Disclaimer: Twilight belongs to Stephanie Meyer. I'm just playing with her characters. Also, I did not come up with Jasper as the God of War or of Peter 'just knowing shit'. Those ideas belongs to IdreamofEddy.
A/N: Okay, so as always, there are many people I owe thanks to: my amazing beta and friend Laurie Whitlock, my pre-readers, the awesome AlwaysJASPERsLOVE and Shadman, who I also would like to think I can call my friends at this point. To my sister Shelljayz, who pre-reads for me as well as other things that are absolutely vital to the story. I love her to pieces. Shirleypositive72 is another wonderful person I always need to thank for her roundabout hand in giving me the courage to post Longing. I also need to thank Ellie Wolf for the banner she made for this story. She's not on this website anymore but she still deserves my thanks and recognition. Thank you to everyone who has followed, favorited, and reviewed. I love you all!
So my Christmas was absolutely amazing, awesome, and all the other adjectives in the dictionary that mean things along similar lines. Spending it with my mom, dad, sister, brother in-law, and niece was such a blessing. I got to see some of the rest of my family too, which was great, but the most amazing thing was getting to see my niece on Christmas morning. I loved that so much. Anyway, I hope your Christmas and/or other holidays were just as wonderful!
As the New Year approaches, I again hope that everyone stays safe and has a great time ringing in 2013. Happy New Year guys!
I suppose we should see how Bella is dealing with being arrested.
Chapter 17
oOo
September 2080
BPOV
-Flashback-
Saturday
"Paige Donnelly you're under arrest ..."
"Paige Donnelly you're under arrest ..."
"Paige Donnelly you're under arrest ..."
The words echoed in my head, but I couldn't figure out if they were real because they weren't the only thing echoing there. Screams were reverberating off the inside of my skull. Were they mine? They usually were, and it almost always took me way too long to figure that out. Was the glass of the front window of the bar really pressed against my cheek? Were those really handcuffs encircling my wrists or a hallucination and the flashes of the too-tight iron shackles cutting into them what was real? Was it really a police officer restraining me or was it a hunter that had me pressed against the glass of The Finish Line? Was I even in Kentucky? Had any of this been real? Had I even escaped Project Apotheosis or was this just another training exercise?
I didn't know. The hallucinations had snuck up on me, taken me by surprise, invaded my head with the dizziness and headache as the only warnings. It was a telltale sign of how stressed I was. I rarely let stress overtake me like this and of all the times to let it, this had to be the most inopportune. I blamed Jasper fucking Cullen, if he even existed.
If I was in Kentucky, I needed to fight against this, against being arrested; but how could I fight if I didn't know what was real and what wasn't? I couldn't.
In my current state, I had no way of knowing whether or not I was capable of tempering my strength enough to avoid seriously hurting a civilian. I didn't relish the idea of going back to Project Apotheosis if I was, in fact, not still there, but I would go back there before I would sully my hands with the blood of an innocent. I had incapacitated a civilian or several in my time away from Fort Ares; the operative word being incapacitated, as in leaving no lasting damage. There was just no guarantee of that at the moment and I couldn't risk it.
But whether or not I had been willing to risk it or if any of it was real soon became moot. The screaming in my head reached a fever pitch, I felt a warm wetness trickling out of my ears, and all I knew was darkness.
oOo
When I came to, I felt like I'd been hit by a train and noted that I was in a concrete room with a single barred window and a metal door that also had a small, barred window inset in its upper half. The whole place screamed incarceration, which was confirmed by the bits and pieces I remembered from the night before; the ones that were relatively untainted by my hallucinations, which was exactly what they had been. There weren't words for how grateful I was that I didn't remember them ... well, I should say "relive" because I had a crystal clear recollection of everything. I had just learned a long time ago how to compartmentalize. Some of my memories were sneaky little fuckers that managed to slip passed the army that guarded those compartments in my head. Then again, they were the memories of a genetically-engineered super soldier, so it was to be expected that they'd kick my apparently mundane figmental security's ass I supposed.
I found it amazing that a few hours of parting ways with reality made me feel so much worse than a whole month of self-induced starvation and sleep deprivation, but at least I knew for sure that I had escaped Project Apotheosis. All of that was real.
