by Susanne Beck
I was tempted to tell her that jail cells held no fear for me, but somehow I think she already knew.
"Well, if we’re ready to proceed, have the bailiff bring in the defendant."
Four pairs of eyes, none more anticipatory than mine, went toward the door opposite of the one through which I’d entered as it opened to admit two stone-faced guards followed close behind by the chained and shackled guest of honor. Resplendent in her bright orange prison jumpsuit, she looked exactly as she had the first time I’d laid eyes on her; cool, calm, collected, and fitting her name to an absolute "T".
As always, my heart sped and my mouth dried at the sight of her and it took every single bit of strength I had not to jump up and rush over to her; not to put my arms around her and bury my face in the sweet warmth of her flesh; not to grab one of the guard’s holstered weapons and attempt a jailbreak, guns ablazing.
The look in her eyes as they met mine, however, stopped those notions unborn. Glittering and silver, her eyes were absolutely empty and absolutely dead, as if her soul had already departed for greener pastures, leaving only the shell of her body behind.
An involuntary shudder ran through my whole body and only the warmth of Donita’s hand atop mine gave me the strength to stay where I was and return the look she gave me with one as warm and as loving as it was possible for me to give.
With a gentle jangling of chains, Ice gracefully sat down on the chair the guard had pulled out for her, her eyes finally leaving mine and turning instead to the judge, who stared back, her expression unreadable.
"Well," the judge began after a moment, her voice sounding just a shade less confident than before, "since we’re all present and accounted for, shall we begin?"
Both lawyers opened their briefcases, pulling out thick manila envelopes stuffed full of papers. The prosecutor opened his folder first, pulled out a very thick document covered stem to stern with typed writing, and slid it over to the judge, who adjusted her glasses and began to read.
Completely lost and trying my best not to fidget, I chose to spend the quiet time waiting by looking at Ice and reading the tale of her capture in the gaunt, pale lines of her face. Lines which told me that the past three months had not been any kinder to her than they had to me.
And though to a stranger her posture appeared completely relaxed and completely confident, I could tell by the tense interplay of muscles across her broad back that she was wound tighter than a watchspring.
After some time had passed, the judge finally looked up from the document before her, her eyes slightly narrowed. "This is... rather irregular."
The prosecutor nodded, folding his long-fingered hands over the open folder. "I know it is, Your Honor, but it’s within the bounds of the law."
"I realize that," she snapped back, pushing the document back across the table at him. "Or did you think these robes came as a prize at the bottom of a box of Cracker Jack?"
Donita snorted softly as the Prosecutor blushed and lanced a rather weak glare at her.
"And you agreed to this?" the Judge asked Donita, the tone of her voice conveying her disbelief.
"We did, Your Honor."
Shaking her head in amazement, the Judge turned back to the Prosecutor. "Read the agreement aloud, if you’d be so kind, so everyone here knows what’s going on."
My look of infinite gratitude was disdainfully ignored.
Clearing his throat and adjusting his tie, the Prosecutor lifted the document and scanned it. "The People agree to drop all charges against the defendant, Morgan Steele, relating to her escape from the Rainwater Women’s Correctional Facility and in addition agree to ask the Judge to commute her previous sentence to time served."
My immediate impulse to jump up and scream my joy—the Judge’s order be damned—drained out of me the minute I realized he wasn’t quite through.
"The defendant will be released on her own recognizance on the condition that she assist law enforcement in the apprehension and subsequent conviction of Joseph Cavallo. She will be under the constant scrutiny of said law enforcement officers and will have a period of time decided in advance by the State in which to effect a capture. If she fails in this duty, the plea agreement will become null and void, and she will be once again remanded back into the custody of the State and forced to serve her full sentence in addition to any further penalty the judge wishes to impose upon her for the escape. The People will, of course, ask for the maximum penalty to be added onto the end of her sentence."
