CW: violence committed against women is discussed in this chapter. Reader discretion is advised.
Chapter 40: Jury
Louisa's hands were shaking—either from fury or terror, she couldn't decide. The calming effect Jasper had induced evaporated the moment he left the room. By the time she reached the witness box, she was barely keeping it together. A warm, throbbing pain started somewhere behind her left ear, and an uncomfortable sensation of pins and needles pricked at her scalp. Her breathing was a heavy, forced sort of calm that made her feel light-headed and detached from her body. When she was presented with a bible and sworn in, her voice was almost unrecognisable to her ears.
The prosecutor gave her a smile that was supposed to be comforting before launching into the direct examination. It was different than she had imagined. They weren't concerned about how or why Louisa was in the warehouse that night—only what happened once she was there. This made sense—she wasn't testifying to defend her detective work but to describe what she witnessed. But it was one thing to go over the memories in your head. In your head, you didn't have to find words for the memory; it was just there. The traumatic event could happen to someone else in your head, as if it was being acted out and projected on a screen.
It was another thing entirely to have to speak them out loud. Talking about what happened made it feel real. Describing what happened made the trauma into an event, and one she didn't want to be a part of. It made her heart race and her knees tremble. She reached out and grabbed hold of the witness box to steady herself, but she still felt like she was swaying. Swaying as she had in Lambe's arms as he carried her back into the warehouse they had escaped. Or would have, had she not been such a coward that night—had she been able to scale the fence like Petya. Her head pounded like someone had hit her with a baseball bat. Over and over and over like he was making Petya and it wasn't stopping and why couldn't she breathe?
"Are you saying that you remember the events following being struck over the head?" The prosecutor asked, jarring Louisa back to reality.
Louisa blinked, the courtroom bleeding back into focus. It took her a moment to register what they had said, but it didn't make much sense even then. Of course, she didn't remember what happened after Lambe cracked a bat against her skull. She had been knocked out cold. "Sorry?"
"Objection," the defence attorney called. "He's leading the witness."
"I'm asking her to clarify," the prosecutor corrected.
Clarify what? Louisa wanted to ask. She glanced around the courtroom, her eyes seeking out her father's familiar face. It was pale, and his blanched lips were barely visible from how tightly he pressed them together. Next to him, Jasper's yellow eyes were watching her with a fierce intensity that made her skin crawl. Something had happened that upset them, she could gather that much, but for the life of her, she couldn't figure out what.
The judge's "Overruled" distracted her from thinking about it any further. The man looked down with an expectant expression and waited for her to respond to a question she still didn't understand. "This wasn't in your deposition, Miss Collins."
What wasn't in her deposition? Her confusion must have been visible because the judge asked the court reporter to read back what she had said.
"'He hit me over the head, and I fell. He bent over and ran his finger through my hair, then picked me up. We're walking back towards the warehouse.'"
She knew she had been unconscious when it happened. She was positive. So why could she remember Lambe's fingers running through her hair? How did she know that Lambe scooped her up, cradled her in his arms, and carried her like she was a baby?
"'We're back in the warehouse, in the room we found her in. He laid me down on the ground. He's talking to Petya,'" the court reporter continued in a robotic voice, devoid of any sort of inflexion. They went on to recount a conversation that Louisa had no memory of, neither witnessing nor speaking.
And then: "'He handed him the bat and told him to kill her. And he made Petya hit her.'"
It was as if the air had been sucked out of the room, or perhaps just her lungs. Louisa leaned forward, her shoulders collapsing in on themselves, and her fingers dug into the witness box in an attempt to keep herself upright. As the court reporter spoke, images played out in her mind that were eerily similar to what she described. So why didn't they feel real? She could see Lambe carrying her, but she couldn't feel his arms cradling her body. She could see how gently he placed her on the ground, pressed his fingers so tenderly to her cheek, but she couldn't feel the chill of the concrete floor nor the heat of his touch. The memories that were so clear in her head didn't feel like hers. It was almost as if they weren't from her perspective.
The realisation came to her all at once, and an icy chill ran down her spine. She didn't remember these events at all because they weren't her memories. They literally belonged to someone else. There were only two people in the room that night who witnessed what happened, and as far as she knew, Lambe wasn't testifying. Which meant…
"If you knew what really happened that day," Petya had said, his breath hitching as he tried to hold back his tears. "You wouldn't love me anymore."