I was okay with my current situation though. Well, as okay with it as I could be. Being in a jail cell was certainly a damn sight better than the cold sterility of my barracks at Fort Ares. Don't get me wrong, I wasn't thrilled with this turn of events, but I could work with it ... hopefully.
I couldn't help but wonder how the hell this had happened. I didn't even have the first clue why I'd been arrested. I had a healthy respect for the police, always doing my best to stay off their radar for many reasons, not the least of which was how selflessly they served and protected their cities. It wasn't so much that I was afraid of them. While it was true they were a potential conduit to a return to Fort Ares and Project Apotheosis, it was still highly unlikely that they would be. Then again, I'd never been arrested before. Obviously it was best if I avoided them altogether, especially the perusal of the inside of a jail cell, but apparently that wasn't always possible. Another jarring reminder that I wasn't fucking invincible.
Here was the thing about the police and why my fears of their interference in my affairs weren't deeply-seated: the government couldn't acknowledge my existence. They couldn't say or do anything that might raise questions as to why a young girl was so damn important to them, and they would have to do precisely that in order to organize a manhunt that would even have a chance of being remotely successful at catching me. They couldn't weave some tale about me being some psychopathic murderous phenom without both alerting and warning civilian law enforcement agencies and the general populous about some of the things I was capable of. They knew I would make use of those abilities to fight for my freedom. It was what they had trained me to do, and they wouldn't be able to explain away the things I could do without at least some of the truth coming out. Even if people didn't recognize it as such, they would still wonder, still doubt, and the damage would have been done. Conspiracy theorists would have a fucking field day with it. Even seventy years later, our government was still trying to rebuild a precariously fragile nation, and they couldn't afford any egg on their face even if it was only a fleck or two of yolk. If I had still been in their custody and was proving to be the perfect little soldier they'd intended me to be it would be different, but alas.
It was for those aforementioned reasons that they'd enlisted an elite group of soldiers, and I mean the very best of the best: highly decorated and vastly experienced Navy Seals, Army Special Forces, and Marines, to be part of a task force with the express purpose of hunting me down and bringing me back. Those soldiers had been written into the most classified government experiment in the history of our country and specially trained to do the actual hunting and bringing back while others with different skill sets used those skills for different purposes to help bring me in; or so I imagined. Civilians even attempting to try to bring me in would go down something like one of those ancient Three Stooges movies.
But as powerful and as capable as I was, and as many things as I could do, I still had an Achilles Heel. The scientists of Project Apotheosis had left themselves a way to neutralize me in the event that I might decide to see if life outside Fort Ares was more palatable - a self-fulfilling prophecy if you ask me. I wasn't quite sure of the science behind it since there were so many possibilities that could have been responsible, but I knew that whatever insurance they had taken out against me involved some way of excruciatingly fucking with my nervous system. Every hunter I came across had a device that could enable this nervous system fuckery and, thus, had the potential to destroy me, which was why approaching the ones in British Columbia had been such a risky thing to do. If the tech didn't knock me out, it rendered me almost as normal as the next human, which at least made the fight more fair. The reason I say "more fair" instead of just "fair" is because weakening my super abilities didn't erase my extensive training. Pretty much any style of martial arts you can think of, I have a black belt in and my muscle memory was off the charts. It also couldn't take away my IQ or my eidetic memory, so I still had an advantage, but the soldiers they sent after me were just as well trained, just as resourceful, just as good with weaponry and adept at battle strategy. The big difference between us was that because I knew the brass behind Project Apotheosis, they would have been hand-picked for their ruthlessness; willing to do anything to complete their mission no matter the ethical implications. They followed orders, they didn't question - the way I had been supposed to.
Now getting arrested was still a very dangerous thing for me, but there were precautionary measures I could take to delay what would surely be an inevitable homing beacon announcing my presence in Louisville.
I am referred to most commonly as a soldier both by myself and by whom I was created, but that was really not the most accurate description of my purpose in this life. Universal government asset is a much better definition. All covert government operations whether they be straight up military, CIA, NSA or any other agency shrouded in secrecy generally have militaristic roots and goals; therefore, I was not just to be used by the United States Armed Forces. Once I hit 18, I would have been fair game to whatever outfit had the greatest need for me; thus, I would not only have been the perfect soldier, but the perfect spy and covert government operative in general. Had this been successful, had I been successful, it would have paved the way for the mass production of the fruit of the experiment of Project Apotheosis, but I digress.
