They call her Human Torch! Chapter 5

3 Weeks later. August, 31, 2010

I could sleep for 3 days and it still would not be enough. I couldn't believe that today marked 3 weeks since my first meeting with these guys, I didn't even know what to call them, 7 of them were investors, 4 of them were lawyers, and 5 of them were both! Those came from the bank that loaned Von Doom Inc it's starter money, they owned 50% of the company and so it made sense that the bank was worried about their potential loss.

Paul had to go home after only 6 days but I made sure to spend them showing him as much of the city as I could, he loved the city life and promised he would come back but I'm not sure if I believed him or not, I knew it depressed him to come and see the type of life he once wanted, before he turned into a wolf he had a scholarship that he was very excited about. Sam had one as well but it was not as hard after he found Emily, he moved on to new dreams with her but I knew Paul and Leah would really benefit living here for some time, maybe they would consider visiting for a month after the threat of Victoria was taken care of. The pack was as crazy about the gossip as the rest of the country! They called me every time something else was leaked out to the public, as Mr. Evert had said, the charges really were racking up.

After it was made public knowledge that the bank owned 50% of the company because of the continuous loans year after year, seemed that Mr. Doom as they called him here in the office, was not the perfect CEO that everyone thought. Angered ex employees unanimously released that every investor owned 5% of the company each and that there were 8 of them so all that the prestigious Victor Von Doom actually had was only 10% of his own company. He was a joke to the public eye now. The more people dug, the more they found. It all started as the New York police investigated security cameras to uncover who had killed Mr. Lent in the car garage but they also found footage of the space station which put him at fault for not checking the security requirements of the shields on the station and murder charges for closing the shields and purposely leaving people out of it. From there the financial side was uncovered and everyone wondered if he only owned 10% then how did he live such a glamorous lifestyle? That is when the IRS came in to do their investigation of all his penthouses around the world and his custom tailor made suits, turns out that was money coming straight out of the company which made it so some employees were paid late and others came out saying they had not been paid at all for 2 months. So many people became involved and everyone was so confused, just when we had a grasp of what was going on suddenly something new popped up! It was one gigantic cluster fuck! Hence the reason why I felt the need to sleep for the rest of the month. The first 2 weeks I was allowed and sometimes required at 3 or 4 meetings a week but now, now with so many things coming out and the very public case requiring a faster trial, now we have meetings every single day. They start at 8:00 am and end when literally there is nothing left to do for the day, however in a legal case and one of this size I quickly learned there's always work to do!

The public and the bank was pushing for a trial to start officially but the New York police and IRS insisted that there was more to dig into. A trial could not start until they were sure that no new things would come out. There was a legal procedure for EVERYTHING! I had to go through 2 days of meetings just to legally break my non-disclosure agreement in order for my statement to be usable in court. My day's were always full of meetings now and my nights were always spent on Skype with Jane and Darcy, I was so thankful to have them in my life. Jane had looked up all the information she could on cosmic energy but so far nothing could really help, I knew her drive for more information almost had her breaking into Mr. Richards apartment but thankfully she had no idea where he even lived and they were now in another state, Darcy had gone off to college and that is where Jane's lab was located so they both left together. Darcy was so devastated when I told her I was not going to go to college but after 3 day's I was finally able to make her understand that path was no longer for me. I was thankful Jane never asked for a blood sample and she never made me feel like it was me she was experimenting on, I had grown very close to both of them and appreciated all the work they were putting into doing research for me.

I had met up multiple times with Mr. Grimm's fiancee and mother, they had requested to talk to me and felt that my story of how he died and his last words were somehow a step closer to being able to move on, I tried to comfort them as much as I could and I really feel it helped all 3 of us when they told me all about Ben and Reed growing up best friends, always working together in everything they did. I was right about Mr. Richards and Ms. Storm, they told me how she and Reed had been in a relationship for a long time and loved each other very much but he was always so involved with work and research that their relationship never progressed and she ended up breaking things off.

We were not sure how, but Mr. Vitter somehow found out that I was back, he came to one of the meetings and tried to make me sign some papers for money, thank god I was surrounded by lawyers because they practically jumped up to read the agreement and threw it back at his face, he was trying to exchange money for me to sign an agreement saying that I could not take any form of legal action against Mr. Doom but apparently since the company had been officially locked down and was pending on liquidating it, producing 'legal' papers for a company that was now suspended made what he had done illegal and considered bribing. What does that mean? Ding ding ding! Another charge added.