She was witnessing Petya's memories. There was no doubt in her mind that that was what had happened. Nor was there any doubt about how it happened, just like that day in March, when she had driven him home. She had asked him what had happened, and he hadn't told her. But she could feel the memories as if they were carved like scars on his skin, waiting for her to notice them. The memories he had so desperately tried to hide from her, and she had nearly stolen anyway. Only this time, nothing had stopped her from violating her friend's trust. Louisa felt sick to her stomach.
"Miss Collins, I must remind you that you are under oath," the judge said, leaning down to look at her. "Are these claims something you witnessed? Or are they something you've been told?"
The world seemed to grind to a halt at that moment. How was she supposed to answer the judge's question without lying? She could hardly say that she witnessed the events first-hand, after all. But still, she had seen these things, even if she had seen them after they had happened. Her answer resided in a weird grey area between truth and fiction, leaving her to feel like she was lying no matter what she said. The US justice system hardly accounted for psychometrics testifying in court.
It was at that moment, Louisa knew her life was going to change. No matter what she said, there would, without a doubt, be consequences—good or bad—for her testimony. She was traipsing along a precipice, where a single step could send her spiralling towards safety or chaos. The only problem was, she didn't know which direction led to which fate. She had a choice to make.
"This is what I saw," Louisa answered. Because, after all, what could she say? Was she supposed to lie and withhold information? Information that could be the difference between locking a monster up in jail and letting him roam free. She had the power to make things right, to atone for the problems that she had created. After all, what was the point of her gift of psychometry if she refused to use it to make the world a better place?
The courtroom erupted in a flurry of activity at her pronouncement. The prosecutor looked as if he couldn't decide whether he was pleased by her response or angry at the curveball she had just thrown. He finally settled on vaguely annoyed and turned to converse with his co-counsel. To distract herself from the defence side of the room, she began scanning the gallery, finding her father almost immediately. He gave her a steady smile that would have been reassuring if it wasn't for the fact his face was nearly as pale as Jasper's. At least her boyfriend didn't look particularly fazed by the turn of events—then again, he probably had a good idea about how she came across this new information.
"Are you quite well, Miss Collins?" the judge asked. Louis tilted her head towards him and noticed that he was watching her with a furrowed brow.
Louisa considered the question for a second before shaking her head. "Do you have a tissue?" And without further explaining, her nose began to bleed spectacularly.
The judge looked alarmed at the amount of blood gushing out of her nose (she would have been too if it didn't happen on a weekly basis) and dove for his gavel. The amount of blood wasn't unusual by her usual standards, but she could understand how someone else would panic. After proclaiming that there would be a recess, Louisa found herself ushered out of the courtroom and to the nearest lavatory.
The girl who stared back at her in the bathroom mirror was a sight to see: pupils blown wide, cheeks flushed, and wearing a blood-stained blouse, she looked like some sort of demon that was summoned at slumber parties. Louisa thrust her shaking hands under the tap and began scrubbing her face. She watched as the pink water swirled around the basin, a light, detached feeling buzzing around in her skull.
By the time she got the bleeding to stop, her blouse was ruined. Fortunately, Jasper was waiting outside the toilet and handed her his jumper before pulling her into a hug. She tucked her head under his chin and permitted herself to be comforted for a moment. She could feel his influence seeping through her veins, chasing away the cold numbness that had settled in her fingers and toes.
They wandered towards the canteen in silence. Her father was already waiting for them, having claimed a table in a semi-secluded area. He had decided to forgo a meal but refused to allow Louisa to do the same. Mr Collins pointed towards the food, his unimpressed expression leaving no room for arguments. Louisa huffed dramatically but complied with the command, searching for the least offensive looking thing to eat. They were in a canteen, after all.
"Lastochka."
Louisa's head snapped around so fast that one of her plaits whacked her in the face. For a wild moment, she thought that Petya or Mr Yakovlev had returned to watch her testimony. She cast a look around the canteen, her gaze settling on a vaguely familiar man in a dark grey suit, murmuring into a mobile phone and casting furtive glances around the room. It took a few seconds for her brain to catch up and recognise that she was staring at Jason Lambe's attorney. However, the shock of seeing him paled in comparison to what she felt when she realised that it was the attorney speaking in Russian. Horribly butchered and stilted Russian, but Russian nonetheless.