One of the key parts of being a great spy was the ability to develop and embody airtight cover identities and aliases. One of the things standing in the way of creating a truly airtight alias was a person's fingerprints. Having a unique set of fingerprints for each alias made those aliases virtually untraceable. Making a separate set of silicone fingerprints for each mission, the application of those silicone fingerprints and the time it took, the possibility of said application eroding ... all of it was too messy and up in the air. One of my brilliant creators came up with the idea of engineering me so that I could change my fingerprints into an entirely unique set at will or change them back to a set I had already come up with in the past if I concentrated hard enough. It felt like dipping my fingertips in hydrochloric acid, but it was handy. Another use for it: if I needed to break into something of someone's that required a fingerprint scan all I had to do was touch their hand and I could replicate their fingerprints. I could do something similar with my eyes. If something required a retina scan to deactivate a layer of security, all I had to do was get the person to look me in the eyes for three solid seconds, and voila! I am such a freak! I had been born with a set of prints that were distinctly "mine" and were registered as such, or as Soldier Omega's rather, but it had been a while since I had let them regress back to that natural state.
This particular ability came back to bite my creators in the ass for the most part, but there was one telling part about each set of prints I adopted that did not previously belong to someone else. There was always the same minute curve in one place somewhere in one of the prints. It was never in the same print on the same hand or in the same place, so it was almost impossible to find if you didn't know what I was, where I came from, what I could do, and what to look for. For all I knew, it was almost impossible to find if you did, but if I knew the people that were after me, and I did, they had developed some sort of computer program that scanned and processed every new set of fingerprints that entered every system in the world that registered shit like that. If any of my prints came up and the techies of the task force whose sole job was to catch me found them, and I didn't get out of dodge quickly enough, like if I was, say, in jail, that would cause a problem for me. Still, changing my fingerprints up would buy me some time. I just didn't know how much, especially since I had no idea if I'd been fingerprinted already. I needed to find out.
I needed to find out why I had been arrested for that matter and I wanted my fucking phone call. I didn't have anyone to call, but that was beside the point. It was the principle of the thing.
So, like the mature almost adult I was, I staggered to my feet, swaying a little from the dizziness I couldn't quite shake, and started banging on the window of my cell like a maniac, careful not to pound hard enough to break the glass. There was a guard at the end of the hall, but he just stood there for a full minute, eyes forward, not acknowledging my presence except for the smirk on his jackass face. Finally, he sauntered down the corridor like he had all the time in the world before finally reaching my cell, giving me as decent a once over as he could through the small window and grinning at me like the pervy asshole he was.
"Can I get somethin' for ya sweetheart?" he asked, his tone just as leering as his face.
You will not punch through this glass hard enough to break this fucker's jaw. You will not punch through this glass hard enough to break this fucker's jaw, I repeated over and over in my head, making it a mantra. He no doubt thought that since I was behind bars and he had the handcuffs that he somehow held all the cards. I decided to change my mantra to, You will not send this fucker's nasal bone up into his brain.
I was tempted to flirt with him until he opened my cell door just so I could knee him in the balls when he got close enough but knew that wouldn't help my situation any. Instead, I rolled my eyes, crossed my arms over my chest, and said, "You can arrange a meeting with your superior for me."
oOo
I was now sitting in an interrogation room in the standard uncomfortable, cheap, metal chair with my hands cuffed at metal bars on the sides of it. No interrogation room would be complete without a two-way mirror or the cheap metal table sitting in front of the chair I was occupying, and this one was most definitely complete. I still felt like I'd been hit by a train, and I couldn't get my head to clear. Normally, everything was sharp, clear, focused. Now everything was fuzzy, foggy. I was still aware, I could still process, but I wasn't at my best, and if ever I needed to be it was now.
Currently, I was waiting for Inspector Roberts, the officer in charge of this particular police precinct, to grace me with her presence. So far I had been waiting for ten minutes. I knew that I hadn't been kept waiting because the head honcho was too busy to make time to see me just yet. Two people were standing behind that two-way mirror, and from the curt greeting one of those people had given the other, I knew Inspector Roberts was one of them. Most likely she was keeping me waiting to make me nervous. Ideally, the more nervous I was the more easily I would break when whomever they sent in to question me tried to get the answers they wanted. It was a simple yet classic interrogation technique. It was a tactic I was immune to, but they didn't know that. Now maybe if they'd cranked up the heat … oh wait, nope, still immune.
