Story code: ST-000668
Part 2: Obstruction
The beam of the tactical flashlight sliced through the dark parking lot, piercing directly into Leo’s pupils. He squeezed his eyes shut, turning his head away to escape the blinding glare, but Mark’s heavy fist remained twisted in the cotton of his t-shirt, anchoring him in place. Deep inside his right pocket, Leo’s fingers frantically dug into the aluminum edges of his phone. His thumb found the power button. His index and middle fingers clamped over the volume keys. He squeezed the metal frame with all his strength.
*One. Two.*
“Hey! Step back! Let him go!” a harsh, amplified voice commanded from behind the wall of white light.
Mark immediately released the shirt, his hands flying up to shoulder height in a universal gesture of surrender. “Officer, it’s okay! I’m his uncle. He’s my nephew.”
*Three. Four. Five.*
Heavy boots crunched over the broken glass scattered across the asphalt. The flashlight beam dropped slightly, settling squarely on Leo’s chest. “You. Hands where I can see them.”
Leo’s breath hitched in his throat. His left hand hovered awkwardly in the air, but his right remained buried deep in his denim pocket, still crushing the buttons. He needed ten seconds. If he could just hold it for five more seconds, the phone would vibrate, the screen would flash the manufacturer logo, and every tab, every private message, every piece of his carefully hidden existence would vanish into the digital ether.
“Son, I said hands where I can see them. Take it out of your pocket right now.” The officer’s tone dropped an octave, shifting from authoritative to actively threatening. The crunch of boots stopped. The silhouette behind the light shifted, a hand dropping to rest on a heavy black belt.
*Six. Seven.*
“Leo, what are you doing?” Mark hissed, his voice cracking with sudden, breathless panic. “Take your hand out! Are you crazy?”
The beam of light twitched, locking directly onto Leo’s front pocket. The officer wasn’t seeing a terrified teenager trying to erase a browser history. The officer was seeing a suspect refusing to show his hands in the direct aftermath of a brutal, bloody assault.
Leo’s survival instincts finally overrode his dread. He released his death grip on the buttons and yanked his hand into the cold night air, holding his palms flat and trembling. As his fingers slipped away from the metal casing, he felt a single, short buzz against his thigh.
A fail-safe. He hadn’t held the buttons long enough to trigger the factory wipe. The buzz meant he had only engaged the emergency lockout. Biometrics were disabled. The phone was a brick to anyone who didn’t know the six-digit passcode. It was a temporary wall, but as he stared blindly into the flashlight, it felt like a stay of execution.
“Keep them up,” the officer ordered, stepping fully into the spill of the ambulance strobes. He was young, his uniform stretched tight across a broad chest, a radio mic clipped to his shoulder squawking with overlapping dispatch chatter. He lowered the flashlight, keeping the beam fixed on Leo’s torso. “What’s going on here? We got a man bleeding out from skull fractures fifty feet away, and you two are wrestling in the dark.”
“He filmed it,” Mark blurted out, pointing a trembling finger at Leo. “My nephew. He was standing right here when the fight started. He got the whole thing on his phone. The attackers, the vehicle, everything.”
The officer’s demeanor shifted instantly. The hostile tension in his shoulders evaporated, replaced by an urgent, electric focus. He tapped the mic on his shoulder. “Dispatch, hold the perimeter units. I might have a witness with video evidence of the assault. Stand by for suspect descriptions.”
The radio chirped an acknowledgment. The officer took a step closer to Leo, extending a gloved hand. “That’s fantastic work, son. You might have just saved us hours of canvas time. Hand me the phone. We need to broadcast what those guys look like before they get onto the interstate.”
Leo swallowed hard. The copper taste of shame was back, thicker now, choking him. Over the officer’s shoulder, a pair of paramedics hoisted a yellow backboard onto a stretcher. The victim’s face was completely obscured by a thick cervical collar and an oxygen mask smeared with red. The man had begged for help. Leo had filmed it. Now the man was fighting for his life, and Leo was about to let the attackers get away just to protect his own secrets.
The cowardice was a physical weight, pressing down on his chest until his ribs ached. He hated himself. He hated the pathetic, terrified thing he had become. But the alternative-Mark seeing the open tabs, his parents finding out, his entire church community ripping his life apart-was a nightmare he simply could not face.
“I… it didn’t record,” Leo stammered, his voice thin and reedy over the idling diesel engine of the ambulance. “I tried to film it, but my storage was full. It just took a blurry photo.”
Mark’s head snapped toward him, his eyes wide with disbelief. “That is a lie. I saw the video playing on your screen, Leo! I saw the guy in the red jacket kicking him! I watched it loop!”
“It was just a live photo,” Leo lied, stepping back until his spine hit the cold metal of a parked sedan. “It didn’t save.”
“Stop lying!” Mark roared, taking an aggressive step toward him before the officer threw a thick arm out to hold the older man back.
“Okay, calm down, both of you,” the officer said, his eyes narrowing as he studied Leo’s sweating, pale face. The cop was no fool; he recognized the desperate, cornered look of someone hiding something. “Son, if you have evidence of a felony assault and you withhold it, that’s obstruction of justice. Those men nearly killed a guy tonight. If they get away because you’re playing games, that’s on you. Give me the phone.”
“I need a lawyer,” Leo whispered, the words slipping out before he could stop them.
Mark let out a sound that was half gasp, half sob of frustration. “A lawyer? You are a witness, Leo! You’re the victim here!”
Before Leo could react, Mark lunged. The older man bypassed the officer’s outstretched arm, his thick fingers diving straight into Leo’s front pocket. The denim tore with a loud rip. Leo shouted and twisted, but Mark was too big, his practiced youth-pastor gentleness entirely consumed by a righteous, frantic fury. Mark yanked the black rectangle free, holding it up like a hard-won prize.
“Give it back!” Leo screamed, launching himself forward, but the officer easily stepped between them, planting a firm hand in the center of Leo’s chest and shoving him back against the sedan.
“Stay put!” the officer barked at Leo, then turned to Mark with his hand outstretched. “Sir, I need you to hand that to me right now.”
“Just a second,” Mark breathed, his thumb mashing the power button. The screen illuminated, casting a pale, bluish glow across Mark’s sweaty face. He swiped up. The passcode screen appeared. “He thinks he’s clever. He locked it.”
“Sir, it’s police evidence-”
Mark ignored the cop. He stepped right up to Leo, grabbing him by the back of the neck, and shoved the glowing screen directly into Leo’s face.
Leo flinched, his eyes flying wide open in shock.
It was exactly what the front-facing camera needed. The biometric lockout Leo thought he had engaged hadn’t fully processed before he let go of the buttons. At the top of the screen, the tiny animated padlock snapped open. The phone vibrated in Mark’s hand.
Mark yanked the device back, his thumb immediately swiping up from the bottom edge to bypass the lock screen. He didn’t even look at Leo. His eyes were glued to the display, desperate to find the video of the attackers.
Leo stopped fighting. The breath left his lungs in one long, hollow rush. His legs went completely numb.
Mark stared at the screen. The chaotic parking lot seemed to fall into a dead, suffocating silence beneath the wail of the sirens.
“What…” Mark whispered. The righteous, commanding anger drained from his features in a split second, replaced by a pale, slack-jawed horror. He slowly lowered the phone, looking at Leo as if staring at a complete stranger. “Leo… what is this?”