Sheep in wolfskin 13
Hey guys, thanks for the reviews. Here's another chapter, i hope you like.
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"Survival is the ability to swim in strange waters."
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Steve felt his heart constrict with pain as he listened to her. He felt sorry for the girl she had been, suddenly having the rose-colored glasses shattered so abruptly and absolutely. The world was not so rose colored to her now. He listened to her tell of how she had slept with homeless people at a bunk fire under a bridge, hiding form the police for a crime she had not committed. How she had not yet dealt with the shock of witnessing her friends gunned down before she was accused of the horrid crime. The whole Courtroom was quiet as she spoke, no doubt feeling the same way as the puzzle pieces fell into place one by one.
She had been one of the last people to get off that bus, at the last station. She had no idea which town she was in, it wasn't like it was going to make any difference. She found a Library, went to their bathroom and finally took a good look at herself in the mirror. This was not happening! But it was. She was a fugitive from the law, when just a few hours ago she thought she was going to be getting an award of some sort.
She had looked in the mirror and saw a girl distraught, frightened, a far cry from the girl she had been just that morning. But this was happening, so she had to get rid of the frightened girl and make a plan to survive. She was now a fugitive and she needed to stay low until all of this was cleared up. Because it will be, this was just a huge mistake that will be cleared up soon. In the meantime, she had to evade the police, somehow. Her little backpack had a chemistry booklet, her car and home keys, a small toiletry bag, wallet and phone. She never packed lunch because she was always late getting up and everything after that was done in a rush. Plus, food was provided at the Lab so there was never any need. She didn't even have a bottle of water in that bag. She checked her wallet, she had credit cards she couldn't use now, not even to buy food or rent a room at a hotel. The credit cards and her cell phone had to go, the whole wallet in fact. She took the two twenty dollar bills she had in there and threw the wallet and the rest of its contents, including her ID, into the ladies' bin. She switched off her phone and threw that in too. She had wanted to call her parents and Joe so badly, but she knew she could not use her phone and a pay phone might just yield the same disastrous results she was afraid of. She knew the police were already monitoring anyone she could try to contact. Better to just leave it for now, she'll make the call when she gets to another town. Maybe this would have been resolved by then. Today she cursed the logic of never carrying too much cash around as she looked at her two miserly twenty-dollar bills, she had preferred the electronic way of doing things. Now, the forty dollars cash she had could only buy her two more bus tickets then she'll hit a dead end. She couldn't even think about food at the moment; besides, she didn't think she would be able to eat for a long while. She took a razor blade from her toiletry bag and started hacking off at her waist-long brown hair, leaving it barely long enough to reach her chin. She would dye it blonde had she the extra cash to buy the dye, but she didn't. The short hair will have to do for a disguise.
That first night she stayed in the library bathroom and waited for them to lockup before she settled in to sleep. As soon as they opened the next morning, she made her way out, bought another bus ticket to another town. She had to keep moving. The second night, she tried to sleep under a bridge. It was secluded and cold, not many people around at that time of night. It was spring, getting into summer, this time of year daylight was longer. It was warmer during the day, but with only a light hoody for warmth, the nights might as well be winter. She moved further down the bridge to a tunnel, at least an enclosed space would shield from the cold air. That night she found herself sharing a bonfire with the homeless under that tunnel, so grateful for the warmth and the company of people who didn't know or care who she was. An old man shared a sandwich with her, no doubt one he had got while begging in the streets earlier and she had never been more grateful. She had not eaten in two days, no cash, afraid to get into a shop in case her face was all over the papers, she didn't know how to steal and didn't want to beg.
Her third night, she found herself at a Gas Station hoping to hitch a ride, to anywhere really, just further away from where she was running from. The two guys who had tried to help her were gunned down right in front of her. She didn't see where the gunshots had come from but her good Samaritans were on the ground, bleeding. She huddled behind their truck to hide from the bullets, but no more bullets came. Shacking herself out of her stupor, she rushed to the two bleeding bodies, a father and son who probably hadn't recognized her face from the news now bled on the ground. She checked for pulses, the father was dead, but the son, a teenager, was still breathing, shot in the chest. Without thinking she planted her hands on the wound and tried to put pressure, but blood was still oozing out of the wound faster than her hands could stop it.
"Help!" She yelled to the gas station storekeeper, an old man past his sixties. He came out, seeing what had happened he ducked back into his shop, probably frightened out of his mind or calling for help. It didn't take five more minutes before she heard sirens coming closer. That had been fast, but she breathed with relief at the hope of help at last, an ambulance hopefully and for that moment she had forgotten about her fugitive status. Not until the squad cars surrounded her, uniformed police officers with guns pointed at her from a safe distance as if she was the most dangerous criminal this side of the world. She probably was, at the moment, America's most wanted.
"Put your hands up!" They yelled. She was blinded by the lights and torches directed on her face. She had no way out; her run was over. She was half glad. Being on the run for the past three days had been exhausting, frightening, she felt so lost with no direction and no idea which next step to take. Maybe it was just as well they had caught her, maybe by some freak accident they could also shoot her dead, and this whole nightmare would be over. But she had no such luck.
"Drop your weapon!" The others were yelling. She didn't have a weapon, so she just stared, not knowing what to do, she literary froze. Now she knew what a hunted animal felt like. It didn't feel good.
"I said, put your hands up right now!" Another said. She couldn't, she was trying to stop the bleeding.