Inspector Roberts and whoever else was watching me were not in a particularly chatty mood. Neither had spoken a word since just after they had stepped foot in the room on the other side of that mirror.
I had a decision to make on how I wanted to play this. I could be the scared, confused girl, the angry, misunderstood chick, or I could be bored and apathetic. I couldn't do the scared, confused schtick. I was confused, not only because I didn't know what the fuck I was doing here but because my damn head hurt. However, if any of these cops talked to my co-workers at The Finish Line that personality wouldn't jive. That left angry and misunderstood or bored and apathetic. I still felt too shitty to get properly theatrical so bored and apathetic it was. It wasn't a stretch. I was bored.
Luckily, before I'd been left to stew in this cheery little room, I'd had to have my mugshot taken. That was fun. The policeman who'd taken it had to bite back a chuckle when I struck a silly pose. A girl had to find some humor in the situation or at least make some if she didn't want to go batshit crazy before she came up with a strategy to get herself out of her current mess, right? But that wasn't even the best part. I hadn't been fingerprinted the night before. Apparently, I'd been too much of a mess after I'd passed out to bother with booking procedures until I came to. I just barely managed not to do a happy dance or burst into song, Sound of Music style. So the movie was over 100 years old. I still had respect for the classics even if people that randomly burst into song obviously needed to be on some sort of medication.
Now I could have used a set of prints I'd "borrowed" from someone. Those prints were untraceable and flawless. They had to be if they were to serve their purpose in fooling fingerprint scans and whatnot, but that was something I would not do. There were all kinds of things that could go wrong with that tactic, not the least of which how ethically fucked up it was. Maybe I didn't know why I was in here, but it was still up to me, and me alone, to get myself out.
Precisely one minute and seventeen seconds later a man in his early sixties, standing at 5'10" with white hair and grey eyes, walked in the room and sat in the moderately more comfortable, yet still cheap, metal chair reserved for the interrogator. He placed a battered briefcase on the table.
"You aren't Inspector Roberts," I stated, the only emotion reflected in my tone certainty at this knowledge. That was the only emotion of mine that was relevant to the guy at the moment. He wasn't wearing the standard dress blues of the upper crust of Louisville's finest but a suit, and a lower end one at that. He didn't carry himself like a detective or any other plain clothes officer. Given that, he pretty much stunk of public servant. There wasn't anything wrong with what he did for a living. I just wanted to speak with the person in charge.
The man looked amused. "No, I'm not," he agreed, folding his hands in front of him. "My name is Bradford Conroy. I'm your attorney. I would shake your hand, but I'd really rather not have to get on my knees or resort to contortion to do it," he said, gesturing to my restrained hands.
"I wouldn't want you to throw your back out or potentially reveal your deeply buried kink, so we'll just say we did and get on with things," I remarked, taking a crack both at his age and his sex life. Honestly, he'd walked into that one. It wasn't that I didn't respect my elders, but this whole thing was a shit storm of epic proportions and my patience was pretty much nonexistent. I left sarcasm absent from my tone to soften the blow but the words themselves didn't exactly scream respect, so I supposed it was a fruitless effort. Mr. Conroy, however, appeared to be the opposite of offended. "Would you mind telling me why I'm here?"
"Are you familiar with the Safe Citizens Act?" he asked, studying my face carefully as he posed the question.
Everyone knew about the Safe Citizens Act or they should have. If they didn't, they'd been living in a cave their whole lives. After the terrorist attack in 2012, a full scale investigation had been undertaken in an effort to understand how the hell the United States had been so thoroughly infiltrated. It had been discovered that hackers and forgers had gone in and created such airtight fake identities for each of their zealots that none of the systems our country had concocted to raise red flags in warning were tripped - the very same type I'd been talking about earlier and the basis for which I'm certain the idea for my changeable fingerprints was born. One of the many ideas behind the Safe Citizens Act was to ensure that nothing like that ever happened again. It strictly regulated any and all forms of identification, far more strictly and vigilantly than it had before if one can imagine, and gave the government the right to haul off anyone caught either making false identification or in possession of it to be questioned endlessly and punished mercilessly if found guilty of intent to harm. More often than not, "intent to harm" was a relative phrase; especially if the public got wind of the fact that a law enforcement agency had a person or persons potentially guilty of this in custody.