"No," I whispered, before slamming my hands down on the desk and jumping to my feet. "No! This is ridiculous! Ice, you can’t do this! Donita, tell her!"
"Sit down, Ms. Moore," the judge ordered, her eyes flashing neon warnings behind the thick glass of her spectacles.
"No! Not until somebody yells ‘April Fool!’. Donita, you can’t let her do this! You can’t just throw her back in the pit she’s tried so hard to crawl out of! You can’t!!"
"Sit down, Ms. Moore! I won’t tell you again!"
"Why are you doing this?" I demanded, ignoring her. "Donita, why? You can win this thing! Her conviction was a sham! You know that! Why don’t you fight?"
"Bailiff!"
"Angel, sit down," Donita said finally, her dark eyes pleading. "Please."
Angrily shrugging off the meaty hand which landed on my shoulder, I finally returned to my seat, hitting the leather padding so hard my teeth clacked together, almost severing my tongue.
A nod from the judge, and the bailiff returned to his place by the door.
"Continue," the judge ordered.
The prosecutor rattled his papers, sighed, and spoke again. "In addition, should the defendant satisfactorily fulfill the duties spelled out in this plea agreement, no legal action will be taken against one Tyler Moore for aiding and abetting the escape of a fugitive from justice, and further, no legal action will be taken against Ms. Moore for knowingly harboring a fugitive from justice. Should she fail, Ms. Moore will be prosecuted on these two charges, as well as any others the State deems appropriate, to the fullest extent of the law."
A jaw frozen in utter rage now hung slack as I realized that the Sword of Damocles which had hung suspended over Ice’s head had stopped being the Bog and had started being me.
"Son of a bitch," I whispered, turning to the prosecutor. "You god damned son of a bitch!" Reaching out quickly, I grabbed his necktie and yanked him halfway across the table with it, my heart thundering painfully in my ears and my vision washed red with my rage.
"Angel, no!" Donita’s voice sounded far away as she grabbed me from behind and spun me to face her. "Don’t do this, Angel."
"Why? Because they’ll arrest me? Fine! Great! I want them to arrest me. In fact, I demand it!" I whirled back to the prosecutor who was staring at me as if he were the rabbit and I was the barreling semi. I held out my wrists to him. "Go ahead! Arrest me! I won’t fight you! I’ll make it easy for you! Put the cuffs on! Throw me in jail! I admit it! I’m guilty! I harbored a fugitive! I just assaulted someone! Arrest me, god damn it!!"
"Angel, don’t..."
"Arrest me!" I screamed before the sobs won out and I crumpled into Donita’s warm embrace. I heard the sound of chains jangling, but I couldn’t see my lover as the lawyer blocked my view.
"I know this isn’t exactly protocol," I heard Donita say over my head, "but could you give us a moment, Your Honor? Please?"
After a long, silent and tense moment, the judge’s eyes softened just slightly and as I watched, she slowly nodded and rose from her position at the table’s head. "A moment only, Ms. Bonnsuer, and the guards will remain inside."
"Thank you, Your Honor."
Without answering, the judge tapped the still frozen prosecutor on the shoulder, and together they made their way out of her chambers, closing the door softly behind them.
Gathering what remained of my strength, I pulled away from Donita’s firm embrace, sidestepped her grab for me, and walked resolutely to where my partner was n
ow standing, her bound hands clasped so tightly that the white of her knuckles stood out even against the prison-bleached pallor of her normally bronzed skin.
Though my mind ran riot with a million and one questions, my lips, I’m afraid, could articulate only one. "Why?"
Though her eyes were steel walls behind which her emotions were trapped, I could see things warring behind them, fighting their damndest to come out. But, with the stubborn and determined strength of will which awed even me, who had been exposed to it on a daily basis for more years than I cared to count, her face maintained its expressionless cast-- a granite mountain against which no water flowed to soften and change its blank and foreboding facade.
The only sign that the woman I loved was somewhere beneath all that careful blankness was the faint tremor which ran, almost unnoticed, over her tightly clenched fists.