Interest bloomed in her chest, chasing away the remaining dissociative fog she had found herself in since beginning her testimony. She inched closer, tilting her face down as she attempted to listen to his side of the conversation. Jasper noticed the shift in her mood and tilted his head in confusion. She shook her head and pressed a finger to her lips when he began to question her.
Louisa was right behind the attorney now, so close that she could hear his conversation partner chattering away on the other end of the phone. It was a woman, judging by the pitch of the voice, and whilst Louisa couldn't hear the exact words she was saying, there was little doubt about what they were talking about. She followed behind the attorney, grabbing an apple from a nearby stand as he loaded up a plate at the salad bar. Louisa idly wondered how oblivious the attorney was not to notice the nearly six-foot-tall girl walking behind him. Still, she wasn't going to complain, especially when he paid for his meal and she got a peek of the inside of his wallet.
Fascinating.
Mind whirling, she paid for her meagre lunch and returned to the table her father had claimed. Mr Collins clicked his tongue in disapproval when he saw her apple but chose not to comment. Louisa was grateful to be spared the lecture. They ate in contemplative silence, minus Jasper, who lounged in the chair next to her, his arm draped casually across her shoulders as he watched the canteen's patrons scuttle about their afternoon.
"I wasn't supposed to run into him, was I?" she asked quietly enough so that her father couldn't overhear. There was no question to whom she referred. Louisa was no lawyer, but running into the defence attorney during recess seemed like it could be bad for the case.
"No," Jasper agreed.
"Fortunately, he didn't notice me then," she said, glancing at her boyfriend out of the corner of her eye. "It's almost like he didn't care enough to notice that he was being followed."
Jasper was the picture of nonchalance at her probing statement. "How bizarre," he stated. His fingers flicked at one of her plaits, and Louisa felt amusement trickle through her veins. "It's amazing he made it through law school, considering how unobservant he is."
Louisa snorted and leaned into Jasper's side. "Thank you."
Jasper hummed in acknowledgement and pressed a kiss to the top of her head. "Did you learn anything interesting?"
A smirk pulled at her lips. "Just a few things."
No Stone Left Unturned
The peace didn't last. Her dread increased with every step she took towards the courtroom, even with Jasper by her side. If she thought the examination was terrible, she knew that the defence's cross-examination was going to be worse. Her father had already left to join the gallery, but Jasper accompanied her back to the witness' room, a pensive look on his face. He nodded to the security guard stationed out front, and nobody blinked an eye as he waltzed into the room with her. With how quiet he was, it was easy to forget how charismatic her boyfriend could be.
The room was empty when they entered, but they knew it wouldn't stay that way for long. Any minute, someone would come to collect her so that she could resume her testimony. Any moment, she could be whisked away to face Jason Lambe. She felt her apple gurgle in her stomach at the thought, and she dove into Jasper's arms. He nuzzled her hair before pulling back, a hand catching her chin, guiding her to look up.
"Lou," Jasper said when she finally looked him in the eye. "You need to keep your head in there."
She let out an annoyed sigh at his reminder. "So everyone keeps telling me."
"I'm serious, Louisa," he said, raising his free hand to capture the back of her head when she tried to pull away. "What's coming will be bad."
The assurance in his voice set her on edge, despite his best efforts to keep her calm. "What do you know?" she whispered. "Has Alice—?" This was precisely the reason she was supposed to be sequestered—so that nobody could influence her testimony (well, perhaps not because of information obtained from psychic vampires). But at that moment, she couldn't bring herself to care. Her hands gripped Jasper's arms, her fingers twisting into the fabric of his shirt, as if doing so would somehow ground her from her panic.
"That's the problem," he replied, his lips twisting into a scowl. "It all hinges on you. She knows not the outcome until you decide your path. But if you lose your temper with the defence attorney, Lambe will walk."
A wave of nausea rolled through her stomach. Sensing her anxiety, Jasper pulled her into an embrace, his arms supporting her weight when her knees threatened to give out. "What sets me off?" she managed to ask through numb lips.
"The defence has your medical records," Jasper stated. "They know about the accident and your amnesia. The attorney will bring it up and claim that you are an unreliable witness."
Anger burned through the icy panic, her trembles turning to those of fury. "Is that even legal?"
"Yes." His arms locked around her as she tried to pull away. He lifted a hand to cradle her head to his chest, though he didn't take away her anger. A dim part of Louisa's consciousness was thankful for that.
