Dedicated to my very supportive sister :)
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Notice about the names used in this story: I will use 'Malik' to refer to Yami Malik. The regular Malik will be named Nam, the name he uses when he goes undercover to befriend Yuugi.
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Mens rea: the defendant undertakes his action either intending for, or hoping that, a certain result will follow.
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17 years ago.
The sirens blare, outside. The curtains flutter like a ghost into the room flooded by bleak, sterile street-light.
He stands in the living room. He doesn't look like a ghost, but he feels like one, in a way.
The police barge in –desperate and warrantless; alerted by the (distraught) calls of the (many, different) neighbors.
They've been informed of relentless screaming, coming from that house.
They don't expect him. They freeze, for a second, under his glacial eyes; and that moment drags on forever. Reinforcements burst through the door, restraining him. The knife, sleek with clotting blood, slides without effort out of his limp hand.
They talk- the sound of a radio fills the air with static and urgency; they address him but their voices dissolve into background noise, and all he hears is the amplified beating of his heart in his ears, like an ominous ceremonial drum.
Ceremonial, yes.
Indeed. Ceremonial.
The taste of victory replaces the taste of his father's insults. A budding smile adorns his lips.
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He is followed into the police car by the disenchantment and fear in the police officer's faces.
They are followed into their nightmares by his eyes –vacant, expressionless eyes, that seemed to pierce them through the darkness.
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The police officers in the station do not even try to be friendly towards him. Even though he's ten-years-old, and completely alone. Even though it's biting December and he wears only a loose, flimsy shirt.
Because his eyes are cruel and his clothes are covered in blood: in the front, with his father's. In the back, with his own.
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They tell him they're opening a file for him, a "booking jacket", even though the warrant for his arrest is only being issued.
They take his picture, his fingerprints. Tell him that everything he says can be used against him. That he has the right to a lawyer.
They're being careful, treating him like an adult when he's only a child.
He doesn't care at all.
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He's put in jail. An officer tells him he'll be making an initial appearance in court the following day.
They give him food, but he doesn't touch it. His body is working on something else –adrenaline, exhilaration. The painful memories of years of abuse begin to dissipate, and his father's agonizing screams take their place. He feels it's a positive change.
It has to be.
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Hours (or minutes?) later, a social worker walks into his little cell, flanked by a police officer, and, rather unexpectedly, a nurse.
'Don't try anything funny, kid,' the officer warns. He gets only a glacial glare in response.
The social worker seems nice. She tells him he ought to eat something, that it'll get him out of his state of post-traumatic stress. She explains that the nurse will have a look at him, and help him get clean and into fresh clothes.
She does not say he looks like he just committed murder.
Yet, he does. He just committed murder.
'Should we help you out of that shirt, or would you rather do it yourself?' she asks, kindly.
His answer is a fleeting look of distrust, but he finds his will to fight quite drained. He lets them do, like a mannequin, and, under the wary-watchful eye of the police officer, the nurse cleans his face with a wet rag.
They take the shirt off. They take the bandages off, too: the bandages that, wrapped around his whole torso, are rusty with days'-old blood and lymph. He impassively sees their faces go from shocked/ confused to downright sickened, and finds he finds himself flinching at the acrid stench of rot that wafts from the mess in his back, together with them.
'What the fuck…' the officer trails off. Heaving, the social worker has to leave the room.
The nurse silently starts to disinfect the open, infected gashes in his torn flesh; and, though he distantly feels the man's cold fingers touching him, he feels no pain, and he doesn't even flinch.
His ears catch the subtle sound of a camera shutter.
Someone's taken a picture.
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They've dressed him in pastel hues, but his messy hair sticks up and his eyes have dark rings around them.
Standing before the judge's neutral gaze, he feels neutral as well. Tame. Maybe for the first time in his life, ever.
'Your name is Malik, is it not?', the judge asks, and, getting no visible response, he continues, 'I always rue to see ones so young in this court. Your record says you are 10 years old. Is that correct?'
He nods, curtly. The judge sighs.
'You are charged with first-degree murder, child. The police report says you were found by the victim's corpse, holding the murder weapon in your hand and covered in the victim's blood. I am sorry to say that charges will most likely be brought against you.'
Child-Malik realizes that he's not spoken since that night.
'Am I gonna have to die?' he asks.
Despite his monotone and detachment, there is not one person in the courtroom who, through his words, does not die a little inside.
'I hope not,' the judge says, 'I hope not.' He quiets the murmuring in the room with a soft knock of his mallet on the wooden desk. Then, he speaks again:
'You have the right to an attorney. If you cannot afford one, the State will appoint one for you.'
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No one offers bail to a killer child that has nowhere to go.
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In jail, the wounds in his back begin to heal.
Weeks later, the Grand Jury issues him a bill of indictment.
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The court picks him at random to act as some kid's State-appointed lawyer.