I frowned. "Of course I am, but I don't see what it has to do with me and why I'm here."
Mr. Conroy sighed, pulled out a bottle of water and took a sip. "Have they offered you food or water? To take you to the restroom? To clean the blood off your face?"
I hadn't realized I had blood on my face. Was it mine?
"A guard asked if he could get anything for me but he wasn't really asking if I wanted a bottle of Evian and a cheeseburger, if you get my drift," I responded with a shrug, or as much of one as my hindered wrists would allow.
Mr. Conroy's eyes narrowed, "Did you happen to catch this guard's name?"
"I wasn't looking to be on a first name basis with him or an any name basis, really," I said. "If it helps I nicknamed him Officer Dickbag. I never called him that to his face, but I bet you that bottle of Evian and the cheeseburger he'd answer to it if you did."
He tried hard to hide his smile and cover his chuckle with a cough, but he only just failed to make it convincing. As for the voyeurs behind the mirror, I could hear them scowling.
"I'll see what I can do about food, water, and getting them to let you clean yourself up after our meeting has concluded and, in answer to your question, it has been alleged that you have violated the Safe Citizens Act," Mr. Conroy explained.
"Excuse me?" I spluttered incredulously, forgetting my concern over the fact that I had bled at some point and didn't know why. The idea that I was a terrorist was ludicrous. I was essentially our country's answer to terrorism and messy wars. He didn't know that, but it still made absolutely no sense. Where would they even get that idea?
"The police received an anonymous tip early this morning, stating that one Paige Donnelly, a waitress and bartender at a bar called The Finish Line used forged identification to obtain her job there. As you know, after the 2012 attacks, even though they were long before your time-" I wanted to snort at that. Maybe it had happened before I was born, but I'd lived and breathed the aftermath of it since I'd opened my eyes for the first time and taken my first breath. Those attacks were my time no matter when they happened, "-the possession of forged identification documents is a very serious offense, one that has even resulted in capital punishment," Mr. Conroy intoned gravely, but his eyes were kind, sympathetic.
I was too angry to give that much consideration though. No one in Louisville knew how old I was save one person - Jasper fucking Cullen. He was the only one who could even infer that I may have used forged I.D.s to get my job at The Finish Line, but would he really do that to me? I knew he was an asshole, but I didn't think he was that cold-hearted. He'd even seemed almost decent when he left earlier this morning. How could he do this?
Son of bitch! I cursed while trying to keep my expression neutral. It was a struggle. Fuck!
Given the circumstances, it was alright for me to look a little flustered. A normal person would have been. I pressed my lips into a thin line, applied enough pressure to turn them white I was sure, ground my teeth, and refused to speak ... for all of ten seconds. I didn't have time to waste. If I was in this place for the potential violation of the Safe Citizens Act, I would be on the radar of the federal government in the blink of an eye, if I wasn't already, whether they knew who I was or not.
Double fuck!
I fumed on the inside while on the outside I merely appeared confused and frightened. I was both truthfully, even the latter thing to a small degree. If I couldn't get my shit together and come up with some way to get out of this, that fear would morph into panic. Panic wasn't an emotion I dealt with often, and I always contained it quickly, but this situation seemed worthy of it.
Come on, Bella, think! You can get yourself out of this. You've gotten yourself out of worse, and that was true. I just needed more information.
"If I'm such a dangerous enemy of the state, why haven't I been dragged off to Gitmo?" I asked, managing to sound dry, upset, and confused all at once.
"Because I am damn good at my job," Mr. Conroy smiled. It was a proud statement, but it didn't come from a vain place; it came from an honest one. I could tell how much he loved to help people. He reminded me of Dr. Cullen in a way, but thinking of anything Cullen-related just brought a renewed sense of fury and betrayal.
"I'm sure you are," I said with a scowl, trying to sound patient and not having to pretend how just the opposite I was, "but I'm not currently in the know so I would appreciate it if you actually told me about my case instead of patting yourself on the back. It is my ass on the line."