1 Month later: September, 28, 2010

Well my birthday had come and gone this year. It was weird thinking that just last year I had been an absolute mess over the Cullen's abandonment, I never thought I would get through that hard time but it feels good to see where I am today without them. It was a bit lonely being in a city with no one to see on my birthday but I preferred not to tell anyone at the office, I have never liked celebrating my birthday and if I did have to then it is only with my loved ones, not a bunch of 40 year old men that would laugh at me barely turning 19. I got so many calls from the pack, Darcy, Jane, and surprisingly even my mom. Everyone cheered me up and I got care packages from Emily along with a huge envelope of gift cards from Darcy and Jane. I certainly appreciated those since I was a little low on cash. Mr. Evert had it arranged for me to keep the apartment, free of rent until the end of the trial, something I was so grateful for but with no paycheck coming in and bills to pay, well Charlie's police pension check was what I was living off of. I had good money in my savings since I didn't end up using it for school and from Charlie's will but savings were for an emergency and I was glad that I was very comfortable just living off of basic things and that my food bill was the biggest one so I at least had control of that.

People have finally gotten the ball rolling on a trial and I was so glad because even though it was suppose to be moving 'fast', to me everything seemed so slow. It took a whole day just to allow or decide one little thing.

September, 20th started a preliminary hearing and it lasted 4 whole days. I was attending less meetings now but when I went they were filled with terms I couldn't begin to understand. My new status was sitting quietly in the corner with my notebook and spending an hour afterwards, having a lawyer explain all the things I didn't understand in my book. I titled it the book of knowledge and I would take great pleasure from burning it when this was all over.

September, 27th Judge Mark Lance was assigned to the case and Mr. Doom officially pleaded not guilty. Not guilty my ass!

September, 28th today our lawyers were going to file a motion to obtain Mr. Doom's personal records and all the footage being held as evidence. With this case being so public, I knew it was only a matter of time before the footage was seen and everyone would know what a monster he truly is.

3 ½ Months later: Tuesday, January, 11, 2011.

Holy fucking shit. That's all I really had to say. Over 3 months later and this trial is still going! Let me tell you, I was a full fledged New York-er now, I could be as rude and loud as the rest of 'em and that is just how you gotta be if you want to walk somewhere. I lost my shit many times a week but I always made sure to not burn too much of my clothes or, you know, peoples faces. All the lawyers and investors finally warmed up to me, they had to after seeing me every day for the past months. The only one I still couldn't get along with was Antonio but it was because he was against mutant rights and made it very known. He refused to be left alone with me in a room and he personally installed smoke detectors and fire extinguishers for every room in the building. I didn't have much of a life yet, I hadn't started really living and I wouldn't until the case was closed but I was told that it would be soon, I mean the whole world pretty much knew the verdict, it was obvious by now that he was guilty of everything but like I said, there is a process for everything. The space station footage was released to the public late November, it was a leak on our side and I was pretty sure Antonio was the one responsible since the video was titled 'Freak in the making' I didn't mind, it was still a trending video on YouTube today and it was played on all news stations, they all reported on the poor girl that had been put through pain and although I didn't care for the attention I did appreciate that everyone saw Mr. doom's actions. They all blamed him for everything that went wrong and some people released campaigns to try and figure out who I was. The trial has allowed news cameras in but none had been able to focus on my face too much and the judge made sure my name was not released in those public hearings, of course everyone in Forks recognized me right away and since I never gave any one my number or told them where I was moving to, they went to where I was seen the most, La Push. The pack was frustrated at being stopped so much and Emily even went off on Jessica and some others when she apparently had the nerve to knock on their door and tried to invite herself in.

Of course hearing all that pissed me off but nothing annoyed me more than when Paul called to let me know that Carlisle had called Sam and asked him if anyone knew about me and my safety since he had tried calling Charlie's house and no one ever answered. Sam tried to be civil by telling him that I was as safe as could be but when he asked what Sam meant by that he simply told him that they were not welcome in my life any longer so to not come looking for me. I was glad and hoped they really didn't come looking. They left me with no goodbye and now they seemed worried? Well fuck them. My mom called and asked me if I was the girl in the video and when I told her yes she freaked and yelled at me for not telling her that I even had a job in New York… when I told her that she had once again forgotten she got mad and hung up. We still have not talked since. I was just glad that the public did not know about my fire, as far as they knew, the only thing the girl in the video got was pain. I can't imagine how much harder they would look for me if they knew I became a mutant.

