Accrued Justice

Chapter 1

All I could see was country for miles and miles around me. The plethora of small golden hills, the soft breeze rippling through the long tendrils of wheat, the old scattered farmhouses: There was a word to describe it all, but I couldn't figure out what. I observed the morning sky, dotted with slow-moving cotton clouds. What was that word? The pale blue-green atmospheric blanket above looking so pure as it covered the Earth in its brilliance. The low hum of the convertible as it drove down a paved road. It was on the tip of my tongue. The silence of the ride, the reticence of the passengers inside, the radio playing nothing but trashy pop songs and EDM -the songs voted to be the best of the best in music and constantly repeated. The endless plains and the occasional dust getting kicked into the air by a tractor. Then, the word popped into my head like a jack in the box.

Putrid.

Absolutely corrupt and decaying in every way, shape, and form.

This was a normal feeling by now, not really having anything against the country, its how I saw everything. Nothing really feels the same after you've been bruised a hundred times, mentally and physically, but you learn to get used to it. At least, that's what I used to believe in the passenger seat of a black convertible with a rusted bumper. Words can only hurt if they catch up to you, right? So why not just be faster and slicker rather than tougher and emotionless. That thought helped me more growing up than toughening up ever did. 

My eyes carefully avoided the rearview mirror, trying not to catch the eye of the driver. But with a lack of interest in the scenery, I instead focused on my transparent reflection on the tinted glass window of the car. My hair was a sloppy mess, per usual, my eyes the same honey-yellow underneath my well-used 5 dollar shades, my face still the same defined shape: the only thing changing being my never-ending thoughts. I had never liked to admire myself, not even through a glare on a window, but it was the only thing that didn't remind me of what type of hell I was leaving for a possible other (nor was it the countryside). 

It also heavily distracted me from the current driver of the car I was in.

The man behind the wheel was clean-cut, dressed in a police uniform, and doused in way too much cologne for an over forty-year-old. Not saying he didn't look good, but I couldn't help but see him as the traitor he claimed not to be. Hell, he was the reason I was in that car driving into the middle of nowhere to go to some type of reform school recommended to him by who knows who.  He also had a horrible sense of humor and terrible garlic breath (which, when he talked, could travel a mile alone).

In short, it wasn't exactly a great day for either of us.

Unfortunately, I had glanced up at the same time my driver looked in his mirror. Our eyes locked, and conflict was as inevitable as the tension had been between us yet again. A sigh came from his' lips, fingers gripping the wheel tightly. I knew he couldn't tell whether I had looked at him or not, but the look on his face said it all. I, on the other hand, didn't really care as I turned my eyes back to the window. Maybe I did, in a way, somewhere deep, deep down... but it was more for my own sanity rather than that fiend's moral support.

"Look, I don't like this any more than you do, but this is the only option you have left."  His' voice was stern and deep, eyes contributing to his voice. I snorted, not with humor, but with a sarcastic match ready to set wood on fire. Frankly, I didn't see the point of being stern if we were way past the point of scoldings. Too many lectures in the past and they all begin to become so very repetitive that just the start of a calm rebuke started to make me yawn.

"It didn't have to be, but you decided to let some jackasses talk you into sending me to some ghetto church school." Cool, blue eyes reflected straight back at me when I was done with my 'smart comment'. I was going to state my opinion whether he liked it or not. To be honest, it was a better option to get used to me than fight me. You could at least advance with the first one.