"They have no right!" she snapped, blinking away angry tears. "They have no right to share that information in front of all of those people. In front of him."
"They're desperate," Jasper explained, his fingers massaging small circles into her scalp. "And after that bomb you dropped earlier, they're scared. Not that this is your fault," he added when he felt her tense. "They must have been planning this for weeks."
While Louisa had never tried to hide her lack of memories before the age of seven, she rarely discussed her amnesia with anyone outside her family. She wasn't entirely sure why. It felt like the fact that there were significant gaps in her memory should be kept private. Like she was sharing a part of herself that not even she had access to. It made her feel naked and vulnerable. And she was about to have that exposed in front of everyone.
"You have nothing to be ashamed of," Jasper said, pulling away so he could look her in the eyes. "You have done nothing wrong."
"I'm not ashamed," she replied, a hair too quickly. At Jasper's pointed look, she sighed and amended her statement. "I'm not ashamed of my past. But…"
"It makes you feel powerless," Jasper finished. He pressed a kiss to her forehead when she didn't disagree with him.
"Lambe already has so much power over me," she admitted. "I still have nightmares about what happened. Sometimes it feels like I never left the warehouse." Something brushed against her cheek—one of Jasper's handkerchiefs she belatedly recognised—wiping away tears she didn't know she had shed.
Jasper watched her, and although his face remained expressionless, she could see a hollow, fragile look in his dark eyes. Pain, she thought it might be, though she couldn't fathom why. He reached out and tucked a loose tendril of hair behind her ear, his thumb brushing over her cheekbone. "Today, you can reclaim that power," he said after a long moment of silence. "This is all in your hands, no matter how you choose to react. That man is at your mercy today."
These were not the comforting words that she had been expecting to hear. No, they were the words of a man hardened by war, who had his life ripped away from him and torn to shreds, who for so long was a victim of others more powerful than he. They were the words of someone who never got the revenge he desperately wanted nor the closure for what others had done to him. They weren't words of comfort, really, not in the traditional sense. Instead, they were empathetic (in a way completely unrelated to his supernatural gift). And in that, Louisa found solace.
Because when all was said and done, she knew she wasn't alone. They understood each other without words needing to be exchanged. It didn't matter that he was a Victorian vampire, and she was a Millennial mortal, really. Despite the one hundred and sixty years that separated their births, they weren't so different.
Louisa nodded and tilted her head up, pressing a soft kiss to his lips. It was short but sweet, filled with gratitude and commiseration, understanding and empathy. And when he returned the kiss, she knew he got her message.
She pulled away first and squared her shoulders. She set her jaw and straightened her spine. Her eyes slipped shut, and she took a deep calming breath. Jasper had disappeared by the time she opened them, but she found that she wasn't alone. An usher had entered the room and was waiting for her, ready to lead her back to the witness box and face… whatever came next.
No Stone Left Unturned
"Louisa," the defence attorney began. He wore, what appeared to be at first glance, a pleasant smile. Upon further examination, it didn't quite reach his eyes. It was shark-like. Predatory, as if he had just scented blood. In a way, she supposed he had. "How old were you on July thirteenth, 2017?"
It wasn't the question she had expected, but she answered it anyway. "Sixteen."
The defence attorney hummed in a patronizing way that set her teeth on edge. "And how old are you today, Louisa?"
Well, considering it was almost a year later, Louisa wanted to snark. You do the math. "Seventeen."
He hummed again, that stupid smile still plastered on his face. "How well do you perform in school, Louisa?"
Louisa wanted to know why this was relevant. "Well enough, I suppose."
The defence attorney tutted. "Oh come now, Louisa," he began. "You don't have to be modest. Your English teacher, in particular, had nothing but wonderful things to say about you when I spoke with him. Mr Mason, at Forks High School. Home of the Spartans, isn't it?"
It took every ounce of self-control not to visibly react to the attorney's words. Had he really just announced her school in the public courtroom? In front of Lambe?
The attorney didn't seem interested in her response and continued. "He told me that you were reading above your grade level. That he had to create a new curriculum for you because you were so advanced."
"Objection!" The prosecutor called.
The judge didn't bother waiting for the prosecution's reason. "Is there a question somewhere, Councillor?"
"I'm trying to understand why Louisa Collins is lying," the defence attorney replied, his wide eyes belying innocence.