November 3rd 2010 was when the jury was sequestered and things moved a little faster after that.

November 4th the jury was showed the evidence and footage of Mr. Lents murder, it was very difficult to watch but even more so when I had his family sitting behind me.

November 5th the jury was shown all the footage of the space station and that was the first time I myself had seen it, I felt like I was watching my thoughts played out on the monitor. I thought watching from the camera point of view would be different, that I would remember something else or see something that I missed but no, my memory of that day was as clear as ever. The most difficult part was watching as the cosmic cloud hit the first room. Watching the last moments of a person was heart breaking, how all three of them held hands as they braced themselves for the hit. Watching as Mr. Richards turned at the last second and said something to Ms. Storm that made her melt against him. It did not give me closure, I don't think something like that could.

November 8th the IRS came in with an extensive list of all fraud, larceny, and embezzlement evidence. That was a very long day for sure. All those numbers made my head hurt. Seeing how much money he wasted out of his ass was astounding, he had suits that were worth more than all my wardrobe put together. Day after day he sat on the other side of the room, refusing to testify or even explain himself, he came off looking like a douche bag but I could still see the arrogant confidence he had in himself.

November 18th After all evidence is submitted and approved by the attorneys, trial opened.

November 19th Opening statements were given for the defense.

November 25th the jury was taken to Von Doom Inc to be shown the crime scene.

November 29th I was cross examined by our lawyers and spent hours preparing for everything they asked me. They also prepared me for every thing Mr. Doom's lawyers might ask but the court was surprised when they chose not to. It further proved his guilt to the public eye when they didn't even try to make my story sound fake. It was all on film after all.

December,1-3, 2010. Witnesses were called to the stand. We brought in random employees to rant and rave about what a short temper Mr. Doom had with his staff, a DNA specialist was called in and asked many questions about Mr. Lent's murder scene and his autopsy results, they lastly brought in my doctor, he explained how I had been brought into the hospital under false pretenses and how far Mr. Doom had gone to try and hide me, that really got the public going because they saw it as an endangerment that he prevented me from getting the right medical treatment.

December 13th was the day that I finally saw some of Mr. Doom's arrogance slip away. The court ordered him to turn over all of his assets and Von Doom Inc. I saw the arrogance be replaced with anger and resentment.

December 20th Victor Von Doom's items were all auctioned off and so were his properties in New York, Los Angeles, Singapore, and London. The money made off of the properties went directly to the bank but his personal items, art, and clothes all amounted to 1.3 billion dollars. The company building itself had been gutted and the bare property itself was auctioned off for 4.9 billion. It caused a major scandal when the person who bought it was none other than Tony Stark, it immediately started the rumors that Stark would finally be expanding back to New York.

Today, January 11th 2011 was the most important day that all the investors had been waiting for. I wanted nothing more than to hear the judge say he was guilty of all charges and to watch him be taken to jail for the rest of his life but I knew that to the investors the most important thing was that they got their share of the money that was to be split today. The lawyers were very good to me, I was not paying them but ever since the investors asked me to go to them for any help, they had gone out of their way to explain everything to me even if I had nothing to do with it and they really had started fighting for me too as if I were one of the investors. I was on my way now to the meeting that I was having with Tom, Aaron, and Brian. They were the lawyers I had gotten closest to and they wanted to meet with me in private before we headed over to the actual meeting where everyone would be present. Once I got to the coffee shop I saw all 3 of them all the way in the back corner with all the surrounding tables empty, no doubt they tipped someone to make that happen.

"Hey guys. What was so important that we had to meet so far away from the office?"

"Bella, we wanted to talk to you as your lawyers. We want to see how far you will let us negotiate on your behalf."

"Negotiate? What for?"

"For money. Everyone knows you are getting a share. If the public found out you did not get money for the pain you went through, they would go crazy. The courts and investors would look better if they gave you a share, why do you think they are fighting along side you? It makes them look better and the better your image, the more money they get."

"Yes, we thought about it yesterday and we remembered that you as a victim are going to get the chance to 'bargain' we know you are not very interested in the money, we will still try to get you as much of it as we can because you deserve that much but is there something that you really want?"

I was about to say no, I wanted to say no but really in that moment when I thought of the opportunity I had right in front of me, 2 things instantly came to mind.

"Yes, actually there is."