The officer that takes the file to his lugubrious office makes a quick recount of the case and the accusation:
'The neighbors called, warning us of screams coming from the Ishtar's house. The father had a record for domestic abuse, the wife was found dead under strange circumstances a couple of years ago. When our boys went in, the kid was standing there in the middle of the room, in the dark, looming over the skinned corpse of his father, soaked in his blood… must've been like a vision of the devil. Scary as fuck, I beg your pardon –but some of the guys asked for some shrink sessions after that, and we see weird shit daily, you know.
'The kid got some medical attention while he was in custody. He had signs of years of abuse, you can read all about it in the files. Also, couple of days before they took him in, he'd gone through some sort of ritualistic initiation rite- he's got some kind of ancient scripture carved onto his back, presumably by his father, and presumably with the murder weapon. He's not talked about it. You draw your conclusions, sir.'
He adjusts his crimson lenses, and takes a long look at the police officer.
'I will,', he says, wolfishly, 'I most certainly will.'
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His state-appointed attorney is a huge black man called Robert N. Zork, who wears an equally huge and equally black trench-coat, and tacky crimson lenses. He has graying hair, and the raspy voice of a recidivist chain-smoker.
They meet in Malik's small cell, under surveillance of a burly policeman.
'I could've let you off with voluntary manslaughter, snuck in some nice heat-of-passion defense. But you had to play the psycho, and you had to skin your dad's back, right?'
He gets no answer, but the kid's eerie eyes boring into his. Daring him to question him.
Zork shrugs. 'Brutal, but honest. It's how I roll, too, kid. I won't get you out, but they're not gonna be giving you life, I'll tell you that.'
The time in jail gradually returned to him his innate defiance, and he narrows his eyes when he asks 'Don't you want to know if I killed him, like everybody else?'
'I don't care,' Zork says dismissively, 'That's not what matters in court, kid. Lemme tell you this, and hear me carefully: what matters is, how well you act, and how well you lie.'
Zork believes no kid should look as cunning as his… client. He sees the kid's eyes guarding his thoughts carefully –they leave the lawyer's face to inspect instead the gaudy, golden pendant he wears: it's shaped like a ring with a triangle within it, and five dangling spikes.
'Your taste is terrible,' Malik comments, apparently disregarding him.
'That's your opinion,' Zork smirks, derisively, 'And now, for the heart-to-heart attorney/defendant moment, do tell- did you kill him… Malik?'
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A date for an arraignment (another hearing before the judge) is set.
However, the prosecutor is hopeful for a successful plea bargain. He doesn't like having to take kids to court, much less have them tried as adults; but he's up-to-date with Malik's file and the horrors within it, and the more he re-reads it, the less it looks like thoughtless homicide, and the more like premeditated, cold-blooded revenge.
The prosecution would agree to have him convicted for murder, it may accept a mitigating circumstance. But Zork is a vicious haggler, and, after a long debate, they settle for voluntary manslaughter. He even (somehow) wriggles the defenses of infancy, and irresistible impulse into the deal
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He comes before the judge again, to plead guilty to voluntary manslaughter.
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He is sentenced to 15 years in prison, with the benefit of parole as from the 10th year, conditional upon his finishing the compulsory secondary education. Attending to his minority, the judge allows him to pursue further education from prison, if he so desires.
He leaves the courthouse as he entered it –silent, ominous –and wearing black for the last time in, at least, ten years.
'That went well,' Zork says, whistling some off-key ghetto song, 'Though ten years is a long time, son.'
If that word offends him, he does not show it.
'Fine by me,' he says, and his voice is cold, calculating, 'I know how to wait.'
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In prison, he gains a terrible reputation.
There is hardly an inmate who does not learn to fear him as the years go by; and while he earns himself the nickname of 'Dark', or 'Tomb Keeper', he also finishes high school, manages an undergraduate degree, and eventually graduates law school.
For all the years he spends immersed in the darkness, carving himself a niche within the scum of society, he smoothly proves to the world one significant thing: that he knows precisely how to wait.
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Ten years later, a wild-haired, well-built, free man walks into Robert N. Zork's office. He's got a degree under his arm, and tattoos covering his scars.
'Get me an expungement,' he says in a deep, commanding voice.
'Son,' Zork says, looking at him over the rim of his crimson glasses, 'you're not buying a latte.'
'Nah,' he says, shrugging, toying with a practiced, enigmatic smirk, 'But a future –who knows.'
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Author's Note:
"expungement of record": Process by which record of criminal conviction is destroyed or sealed from the state or Federal repository.
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This fic was meant to be humor. But then, it was not. YET. I've got great plans for this one.
Robert N. Zork: I'd named him 'Robert' in Coroner's Court, and it cracks me up so much that I decided to keep it. BTW, I'd not planned for Zork to show up. But I needed an unscrupulous lawyer figure, and he's gonna come in handy later, so I kept him.
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Up Next: Crime and punishment... Or lack thereof ;)