Louisa wanted to throw her shoe at him and only just refrained.
"Then I suggest you ask her a question," the judge rebuked, annoyance colouring his voice. "Rather than wasting our time by extolling Miss Collins' exemplary academic record."
The defence attorney looked far less abashed than most would after being told to shut up and make his point. Louisa watched him with narrowed eyes, her brain trying to follow the defence's logic.
They were painting her out to be a good student, which was an odd choice to make. If anything, they should be making her out to be a poor one. Instead, they took the time to look into her academic record and talk to her teachers—Mr Mason, her English teacher, in particular. Not Mrs Goff, who would have complained that she chatted too much with Rose during class, nor Coach Clapp, who had no problems calling her lazy. No, they brought up Mr Mason, whose class she excelled in.
The defence attorney had called her a liar. That alone was enough to piss her off (okay, even if technically she was lying about the whole witnessing in-person thing), but to suggest that she was a storyteller? A… storyteller. Who excelled at English.
Oh, this guy was good. She wondered how long it would take to bring up Mr Hewitt.
"Louisa," the defence attorney began again, fixing her with that shark smile once again. "How long have you lived in Forks, Washington?"
She really wished he would stop announcing the town she lived in. "We moved last August," she replied, hoping it didn't sound like she was gritting her teeth. "So eleven months."
The attorney nodded. "And how long did it take you to tell reputation destroying tales about Lloyd Hewitt?"
There it was.
"Objection!"
The judge rightly sustained the objection, citing that Louisa's affairs with Mr Hewitt were irrelevant to the court proceedings. He even went as far as to tell the jury to disregard the previous questions regarding the case. Not that it mattered, of course. Even if they were told to ignore the facts, the jury had still heard them. There was always the chance that it would influence their decision. And that was precisely what the defence lawyer wanted.
Jasper was right. They were desperate. They knew that Lambe was guilty as hell, and they were doing anything they could to confuse the jury and distract them from the facts.
"Louisa," the defence attorney continued, a smug smile on his face. "I'll save us some time and spare you from having to recount the night of July thirteenth. A night you somehow remember, despite claiming in your deposition that you didn't remember much. How did you remember it, by the way?"
Well, that was a stupid question.
"I don't know," she replied through gritted teeth.
"Did you forget that too?" the defence attorney asked with a laugh. "That seems to be the pattern with you too. Your Honour, I'd like to present Louisa Collins' medical file, pertaining to an incident that occurred in July of 2008, where Louisa Collins fell off a cliff and suffered total retrograde amnesia."
"Objection!"
The judge listened to the prosecutor's argument before replying in a grave tone, "Overruled. Continue, Councillor."
It had finally happened, Louisa recognised dimly. Something the defence had thrown at the wall had finally stuck and hadn't been dismissed by the judge out of hand. Louisa took a deep, calming breath and braced herself for what came next.
A satisfied smirk danced on the defence attorney's lips, and he launched into a dramatic, sordid tale about Louisa's lack of identity and how she remembered little before the age of eight. "She fancies herself a detective, I suspect, though I suppose we can't blame her. After all, with how little she knows about herself, she must be desperate to project that lack of self-awareness onto others. She has been desperate since 2008 to find meaning where there was none, and truth where there are no lies."
He was correct, in a way, Louisa had to admit. It was similar to what she had described to Jasper back in November, on their first date, before she knew about her psychometry and his vampirism and that a murderous chemistry teacher was observing her house. Jesus, it felt like a century ago.
"It was this desperate need to control the world that had Louisa Collins seeking out a scapegoat in Seattle. A sacrificial lamb that came in the form of an upstanding citizen, one who ran a soup kitchen and cared for the poor and vulnerable members of society. What do you have to say to that, Louisa?"
Louisa tried to focus over the roaring in her ears and keep her voice steady when she felt that she would rather shout. "I didn't come to Seattle in 2017 aiming to cause trouble. I came at the request of—" she swallowed hard, forcing down the bile that was rising in her throat. "Jason Lambe."
"The very man you are now accusing!" The defence attorney emphasised. "Why would Mr Lambe contact you, as you claim he did, if he was the one committing these alleged crimes?"
"He did contact me," Louisa replied. "Several times. The phone records from the time were subpoenaed if I am not mistaken. As to why he contacted me… well, it's not unheard of for people like him."
