DISCLAIMER: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc., are the intellectual property of the respective author. The original characters and plot are the property of Stephenie Meyer. No copyright infringement is intended.
-Chapter Fifty-Three-
The elevator dinged, and the door opened. Brewster walked me into the lobby and handed me off to Garrett, who signed me out and collected all my transfer forms. There was an 11:20 'Con Air' flight waiting for me across town. The one-way, non-stop trip would take three hours and forty-five minutes.
I would be back on Arizona soil a little after one this afternoon.
The media frenzy outside was unexpected. A crowd of reporters with flashbulbs and cameras had camped outside the federal building. They mobbed the SUV as soon as Garrett pulled out into the street. Then, sticking out their microphones, they yelled questions at me.
"Why did you do it?"
"Are you guilty?"
"How long have you been planning to extort money from your boyfriend's father?"
"How's does it feel to be the world's most wanted teenager?"
Their faces pressed up against the tinted windows, eager to get a peek at me. I stared back, forgetting them all within the next second.
Garrett cursed and honked, weaving in and out of the congested mass of bodies until he was clear of the madness. Then, after the shouts faded in the distance, it got quiet, like really fucking quiet.
No talking. No radio. No sound. No nothing.
Skip ahead to the airport.
My life was a dull blur now.
I was loaded onto the small aircraft and seated next to Garrett.
My hands were cuffed and rested on my lap as he buckled me in and ordered a scotch on the rocks.
"It's a rough gig," he joked.
The flight attendant, aware of my criminal status, smiled at Garrett but kept her distance from me. I would have laughed a week ago, an older woman—with at least fifty pounds on me—terrified of a teenage girl.
I was unarmed and shackled to my seat. Fucking harmless.
She was an idiot.
Closing my eyes, I leaned back and blocked out the rest of the flight.
It didn't matter.
Nothing did.
We landed in Phoenix on schedule. It was midday, and the sun was high in the sky. It was the typical Arizona day, fucking hot, and the beads of sweat rolled down my forehead and neck. Garrett bitched, excessively and asked me how I could stand the heat.
I said nothing, per usual, and he didn't push it.
Rushed through the airport and shoved into another Government SUV, I was carted off to the Maricopa Courthouse in downtown Phoenix for my arraignment.
But Garrett continued to complain about the heat.
It was eighty degrees in November. If I had the will to care, I would roll my fucking eyes at him.
It took twenty minutes on the 202, and I gazed out at Camelback Mountain, feeling alien to such familiarity. At one time, this place was my home, but now my prison.
More chaos and reporters were standing outside the courthouse doors when we arrived, waiting for me to give them a statement. They wanted to be the first ones to get the scoop. I said nothing and gave them nothing but a gaze void of any emotion or empathy.
Garrett served as a part-time bodyguard, ushering me through the commotion and inside where it was safe. Another officer was waiting for me, and Garrett passed over the reign. There was sympathy in his dull eyes as he said his goodbyes. He knew what my prospect was in this place, which wasn't good.
But what did he care? I was no longer his problem. I was Officer Joe Arden's responsibility now—and burden.
This man was a piece of work.
He was young and cocky. He talked with an annoying snort, chuckling and making crass jokes at my expense. The taunts about my life in prison and the possible compounds of a lethal injection that may or may not circulate through my veins were enough to hate him. But the inappropriate placement of his hands and promises of his visitations to my cell put him at the top of my list of people I was going kill.
I had to wonder what it was about me that attracted these predators.
Then later, I was in front of a judge as he reviewed the charges, my rights to an attorney, and my plea.
"Not guilty," I said, even though we all knew I was.
The judge set my bail at half a million dollars, and I was to be transferred to the Durango jail until my preliminary hearing, scheduled a week from today.
"You won't last a day in general population, little one. They'll eat you alive," Arden said with a snort, dragging me to the waiting room and throwing me in with twenty other women.
It was a small, compact space where each woman was squished together like a can of sardines. It was cost-effective for the state. We were all going to the same place, and the bus had yet to arrive.
I sat there with my head down, picking at my cuticles. They were sore and bleeding. It was a persuasive habit, easing my mind into a focused and concentrated pain.
"You're famous," a woman said, nudging me with her elbow.
I glanced up and saw that twenty pairs of eyes were on me. They pointed to the television set hanging in the corner. Channel 3 news was on, and they had plastered my face all over their crime segment. It was old news in my book, but before I could look away, Edward's beautiful face with those intense and penetrating green eyes flashed across the screen.
The backlash of the assault was instant.
There were collective gasps and girly sighs in the room, fawning over what was mine while my heart tightened in agony. The ache of missing him was vicious and depilating. It knocked down the walls of indifference I'd spent all day building up.
Fuuuuuuck!
When will the feeling of losing him fade away and go numb?
A week?
A month?
Years?!
I clenched my jaw, trying to force my grief deep down into the darkness of my soul where it fucking belonged, but it was resistant. I knew the hurt wouldn't be exorcised like a demon or pushed aside, but maybe it could be replaced or transferred into something more tangible.
Anger and violence seemed like an eloquent solution.
I stood up from the bench and turned to the woman on my right. She was flapping her fucking mouth about Edward—they all were, but she was the loudest and most obnoxious. So with no thought behind the consequences, I just attacked.
