."
"It's an old-timey word for oral and anal sex," Detective Miller explained to her. "We can't charge Mr. Gray with statutory rape because our state's legal code defines the term "rape" as vaginal intercourse specifically. That obviously doesn't apply in a male-on-male assault like this one, so we prosecute those as statutory sodomy instead."
"The penalty for statutory rape and statutory sodomy is exactly the same, so it's a distinction without a difference in the end," Mrs. Cunningham added. "He's being hit with first-degree charges for that, same as with molestation. Next is first-degree assault. That's not necessarily a sexual offense, it just requires you to brutally hurt someone, and I've seen Jim and Tim's medical records. It's clearly warranted here. And finally, there's sexual exploitation of a minor."
Now Ann looked confused. "How is that any different from the other things? Child molestation sure seems like sexual exploitation of a minor to me."
"You're right, it is. But that particular charge deals specifically with child pornography," Mrs. Cunningham explained. "He was sexually exploiting Jim and Tim by recording those images of them on his phone. As young as they are, that carries a possible life sentence, just like the other crimes."
"There's actually quite a few other things he's being charged with," Detective Miller chimed in. "Just having those pornographic images is a crime in and of itself, and he's facing one count for each image. There's also lesser sexual offenses like exposing himself, and then there was pulling the knife on you yesterday, Kim. But Mrs. Cunningham pretty much covered the big four."
Thinking about the child pornography aspect of what happened made Kim start to worry. What if those images of her brothers were floating around the Internet somewhere? "Did—did he put that stuff online?" she asked the detective.
He sighed sadly. "Kim, I wish I could give you a straight answer to that question, but we simply don't know. If he did, he's certainly not going to tell us, and dedicated child porn sites are actually really hard to track. Mainstream adult sites don't allow that stuff, so pedophiles use the dark web to share their material. To be perfectly honest, it wouldn't surprise me if he did—some of the videos on his phone seemed almost like they were designed for an audience. But without proof, there's nothing we can do on that point."
There was stunned silence from the Possibles as they realized the implications of what Detective Miller was saying. For all they knew, perverts were jacking off to Jim and Tim getting tortured, and there was absolutely nothing they could do about it. Wade certainly couldn't help—he was too young to see legal porn, let alone illegal stuff. They would just have to live with the awful possibility and try not to think about it.
Damn you, Mr. Gray, Kim thought fiercely as she fought back tears. Damn you to hell for what you did to my baby brothers.