"Please elaborate," the attorney asked. "What exactly do you mean by people like him?"
Lousia pursed her lips. "The bored ones. The ones who think they are cleverer than the rest of us."
"And you believe that Jason Lambe is one of these clever people?"
"He's certainly intelligent. That was the first thing I noticed when I took the case."
The defence attorney narrowed his eyes at this pronouncement. "And what else did you know?"
"I knew I was looking for a white male in his mid to late thirties," she began. "This was based on his victims—white women of similar age. The state of the crime scenes of previous victims showed that the perpetrator was organised—the place where the victim was killed differed from where they were found, and little evidence was found at the dumpsite. This suggests that careful thought and meticulous planning went into the murder." She wiped her hands down the front of her skirt, straightening the nonexistent wrinkles. "This level of organisation suggests that the killer was of above-average intelligence and likely well educated.
"The victims were all women on the edges of society—particularly sex workers or living in extreme poverty. They were street smart, though. Cautious. They wouldn't go anywhere with someone without a good reason. The lack of defensive wounds on the victims was also telling. Either they knew their killer and were willing to follow him, or he was charming enough that they felt comfortable approaching him.
"From this, I could deduce that this man was incredibly charming. He was the type of person that was well thought of by his neighbours, and when he was arrested, they would have been surprised he was capable of violence. His family, however, would not have been. They would have witnessed his violent outburst, especially towards women. Because of this anger, the perpetrator would have very few interpersonal relationships and would most likely be single."
She would have continued on but was interrupted by the defence attorney, who watched her with a patronising indulgence like she was an excitable kindergartener babbling about her favourite dinosaur.
"This is all very impressive, Louisa," he said. "I can see why you excel in your English class. This is very creative. How long did it take you to come up with this story?"
A muscle in her face twitched. "It isn't a story. It's a profile I built after studying the dumpsites of the victims and their autopsy reports." Which, honestly, was a surprise that she even managed to get a hold of them, being sixteen at the time.
"Ah, yes," he replied, nodding his head. "A criminal profile. I saw that on Criminal Minds." He let out a dry, ungenuine laugh. "I also happen to know that criminal profiling is little more than guesswork. On more than one occasion, even the FBI has gotten their profiles wrong. How are we to expect a child to fare any better?"
Because the child is literally psychic, she desperately wanted to snap. "If you doubt my credibility," she replied in a forced even tone, "I am more than happy to offer references for past cases I have consulted on. Cases in which I delivered an accurate profile that resulted in the conclusion of the investigation."
But the defence attorney wasn't interested in her answer. Instead, he turned towards the jury with an exasperated expression.
"Ladies and gentlemen, you have heard from this girl's own mouth that she is nothing more than a charlatan and a scam artist. She is no more legitimate than psychics that claim to help police investigations. Only this is infinitely worse. Instead, a little girl has allowed her mind to run wild, inventing fanciful, creative, and elaborate stories to ruin the lives of upstanding citizens. She has a pattern, of course. She comes to a new town, makes a few guesses—"
She couldn't help herself. Louisa was fine being called many things, but calling into question her carefully honed craft of reading people was one of the few insults she would not abide by.
"Deduced."
"I beg your pardon?"
"I said I deduced. There is a difference."
The attorney looked like Christmas had come early. He gave her a smug smile. "Please, illuminate me. I'm sure we all would like to know. What, Miss Collins, is the difference between a guess and a deduction?"
Louisa raised an eyebrow, unable to keep the patronising look off her face. "A guess is the prediction of an outcome. A deduction is a conclusion reached after logic has been applied to a specific premise. No guesswork involved."
The defence attorney raised his hands in a 'there you have it, folks' sort of gesture. "Louisa Collins fancies herself as some modern-day Sherlock Holmes when really, she couldn't tell me what I ate for lunch, let alone deduce where Sally Gibbons was!" The defence attorney laughed, turning his back on her and striding away.
Well, now he was just asking for it.
"A salad," the words rose in her chest and bubbled out of her mouth like a soap bubble.
The defence attorney whipped around, looking scandalised. "Excuse me?"
"You ate a salad for lunch," she repeated. She glanced up at the judge, arranging her features into an innocent expression. "He's trying to lose weight. If you look at his shirt, it's too loose around the neck, so he's made decent headway with the diet."
"Well, Councillor?" the judge said, trying to keep the amusement off his face. "Is she correct?"