The genial look on Mr. Conroy's face darkened, "Your ass isn't the only one on the line, Ms. Doe. I've gone to great lengths to get the Louisville police to go easy on you."
I didn't trust Mr. Conroy just like I didn't anyone else, but I found myself believing him. His heartbeat had been steady as he'd said it, and he'd met my gaze unflinchingly and without hesitation. It helped that, for a lawyer, he was too open to make a good liar and his body language had been honest from the moment he'd walked in the room.
I couldn't deny that I was the tiniest bit relieved. I hadn't wanted to go all destructo girl to get myself out of here. Though I'd already ditched the fingerprints they'd just put in the system, they were still in the system, so the sand in the hourglass had already started sifting to the bottom. While ripping this chair apart and kicking Louisville PD ass would get the job done it would also confirm my presence here, give the hunters my picture, on the off chance they didn't already know what I looked like, and a concrete point of reference in regard to my living habits since they would scour this place from top to bottom until they found where I'd holed up for the duration of my stay here. They would take every person I'd interacted with in Louisville into custody, and when they were done with those people, they'd either end up irrevocably altered or flat never seen or heard from again. Plus, using force to escape was never a good idea when law enforcement was involved. It wasn't a good idea when civilians were either but law enforcement especially so. They were authorized to use guns in the event they thought it was warranted, and that could get messy real fast. I could dodge bullets, but they couldn't and while collateral damage was something I'd always been taught could be an acceptable risk, it was never something I could or would condone.
My scowl softened into a frown, my brows furrowing, "I would very much appreciate it if you would explain things in detail, Mr. Conroy, because I'm trying to make sense of all of this and am coming up woefully lacking. And Ms. Doe? Really?"
"Would you like to know what I think?" Mr. Conroy asked, only he wasn't really asking. There was only that slight lilt at the end of his sentence for the sake of propriety.
"I think you're going to tell me what you think whether I want to know or not," I answered, meeting his gaze with serious eyes. Now was not the time for flippancy even though I was dying to let it leak into my tone.
"I don't for one second believe you are a terrorist. I actually find the very idea of it quite laughable. What I think is that you are just a young girl down on her luck who is doin' her best to make ends meet, even if that includes stretching the truth a bit," he told me simply.
I stared at him for a long time, the way I did everyone I couldn't immediately figure out.
"And the Ms. Doe part?" I questioned, not acknowledging what he had just said. I wasn't quite ready to touch it. It was a little too apt for my liking.
"While I don't believe you are a terrorist, I don't believe your real name is Paige Donnelly either," Mr. Conroy informed me. His eyes were sharp. He was obviously a very smart man, and I had no trouble believing he was brilliant at his job.
"Why wouldn't Paige Donnelly be my real name?" I asked, trying not to sound defensive and unsure if I had succeeded.
Mr. Conroy gave me a measuring look. "I'm no spring chicken dear, and I've been doin' this job a long time. My gut feeling is that you aren't down on your luck because your mother and father have fallen on hard times. You are hyper aware of your surroundings, you've been gauging me since the moment I walked in here, you always have something smart-mouthed to say instead of offering up anything meaningful or telling about yourself, you're closed off, and you don't trust easily," he summarized, scrutinizing me sharply. "You're hiding something. My instincts, which are hardly ever wrong, are telling me it's nothin' criminal. I'm leaning toward some sort of abuse and that maybe you might find the possibility of life in prison preferable to goin' back to whatever situation you were in before. If I'm right, and I think I am, a name change fits fairly well into that scenario."
Fuck!
I did not like this man. He was too goddamn smart and observant. I didn't respond to his statement, instead choosing to scowl.
Mr. Conroy formed a bridge under his chin with his hands and rested it on the warm, flattened surface he'd created. He regarded me patiently, "Feel free to argue with me about it but you won't change my mind. Shall we move on?"
At my continued silence, he decided to proceed.
"Okay then," he began, "there's both good and bad news. I'll start with the bad. The police department has you on tape admitting that you are, in fact, only 16 years old, when by law you must be at least age 21 to be employed at a place that sells liquor."
That fucking asshole! I'll kill him. I'm going to hunt him down and kill him ... slowly and painfully.
