The Vindicated With The Monstrous

Six

Lauren didn't make eye contact with anyone as she walked into court, she wasn't expecting anything significant to happen after her conversation with Normani earlier. Not that she wanted anything to, of course, she didn't want to make bail and wished they could skip this whole bail hearing. They can just skip the whole trial for as much as she cares at this point, just let her stay in jail.

"Lauren Jauregui, you are charged with one count of murder in the first degree and one count of rape in the first degree," the judge read off as the hearing began, "How do you plea?"

Lauren's eyes widened as she became incredibly angry upon hearing the new charge, "Rape?! What the fuck, I didn't rape anyone!"

"Shh, Lauren!" Normani quickly whispered while placing her hand on Lauren's arm to calm her down.

"Ms. Jauregui if you have an outburst in my courtroom one more time I will have to hold you in contempt," Judge Michael threatened in a stern voice.

Lauren rolled her eyes at the judge, she decided to keep quiet as it was obviously worthless. She now has another felony charge added for no reason and the judge just threatened to take away her right to stand trial so what was really the point anymore? Lauren expected nothing anyway, she knows how the system works.

"Normani Kordei for the defense, your honor, I would like to apologize for my clients behavior," Normani quickly said now that Lauren was quiet, then answered the original question, "We plea not guilty on all counts." Lauren quickly looked over at Normani, clearly a little bit shocked as she didn't think Normani would actually go through with a not guilty plea. Why does she have to make it harder than it has to be?

The judge nodded, "How much does the state request for bail?"

"Remand, your honor," Ally replied swiftly, she was scared to have to go up against Normani now, compared to Lauren's other it was like changing changing a game from easy to very hard but she thrived in challenges. "Ms. Jauregui is a flight risk as she has shown on more than one occasion that she has no regard for the law, and frankly this trial!"

Normani subconsciously shook her head in disagreement, "That is outrageous your honor, my client has only a few nonviolent misdemeanors and she is willing to surrender her passport and wear an ankle brace if need be."

"That is simply too lenient given the nature of the crimes she is facing," Ally fired back, " Which, by the way, the state has a full confession of her guilt in these crimes."

"You mean the murder confession?" Normani smirked, and grabbed a piece of paper from her desk, "I'm glad she brought that up your honor because I have a motion to throw out the confession on grounds of my client being coerced and is now retracting it."

Ally, now bewildered and slightly angry, quickly replied, "I was there for this confession, your honor, there is absolutely-"

"Enough," Judge Michael cut Ally off, obviously hearing enough of their back and forth as it was more so just becoming banter. "Whether you were there or not, Ms. Brooke, that doesn't atomically make the confession clean," Ally gulped and nodded in agreement, "I will have to look over the confession before allowing it and that means I will not take it to consideration and I'm going to be granting you, Ms. Jauregui, bail."

Normani looked over at over at Lauren and smiled obviously knowing that meant she won. Lauren, on the other hand, just blankly stared back. She didn't know how to feel, had something finally gone in her favor? That is so unlikely, it was practically irrational to Lauren so she couldn't even wrap her head around it.

"Bail is set at 200,000 dollars."

Of course, Lauren thought as she tried hard not to laugh. She knew it was too good to be true that something would work in her favor, the judge might as well just given her remand without bail at that amount.