The defence attorney slowly turned to face her, the tips of his ears turning red. "Lucky guess."
The bubbling in her chest became a rolling boil, and her vision became rimmed with red. "Not really. A lucky guess would be to tell you the exact day you got home from Russia."
"Russia?" the words came out in a faint, horrified whisper. Louisa relished the sight of the colour draining out of the man's face. He glanced around the room, licking his lips, before letting out a nervous laugh. "Why do you say I was in Russia?"
"There are Russian rubles in your wallet, so you've only just returned—why else would you still have them? Combined with that, and the fact your watch has the wrong date on it, I deduced you recently returned home from visiting your girlfriend in Russia." It would have been wise to stop there. She knew she should have stopped there. She had already made her point. But Petya's pale, tear-streaked face appeared in her mind. She wanted to make this man hurt like he hurt her friend. "Oops, I shouldn't have said that. Your wife is here today. That's not a guess either, by the way. She's sitting in the first row—matching wedding bands, although hers is much cleaner. She takes care of hers. You don't. Why? Maybe you're lazy, though I doubt a man who matches his socks to his trousers wouldn't extend the same level of detail towards his jewellery. More likely, you're having an affair. Wouldn't be the first hotshot lawyer to do so.
"But how do I know you went to Russia to visit your girlfriend? That's an easy one to deduce. You certainly didn't take your wife—she's too pale for having just returned home from holiday. How do I know you didn't go for business? I suppose you could have, but it's unlikely. What business does an American criminal defence lawyer have in Russia? Combining the Russian currency, time zone change, and the wedding ring with your recent health kick, which is an obvious attempt to look good for your Lastochka, I deduce that you are having an affair with a woman in Russia."
You could have heard a pin drop in the room. Nobody moved or even breathed. Instead, they all watched the defence attorney, whose skin had gone a mottled grey as he swayed on the spot. Until…
Jason Lambe laughed. It began as a strangled huff, and within seconds it was a full-on belly laugh that reverberated through the courtroom. "Oh, you are a clever one, Louisa Collins," he said between chuckles. "I was right to choose you."
The sound sent a shiver down her spine, and it felt like ants were crawling across her scalp. Every instinct in her was telling her to run, to hide, and to put as much distance between herself and Lambe as she could. But she didn't. She couldn't. She was stuck in this stupid witness box where she could feel Lambe's gaze on her skin, dissecting her, leering and possessive. She thought she might be sick.
The defence attorney slowly turned to look at Lambe, dumbfounded. If he hadn't been so much of a jackass, Louisa might have even felt sorry for him. After all, having your client all but admit he was guilty after a witness aired your dirty laundry to the court had to be awkward, to say the least.
"No further questions, your Honour," the attorney said in a quiet voice, barely audible over Lambe's laughter.
If the prosecution felt any particular way about this development, they didn't show it. Louisa was dismissed without any further question soon after, and an usher came to collect her. She stepped out of the witness box with shaky legs and crossed the courtroom as quickly as possible without bursting into a sprint.
A hand shot out and stopped her in her tracks, wrenching her shoulder painfully. Cold fingers wrapped around her wrist and pulled her back with surprising strength. She turned her head and made eye contact with Jason Lambe for the first time in over a year. He watched her with those cold, pale blue eyes, devoid of any emotion besides unshakable conviction.
"Next time," he said in a soft voice, low and smooth and better suited for a minister than a murderer. "I'll finish it."
It wasn't a threat. It was a promise. She didn't know what exactly his words entailed, but their meaning was obvious. Every moment from then until Lambe drew his last breath, Louisa would always need to look over her shoulder. He would hunt her down and resume his sick, twisted, demented games, and she would be forced to participate lest other people got hurt. And then, once he had beaten her, he would consume her. There was no winning in this fight—only pain and suffering and death.
Deep down in her bones, Louisa knew he meant every word of it.
Around her, she could hear people yelling, police arriving to separate them, tugging at her arm and prying at his hand. But it all felt muddy and muted, as if she were experiencing them underwater. Or perhaps they were happening to someone else, and she was witnessing it because it didn't feel like her but it didn't feel like anyone else and it felt real but it didn't.
"Not if I do first," she promised. Her voice felt far away from her, and she half-wondered if she had spoken at all.
A shark-like grin, one showing too many pearly white teeth and didn't meet his eyes, spread across Lambe's face. "I look forward to it."