"Put your hand up! Put your hands up!" They were drawing closer, the guns pointed more threateningly on her face. She let go, putting her bloody hands up.
"Ambulance…the kid…he's still..." She tried to say.
She was thrown off the body with force, landing on her side on the ground. Immediately an officer was behind her, taking her hands forcefully behind her back, she winced with pain. But she could never forget the cold steel of the iron cuffs closing on her wrists for the first time ever. At that moment, reality poured on her like a cold bucket of water, and she really wished they had been merciful enough to shoot her.
The officer hoisted her up, she looked down at the teenage kid just before they rushed her to the waiting squad cars.
The kid was dead.
She had never felt more guilty as at that moment. Innocent people were dying in her wake, whether she had pulled the trigger or not, his was all because of her. She had blood on her hands, literary and otherwise. She might be able to wash this blood off, but she would never feel absolved of her guilt.
Judge Mason cleared his throat, "Dr Mallory, one thing is not fitting so perfectly into this puzzle. You pled guilty on your trial. Why is that?"
Laura took a shacky breath, "Uh…I was…I was given no choice, Sir."
"By whom?" The Judge asked.
She then told of when she had been put in jail, awaiting trial.
Her parents had come to see her and they both couldn't keep their tears at bay, watching her in chains and talking to her through a glass. Seeing their daughter in that ugly prison uniform must have been too hard to bear. They believed her story, they were her parents after all, they knew her better than anyone. They vowed to get to the bottom of this whole thing. She had found solace in their vigor, and the relief of having someone on her side made her have hope that surely, in the nick of time, someone somewhere will stumble on the mistake that was being made here and she would be exonerated. She had asked after Joe, her fiancé, he hadn't yet made a visit.
Her parents had not seen him these past few days either, he had ever called and with all this chaos going on, they had never thought to look for him. He was a grown man; he would turn up. Maybe they just didn't want to tell her that he had decided she had become too much trouble for him, she could understand it. Who would want to marry her now? From a jail cell.
That afternoon a Journalist had requested to see her, hear her story from her perspective. She was relieved and as delighted as she could possibly be in her situation. At least now she could tell her story. Even if the world didn't believe her, she would have told her story, the truth would be heard at last. That same day, she sat across the table from the guy, messy blonde hair and spectacles, typical journalist type.
He asked a few questions, she answered cordially.
"So, you insist that you didn't kill those people?"
"I don't insist, I'm telling you I didn't. I'm in full control of my metal capacity and I didn't have any mental break down, I can assure you. I saw the guy who did it, I can describe him to a sketch artist. And I'm beginning to think this whole setup was done to shut me up. The whole team actually, about the virus and the cure that we discovered. I have no idea why but, how else can you explain…?" She said in earnest.
Some photos were slammed on the desk, she started from the violence of the gesture, looking up into the eyes of the journalist, she didn't see any of that friendliness anymore.
"Take a look at the photos ma'am." He said.
She looked down with apprehension and froze. It was Joe, her fiancé, sprawled on the floor in his apartment, dead. Some photos showed the crime scene with drugs on the table, indicative of a drug overdose.
"That's right, he ODed."
"Joe didn't do drugs." She said, disillusionment finally catching up with her. They had killed Joe too?
He shrugged, "Up to you to make that case. However, there are a lot more accidental deaths that can be arranged. Your parents were just here, were they not?"
She got the threat loud and clear. Dear God, Joe. He had managed to get trapped into this too. God no, he was dead too. How many people did she have to kill before this whole thing was over?
She swallowed convulsively. "What do you want from me?" She said now, a strange, cold numbness creeping up her spine. She had not been left alive by accident.
"Simple, plead guilty to everything, claim mental illness, it's up to you. However, if you make a fuss about this, try to talk, tell tall tells about this? Remember there are a lot more ways to accidentally kill people, and your parents are still topside. I would like to assume you want it to remain that way."
"Why don't you just kill me? Why are you going through all this? Why do you want me alive?"
"Why, because of that crazy brain of yours, Doc. We still might need your stupid algorithm if we encounter any problems in the future. Don't worry, you're safe. As for your loved ones, well, that's all up to you."
She had never felt her genius abilities to be a curse until that very moment. All this, all those people dead, because she had been able to crack a stupid code! She didn't know how she managed to get back to her cell, how she managed to stand in court the next day and mutter 'guilty' to the whole thing. They had compelling evidence anyway. The murder weapon, a 9mm caliber, they said, was found at her last crime scene, the Gas Station, with her fingerprints on it. Ballistics showed that it was the same caliber that had killed her colleagues at the Lab as well as the two guys at the Gas Station. What the hell did she know about guns? She had never held a gun in her life! But her fingerprints had been found on one. As she was led through the prison gates of Springcreek a few days later for the rest of her life, she couldn't help but ponder how this was such a cruel way to die. Slow, excruciating and endless but she would do anything to protect her parents. She would endure it with stoicism. Then a few days later, her parents visited her in prison for the first time after the conviction. Her mother had cried, wondering why she had pled guilty to something they knew she hadn't done. On their way back, they had a fatal accident, both of them died on the spot. She got the message from the prison warden. Unfortunately, she wasn't allowed to attend the funeral as she was considered a flight risk. Plus, she had just got here. She had thought herself lucky to have been spared the holocaust at the lab, but now her friends seemed to be the lucky ones.