Throwing my body onto hers and the floor, I pinned her chest down with my knees and started repeatedly punching her face.
The room erupted, and the women went crazy, cheering and goading me on. I was addicted to how it distracted my brain from thinking of him, his lips, and how he kissed me so tenderly and sincerely.
"I would throw away my freedom for that fucking mouth."
He was creeping in again, and this made me more pissed off. I cursed and screamed at the woman, squeezing my eyes shut and hitting her harder. The painful sting in my fists fueled me. If it took killing this bitch to have one blissful second without thinking about him or how I'll never know his touch for the rest of my pathetic life, then so be it.
The fury was blinding and inescapable.
Arden and several officers rushed into the room a second too late and pulled me off her. I was kicking and fighting against them, swearing at her. She was lying on her side, barely breathing, nothing but a mess of blood and gargling moans. I took immense gratification in the destruction I've created upon her fucking face. What did I care if they added another assault charge to my list of offenses?
"Why worry yourself about it? You're already trouble."
They moved me into a private office with Arden standing as my guard. He was the last person I wanted to be alone with, but I had no choice.
This hell was my life from now, forever tossed into the snake's pit.
A sharp and piercing pain shot up my wrist when stretching my fingers out and wiggling them around. I sucked in a breath. It hurt, and my knuckles were beat-up, bloodied, and swollen, but that bitch's face didn't break the bones.
"I'm such fucking idiot for bare-knuckling that asshole's face."
Yeah, I know, Edward, me, too.
Me, too.
It was twilight when I finally stepped onto the correctional bus. I searched for that woman who had fallen victim to my wrath, but she wasn't there. Instead, there were whispers around me that she had to go to the emergency room. I'd broken her nose and dislocated her jaw. The brutality coming from a girl my size, seemingly doe-eyed and innocent, made the other women take pause.
They weren't going to fuck with me.
Arden sat me towards the back of the bus but kept a watchful eye on me. It was absurd. Again, I was unarmed and shackled to the fucking seat, hardly a threat to anyone.
But I digress.
As the bus filled up with petty lawbreakers, I sat back and observed my surroundings. It was automatic, a self-preservation skill Edward had instilled in me.
Two guards on the bus with pistols, including Arden, and one shotgun above the driver's head. It wasn't much, but enough to subdue a thirty or so cuffed and defenseless convicts. These trips from the courthouse to the Durango jail were the bare minimum in security measures. It was mostly surface streets and a few back roads, with only fifteen minutes of driving time. There was no need—nor did they have the money to armor this bus with extra men and weaponry.
Not that I was in the position to make a break for it, but it wasn't an impossible feat.
I shifted my bored gaze out the muddy window as the bus pulled forward onto the street with jerky and abrupt movements.
In every person we passed on the way to the jail, I saw Edward. I would pick out certain resembling features and torture myself with them. One guy had the same messy and bronze-colored hair, quickening my pulse to an insane rate. Another guy, heavily tatted, arms covered in sleeves, had made me think of all those times I laid beneath Edward, tracing the ink on his chest with my fingertips.
"I fucking love you…."
Closing my eyes to stop the tears, I focused on Arden's annoying voice as he talked with the other guard and bus driver. They were complaining about their shitty pay and the ugly women this job brought them. It was disgusting, and after that, I decided it was a far better option to cry and consume myself with memories of Edward.
He was the only thing that ever kept me sane and drove me crazy simultaneously.
I was in the middle of reliving the night we met when the call came through the wire.
"Hey, shut up, asshole, and turn that up," the guard said, urgent and suddenly interrupting my fantasy.
A Mexican drug cartel had ambushed a correctional bus carrying the men less than ten miles from where we were. Two officers were wounded, and one was dead. All detainees but one were accounted for, and the suspects were last seen heading southbound on the I-10. There were no detailed descriptions of the vehicles or license plates.
"You think we should turn back?" The driver asked, his foot slowly easing off the gas pedal.
"What the fuck for?" Arden replied, arrogant as ever.
"That was the five-oh-five bus..." the driver trailed off.
"Yeah, and..."
"Cullen was on that bus," the other guard spoke up.
My head snapped up, and I locked eyes with Arden.
He knew.
"I'll come get you."
"Relax." Arden snorted, talking to the driver but glancing over at me."Even if it was Cullen who got away, he's not going to risk getting caught just to come back for her."
"You severely underestimate me."
The driver gazed back at me through the mirror, and I could see he took little comfort in Arden's words, but he listened anyway, increasing his speed back to up to forty-five.
The hope that died this morning was revived. The pull that connected me to him was strong again. I could feel his breath on me.
He was close.
Bright headlights emerged suddenly and flooded the rear of the bus, illuminating the entire cab. The roar of multiple engines rumbled and shook the seats. I looked out the window and saw several cars coming up on the side and speeding ahead to cut the driver off.
He was there.
I leaned forward and gripped the seat before me, bracing myself for what was to come. The lady over to my left was staring at me with her eyebrow raised in an unspoken question.
"Yeah, you might want to hold on to something," I said, unable to hide my smug smile. "It's about to get real bumpy."