"You really shouldn't."
And then she was gone, back into the witness' chambers and into Jasper's waiting arms.
No Stone Left Unturned
Her father wouldn't let her go to the trial's conclusion. He said it was over and done with and to let other people take care of it. And then he went to work, leaving her alone with a car and no adult supervision. Foolish of him, really.
Jasper drove, one hand on the steering wheel and the other hand massaging her leg.
"We need an exit plan, Louisa," he murmured in a low voice.
"Has Alice seen anything?" she asked, dread creeping into her voice.
Jasper was quiet for a moment, his lips twitching as he considered his next words. "She's seen that he will be sentenced to prison," he admitted. "But after that, things get chaotic. Especially concerning you."
She grabbed his free hand and laced her fingers through his, drawing strength from his presence and his touch. "Chaotic, how?"
"How long he stays in prison varies," he admitted. If there was one thing Louisa appreciated about Jasper, it was his bluntness. She appreciated he didn't try to appease her anxiety or sugarcoat his words. "It all ends with him coming for you."
The revelation didn't surprise her at all. She nodded and let out a heavy sigh before leaning her head against his shoulder. Jasper lifted their conjoined hands to place a lingering kiss on the inside of her wrist.
"When that happens," when, not if, she noticed. "I will change you. I will not lose you."
It was difficult to articulate her feelings at that moment. There was a thrill of fear at the pronouncement that was only rational, given what she knew about the vampire transformation process. Another part of her was dread, knowing what awaited her and how she was powerless to stop it. But on top of all of that, she felt strangely… loved? There was something insanely comforting, knowing the lengths Jasper would go to protect her. She didn't understand that part of her, but she suspected it had less to do with her and more to do with the bond she and Jasper shared.
"Thank you," she murmured, tilting her head to press a kiss to an exposed patch of skin on his neck. "For keeping me safe."
Despite the situation, a chuckle escaped his lips. "You don't make it easy, my love."
"No," she agreed. "I suppose I don't."
They continued their drive in silence that wasn't precisely peaceful but wasn't as charged as before. They picked up Petya on their way to Seattle, and he sat in the back seat, lost in thought as he stared out of the window.
More than two weeks had passed since they were last in Courtroom 202, and it was a welcome change that they were sitting in the gallery rather than standing in the witness box. She sat between Jasper and Petya, holding their hands in a gesture equal parts giving and receiving comfort, and waited on bated breath for the jury to arrive.
Seven men and five women, ranging from their twenties to their eighties, traipsed into the courtroom and took their seats. They looked painfully average for the important job they had. A tall, reedy, middle-aged man sat in the front by a microphone and clutched a stack of papers, looking like he was about to present an Academy Award. He was the foreman, Louisa guessed, holding Lambe's sentences. The outcome of the trial and Louisa's life.
Then the judge arrived, looking exhausted and harried. He addressed the jury without preamble and asked them if they had arrived at a verdict. The foreman nodded and rose, clearing his voice and stepping up to the microphone.
"For the assault and attempted murder of Louisa Collins," the foreman read. "The jury finds you guilty."
There was no thrill of conviction or triumph from these words. Only a hollow emptiness that chilled her fingers and squeezed her throat. She let out a shuddering breath and focused on the way Jasper's fingers were massaging the back of her hand.
"For the assault and attempted murder of Pyotr Yakovlev," the foreman read. "The jury finds you guilty."
Beside her, Petya bowed his head and let out a choked sob. Despite the numbness in her extremities, she gave his hand a gentle squeeze, as if to remind herself that he was real and alive and that she was too, even if the world felt as if it might collapse around them at any moment.
"For the murder of Sally Gibbons," the foreman read, "the jury finds you not guilty."
Around them, the courtroom erupted, some with jubilation, others fury. They remained seated, frozen in time even as the world whirled around them, sometimes in slow motion and other times at twice the speed. Time was relative, sitting there on that hard wooden bench in the gallery. She could have been there twenty minutes, or it could have been twenty years. All she knew was that Petya was there and Jasper too, gripping her hands like lifelines in a sea of chaos.
And that she had failed.
"Law and justice are not always the same." — Gloria Steinem
A/N: Anyway, I hope you weren't too disappointed by the chapter. Things were going too well for Lou and I had to torture her. Let me know what you thought. -CA