Reaching out a trembling hand of my own, I almost—almost—touched the warm flesh bared to my eyes, but drew back at the last second and covered my mouth instead. "Please, Ice. Why? Please answer me. I deserve that, at least."
If I thought my pleas would fall on anything other than deaf ears, I was sorely mistaken. It was as if the sound of my voice raised the shutters in her ever-changing eyes, closing them off to me once again. And with them, I feared, her soul as well.
And that angered me. I had been through too much heartache, too much guilt, and too many tears to just give up without a fight. "Answer me, Ice."
Squaring her broad shoulders and lifting her chin, she tore her gaze away from mine, leaving a gaping hole where my heart used to lay.
All around me, the world seemed to grow faint and unimportant. I felt as if part of me had painlessly detached itself from the rest of my body and stood hovering somewhere above my head. "Answer me, damnit!"
Was that really my voice, sounding so small and so scared?
Was that really my arm, raising itself up into the periphery of my vision?
Was that really my hand, striking a brand across my lover’s pale face with the speed of a striking viper?
The sound of the slap, ringing like a rifle shot through the room’s still, stifled air, brought me back to myself much too quickly. As I watched, utterly horrified at what I had done, the blooming, bloody rose of my handprint appeared on her cheek, a death-writ outlined in stark, blinding white.
For the second time in as many days, I felt the world spin out of control as my legs buckled beneath me. This time, however, I welcomed the darkness I knew would follow.
Darkness which was staved off yet again as a pair of warm, living hands reached out at the last second and grabbed me by my shirt front, pulling me up and holding me steady.
Forcing the black spots from my vision, I looked up into eyes which had grown dark not with anger but with profound understanding, immense sorrow, and more than a little respect.
"Ice?" I whispered, not sure if what I was seeing was real.
"Angel." Her voice was rough and harsh and cracked, as if it hadn’t seen use in a century, or maybe two.
Anything more that might have been said was lost as a large guard came up from behind her and pulled his nightstick tight across her neck, jerking her backward. Her hands released their grip on mine quickly so as not to pull me along with her. Just as quickly, I was grabbed from behind and pulled away.
"No!" I yelled, trying to reach her with the very tips of my fingers as the distance between us grew.
Across from me, Ice mirrored my attempts, stretching her long, strong hands out to the limits of her chains. The very tips of our fingers brushed together for the tiniest of seconds before slipping away once again.
"No!" I screamed once again, trying every trick I knew to squirm out of the death grip my captor had imposed upon me. A low, rumbling grunt told me I was on the right track, and, encouraged, I redoubled my efforts, fighting for all I was worth to escape the guard’s hold.
A nightstick found its way against my windpipe then, blocking my breathing for an agonizing moment. My panic reflex kicked in and I gasped for air that just wasn’t there anymore. My arms came up quickly to try to pluck the club away long enough to gasp in a breath, but I might as well have been trying to pull a bolder from a mountain, for all the good the effort did me.
A roar that I first took for oxygen-starved blood pounding a desperate riff against my eardrums started out low, then gained strength and volume until the entire world seemed full of its primal, agonized rage.
Though I’m sure the guard’s only thought at that moment was for my safety, as well as his own, he had managed to do the one thing that would guarantee him a death warrant as valid as if the governor himself had signed it.
He had touched me against my will.
And if my partner had anything to do with it, by the look in her eyes and the sound of her howl, it would be the last thing he ever touched.
Fighting against every instinctual response within me, I forced myself to go completely limp in his arms. No doubt surprised by this unexpected action, the guard let go.
It was the only thing that saved his life.
Blindly stepping forward while gasping for badly needed breath, I ran into Ice’s onrushing form. Somehow, even in the state she was in, she must have recognized me because I felt her still-cuffed hands latch once again onto the front of my shirt and pull me close against her tightly coiled body. I threw my arms around her and hugged her for all I was worth, my lungs still heaving, and my sinuses filled with her wonderful, heady and desperately missed scent.