How could Jasper do this to me? I know I had made him angry, scratch that, furious, but to do this? I thought we had fixed things by the time he left. Fake, lying bastard. I knew there was a reason I hated him.
"The good news is that, upon searching your belongings, no identification, forged or otherwise, was found; which means that, while they have a recording of you admitting you are underage, they have no proof you used forged identification documents to procure your job at The Finish Line," Mr. Conroy informed me. "Unfortunately, that also means they can't prove you didn't and that tape can be considered circumstantial evidence."
"I fail to see how any of that can be considered good news," I said, struggling hard to resist the temptation to yank the metal bars the handcuffs were attached to clean off the chair and make a run for it. As much as I didn't want to, going all destructo girl was looking more and more like my only option.
No, no, that's not right, Bella. You always have more than one option. Think, goddamnit! Just fucking think!
If only I could get my head to clear some more. It was taking all my concentration to focus on Mr. Conroy and everything he was telling me.
Damn it, Bella! I cursed myself, my frustration mounting. I squeezed my eyes shut, wishing I could pinch the bridge of my nose between my thumb and forefinger. I settled for biting my lip. You spent the first 12 years of your life being trained for shit like this and the last five putting it to good use. Get your head out of your ass and get the job done!
Unbidden, Jasper fucking Cullen's face flashed behind my eyelids. For a brief moment, it made me want to smile. That was before the rage hit me in the stomach with the force of a kick from a bucking bronco. That cleared my head. Once it did, I felt like the biggest idiot in the world. I was nothing if not stealthy. All I needed was to be taken back to my cell. Then I could pry the bars of my window wide enough apart to squeeze through, pop the glass of the window out of the frame, decide whether up or down was the best way to go, and take it from there. It was the plan I should have come up with in the first place and now that I'd had the sense kicked into me, figuratively speaking, I felt much better. There was no need to panic, no cause for bloodshed, and relatively no chance I'd find myself back at Fort Ares any time soon.
I just had to get back to my cell and everything would be okay. I hated the thought of leaving Louisville, Wildfire, and my job as an exercise rider behind, but a girl can't have it all, right? Freedom was more important than anything else. Right?
"I must admit that at the moment, the scales are tipped just a little more in favor of the bad news, but the important thing is that it isn't all bad," he said almost cheerily, interrupting my strategizing, "which means I have something to work with."
"What's your plan?" I asked, sounding curious. I had to ask. I couldn't not ask. What normal person wouldn't? And truthfully, I was curious. Mr. Conroy had already proven he was a great lawyer and I could only imagine that whatever he had up his sleeve to get me out of this mess would be worth sticking around for ... you know, if I wasn't being hunted down as a rogue government asset.
Mr. Conroy smiled at me, his eyes sparkling. "I've already spoken with the judge that will preside over your hearing and given her my assessment of you and your case-"
"Wait, wait, wait," I interrupted. "How could you have told her anything about me when we only just met fifteen minutes ago?"
"Actually, we met last night," Mr. Conroy said, his expression somber.
My mouth fell open for a good five seconds before I snapped it shut again. "I don't remember that. I think I would remember."
"You were ... not yourself last night," he murmured softly.
"What do you mean?" I queried cautiously, almost afraid to hear what he had to say.
Mr. Conroy seemed to sense this, and when he spoke again his eyes were sad, "Perhaps, that is something we can discuss another time."
I nodded at him gratefully, hating that I was being gun shy about it but wanting to hear the rest of what he had to say more than I wanted to face whatever it was that had happened the night before. At the same time, I wished I was back in my cell already, putting my plan into motion.
Luckily, he didn't seem to believe in drawing out drama and tension, and he continued after only a brief pause, "As I was saying, even though public defender's opinions aren't generally taken into account, the judge and I are old friends and she trusts both my instincts and my experience. Because of this and my stellar reputation, I convinced her to release you into the custody of a foster home until your hearing instead of remaining at the jail; provided, of course, that you wear this."
He held up a slim, black, metallic circle that looked very much like a harmless piece of jewelry ... except it wasn't. It was a tracking anklet.
I raised my eyebrows, and tried not to show my disgust at the idea.
"Whether you're guilty or not, what you are accused of is a very serious offense, Ms. Doe," Mr. Conroy reinforced. "Letting you stay in a foster home instead of juvenile detention is a big concession, and it took a lot of convincing."
