Vain (The Seven Deadly 1)

“Something about my father getting the courts to agree to this has made me less than comfortable. I thought being on time would be, oh, I don’t know, wise?”

“Ah, so today I get facetious Sophie. How delightful.”

“I’m sorry, Pemmy,” I sighed out.

“It’s fine. Follow me,” he bit.

Pembrook led me through the security checkpoints and into a cavernous marble lobby to a set of elevators. I counted the floors as we passed each one. One...Surely the lesson is in the threat...Two...He wouldn’t risk the publicity...Three...He’s doing this because he loves me...Four...He does love me...Five...I know he does...Six...He has to...Seven...Doesn’t he?

The ringing bell announcing our floor startled my anxiety-ridden body, stiff from tensing my muscles as if in anticipation of a beating. And that was what that morning would promise me. I knew it. Pemmy’s short answers and minimal sarcasm told me that better than words ever could.

“Through here,” I barely heard Pembrook mutter. He opened the door for me and I entered the sunken room.

The smallest sounds resonated throughout. The creak of the door, the taps of our shoes on the cold marble floor, the intake of every labored breath.

“Sit here,” he said, pointing to a bench reminiscent of a church pew just outside of the fenced-in chamber in the public gallery.

I sat and the wood protested underneath me, warning me, begging me to act, to run. Pembrook easily threw open the swinging half doors that separated the courtroom and approached the prosecutor’s table. I took in my surroundings and noted I wasn’t the only defendant in the courtroom, which was confusing. A singular man sat in the corner opposite my side of the room. This was typical for most minor criminal court cases, but for some reason I thought my father wouldn’t want the potential spectacle or would be willing to risk my being seen and would have arranged for a private hearing.

“You,” a burly guard with bright red hair said pointing to the lone man. “You’ve been reassigned. You should be in Courtroom C now.” Of course.

“Oh, so sorry,” the man offered. He stood and gave me a half smile.

I wanted to vomit at the butterflies that gave me. Worry. You could see it in his eyes. Thick strain seemed to bulge the walls in all its sensationalism. It crawled over my body and settled heavily on my heart.

Pembrook called me to his table and sat me in a leather swivel chair. The animal skin ground against my own, cold and stiff to touch. The cumbersome weight of unease in the room settled over me with a finality that choked.

“All rise,” the bailiff said, surprising me from my thoughts. I looked up just in time to see Reinhold walk into the room. Doomed. “This court is now in session, the Honorable Judge Francis Reinhold presiding.”

Judge Reinhold refused to look my direction. “What’s on the docket today, Sam?” he asked the bailiff.

He meant “chopping block.” Reinhold knew.

“Your Honor, case one this morning is Price vs. the city of Los Angeles.”

Reinhold finally met my face with zero expression, but his eyes were calculating, measuring, assessing.

“Are you ready?” Reinhold asked my attorney and the prosecutor.

“Yes, Your Honor,” Pembrook said.

The prosecutor nodded her head with a single, “Yes.”

The door to the courtroom groaned open in that moment and in stepped three people I would have paid not to have step through. My father and mother moved to sit on the bench I had sat just minutes earlier, giving off the impression they had somewhere else they really needed to be but the real jest, it seemed, was Officer Casey in all his youthful, handsome glory and his countenance spoke volumes of hate, lust, anger, and want.

He earned a brief glance from me and that earned myself a cruel smile in return. I kept my gaze on him, leaned imperceptibly his direction, lightly touched the tip of my tongue to the top of my teeth, smiled effortlessly and winked. This startled him and his own smile faltered, stuttered and fell off his face. I turned back to Reinhold, no one in the room the wiser but for Casey and his thundering heart.

“I understand an agreement has been made?” Reinhold asked the attorneys.

An agreement?

“Yes, Your Honor,” the lawyers said in unison.

“Miss Price, please stand,” he ordered.

I obeyed, my booming heart clamoring to stay steady, and stood from my chair.

“I promised you the next time I saw you in my courtroom you would not leave as easily and yet here you are. Now, I’ve agreed to this plea bargain only because I feel it can teach you the value of your life far better than any amount of incarceration, rehab or community service.”