Four guards hit us a bare second later; the American justice system’s version of a goal-line stand, with me as the football and Ice as the halfback.
This is getting to be a very bad habit, I thought as my legs buckled under me once again.
Her stance compromised by the manacles on her ankles, Ice couldn’t stop me from falling this time, but she managed to cover me with her body as we were both borne to the ground under the weight of the guards. Her long form protected me completely, her bound hands landing in a place where, had this been anywhere other than a judge’s chambers, I would have been enjoying myself immensely. A soft grunt of air was the only indication I had that the guards were doing more to Ice than just trying to pull her off me.
Which, of course, started me seeing red once again.
Before I could do anything with my anger, however, Ice’s body was once again separated from mine and she was hauled back to her feet, the nightstick making an unwelcome reappearance against her throat. I scrambled back to my feet, a stream of invectives raunchy enough to make an entire whorehouse blush dancing on my tongue.
The door chose that moment to fly open and the judge ran in, followed closely behind by the prosecutor. At the sight of her, everyone froze as if she were the principle and we all had lit cigarettes in our hands.
"What’s going on here?" the judge demanded, hands on her hips.
"Prisoner was attacking that woman," one of the guards supplied, jerking his nightstick against Ice’s throat for good measure, though she obviously wasn’t trying to get away.
"Do that again and you’ll be standing on a street corner begging for quarters," Donita warned, pinning the guard with an angry glare.
Contrite, the guard loosened his hold. Which was a very good thing for him, because if he had maintained it just one second longer, he would have been wishing that Ice had killed him. I quickly turned to the judge. "That’s not what happened."
One eyebrow appeared from behind the protective shield of her glasses. "Then would you mind explaining just what did happen, Ms. Moore?"
"I... um... I slapped her."
I’ve never seen anyone’s eyes go quite that large, my mind helpfully supplied as I watched the judge look from me, to Ice, and back to me again. "Ok, so I admit it wasn’t the smartest thing to do."
The judge smiled slightly. "Has anyone ever told you you have the gift of understatement, Ms. Moore?"
"More than once, Your Honor."
"Mm. And
then she attacked you?"
"She didn’t attack me. After I realized what I’d done, I sort of... collapsed. She just kept me from falling. Then the guards tried to separate us and... well... you walked in on the end of what happened after that."
The judge eyed each of the guards in turn. "Is she speaking the truth?"
"Looked like she was bein’ attacked to me," a guard mumbled.
"And the rest of you?"
The remaining guards seemed to be suddenly afflicted with cases of spontaneous laryngitis.
"I see. Do you wish to press charges?"
"She didn’t attack me, Your Honor!!"
"I wasn’t speaking to you, Ms. Moore."
"No." The answer came from Ice, and there was just a hint of humor coloring the low, liquid melody of her words. "I believe I’ll live."
A gentle knock sounded, and a bailiff’s head appeared through the opened doorway. "They’re ready for you, Your Honor."
"I’ll be right there, Mr. James." Walking back to the table, she hefted the thick plea agreement. "While you children were busy playing, the prosecutor filled me in on some of the background on this case. While highly irregular, he is correct in saying that it fits within the bounds of the law. That being the case, if there are no objections from either party, I’ll sign off on this agreement and you can all be on your way."
"No objections, Your Honor," the prosecutor said.
"No objections," Donita added quickly, obviously afraid I might say something to squelch the deal at the twelfth hour.
Biting my tongue, I turned my head to look Ice square in the eyes. The dazzling blue threatened to swallow me whole. Trust me, Angel, her eyes said simply.
And though it killed me to do so, knowing exactly what that trust entailed, in the end, I simply had no choice. "No objections," I whispered.
The look in her eyes made everything I’d gone through in the past three months fade silently away as the strength and power of her undying love filled me once again, leaving me almost giddy with its return.