I didn't understand why Mr. Conroy would bother. Maybe he was just ... nice; like the Cullens. My hands clenched into fists. No, the Cullens were not nice. They were meddling, irritating, lying, stalking assholes, but I couldn't dwell on that. Not now.
"Why would you do that?" I asked. My curiosity was plain as was the fact that I was 100% miffed.
"I work with kids like you all the time," he began. "They all matter, of course, but there are certain ones that particularly tug at my heartstrings. You happen to be one of those. Don't ask me to explain why because I'm not always able to verbalize it, but this isn't about pity. It's about making sure you aren't unjustly punished, and havin' to spend even a few hours in juvenile detention is of the cruel and unusual kind if you ask me. As long as you wear this tracking anklet and don't go anywhere within five miles of the Louisville city limit, you'll never have to see that place again."
I glanced at the anklet and weighed my options. Deactivating a tracking device and escaping a residential neighborhood would be a hell of a lot less complicated than busting out of jail, but was I willing to risk Mr. Conroy's job?
Damn it!
Sometimes morals were annoying. This man had really stuck his neck out for me, and I didn't know if I would be able to live with myself if he lost his job and, most likely, his pension because I took advantage of his kindness to save my own ass. Could I destroy someone else's life in the name of my own self-preservation?
"Before we discuss accessories," I said, nodding at the anklet, "there is one rather important thing that's been neglected don't you think?"
"And that would be?"
"You have yet to ask me how I got my job at The Finish Line," I reminded him, frowning.
Most people would have been annoyed by a person suggesting they weren't doing their job well, especially when that person was a teenager. Mr. Conroy just regarded me patiently. It was another thing that reminded me of Dr. Cullen. It made my blood boil, but I was able to separate it from the situation at hand and not project that anger onto my lawyer.
"I have every intention of getting your account of things but, Darlin', you spent a good part of the night bleedin' out of your ears; and I can't imagine you're feeling very well right now. You take the weekend to rest, and we'll get to that at our meeting on Monday," he explained kindly. "That's also when the Louisville PD will conduct their interview."
My eyebrows furrowed. I'd bled out of my ears for a good part of the night? How long exactly was "a good part?" And did that really even matter? Bleeding during any one of my episodes, no matter out of which orifice, was new and I really didn't need another new thing to worry about at the moment.
Why was this guy making things so easy yet so hard for me?
Fuck!
"I was going to have to wait for a few more hours to get you out of here, but I think I might be able to use my powers of persuasion to get you released now," Mr. Conroy said slyly. "It would make me feel a lot better knowing for sure you actually got a decent meal in you and didn't have to deal with inappropriate personnel. Give me a few minutes."
He didn't give me a chance to respond, but he wasn't looking for a response so it didn't matter.
oOo
An hour and a half later, after a damn good meal at one of those awesome mom and pop diners, a trip to Target to pick up a change of clothes, and another to Mr. Conroy's house so I could shower after which he pointedly watched me fasten the tracking anklet around my ankle, he dropped me off at Rafe and Lydia Jones' house ...
oOo
A/N: Alrighty, folks. I blame parts of this chapter on my love of Burn Notice. I challenge anyone to watch that show and not either fall in love with or develop a man crush on Michael Westen and Jesse Porter. Seriously. (Sam Axe is pretty damn cool too.)
Please don't be too angry with Bella for assuming that Jasper is the reason she has been arrested. She isn't at her best right now and her brain is too busy trying to figure a way out of her current predicament for her to think much about whether or not there could have been someone else responsible. Plus, she only spoke to him for the first time about two hours or so before she go arrested, they spent forty-five minutes together, and not all of that time was spent talking. Even though Jasper makes her feel things she's never felt before, she doesn't know him and that can only take a girl so far, especially a girl like Bella. For now, give her a break.
One more thing. As you have obviously noticed, Longing is set in 2080. Since it is only 2012 (nearly 2013), I have no way of knowing what music, movies, TV shows, etc., will be popular then (I have no Alice to help me out with that, sadly). When I feel the need to mention one of the above, it will be at my discretion whether or not I deem a show, movie, song, book, etc. current, not so current, old, ancient and so on and so forth. You get the idea. :)
Well, what did you think? You know I would love to know. :)
Until next time ...
