Cursed

1. Vacation

"Dan, no! I said no. No more suicides, no more property matters. I'm done!" Louis screamed.

"But Louis, think again, this case can take you to the top. If you win, you'll be like the best lawyer all across America!" The person on the phone said.

"Isn't that your dream?" He continued.

"Yes, Dan. But I..I need a break. The last case was too much. It was a hard win. And though I know a lawyer's job is to defend his client, no matter whether he's innocent or not, I can't just fight for a killer. Defending the guilty millionaires was never my dream! I can't defend the culprits anymore!" Louis flared and tossed her phone in the back seat.

It was too much for her. All her life, she'd wanted to become a lawyer. What does a lawyer do? He protects the innocents. He delivers justice, she'd thought. But her professor at the famous Law School of Burkingham had different opinions. A lawyer protects his clients no matter what. Even though your client is the actual culprit, you still have to fight for him. Louis didn't obviously comply and somehow managed to top the Law school sticking to her principles.

But when in school, one can do whatever he wants to. He doesn't get paid for what he does. When she started working, she was made to work against her principles by her boss. Once he realized her potential, he kept giving her tough cases that demanded to support a culprit. She had to do it otherwise he'd threaten her to leave her job. Though she'd saved a lot of innocents, her hands also held the blood innocents. Her fame kept on growing and so called pillars of society started requesting her aid. She couldn't deny or else her job would be gone. But now, she couldn't take it anymore. She needed fresh air, a few days off to rethink of her life. And then she decided to go on a vacation, to clear her mind of everything.

During the conversation, she'd completely forgotten where she was going. She was supposed to take a left turn few miles before but she went on and now she's stuck in a wilderness beside a vast lake where the road had unexpectedly ended.

"Dammit!" She let out her anger and frustration when her engine hummed and finally died. Why did her life always get crammed with so many complications? She'd already sacrificed her plan to visit better tourist places as her boss would come running after her to do the case. She was now going to Wisconsin, a small peaceful town her boss would never care to know of.

But even now destiny had no plans of giving her a teensy bit of peace.

She cursed and slammed the door shut. Steam rose through the gaps near the bonnet. She sighed. Dealing with cars was one of the things she wasn't good at.

She went over to the back seat and crouched low to find her phone. Fortunately, it didn't have a cracked screen. She called Arthur, her assistant. Since he had been very loyal to her since a long time, she'd told him of her plans to visit Wisconsin. She also had told him to stay close if anything springs up. Now asking her assistant who assisted only in clerical work to do her car related chore wasn't exactly in her nature but she called him anyway. He was after all the only person she knew well.

"Okay, I'll be there in fifteen minutes." He said which was quite surprising. Perhaps he was staying too close. But Louis didn't mind. Over a few years, she'd made new temporary friends, lost old ones. And Arthur was the only guy she called a true friend, perhaps family. They went on lunches, dinners, fests and party nights together, always.

Louis went back to the driver's seat, opened the messaging app and went through dozens of work related messages.

"If you don't come back now, I swear I'll remove you from work." Dan had sent.

"Fine, ten days. I give you ten days off. But you must return in exact ten days." He'd finally given up.

The rest were from colleagues wishing her for the journey. So much for well wishes.