Souls Entwined

Prologue I

Prologue I
Third Person

Stage One: The Jury.

The room spilled over with many ethnicities, cultures of different languages and religions. These people were separated in their own worlds day to day, and they were usually only in the same place during UN meetings and world conferences. They'd been brought together for one goal.

Forty-three of them had filled the private courtroom.

Forty-three people. Forty-three packs. They'd come in from across the world. Forty-three letters had brought forty-three people. Not one had been ignored. The trial had reached even the world's remotest areas, and no one would pass on the opportunity of a front-row seat.

The forty-three chosen, which now crowded the courtroom, were made of lunas, alphas, gammas, omegas, and humans. They packed the room silently, voices falling from their lips as though the courtroom's large double-barreled doors had stolen them away.

'Good morning,' the judge had a thick accent, a strange marriage of inflictions from his mother, born in Oxfordshire, England, and his American father, born in Delaware but raised in Texas. He had spent most of his youth trying to foster respect from his peers, but a British boy living in Texas would never belong. Instead, he had pushed himself to be better than them, harder, more pronounced. He vowed he would have a career where he could hold power in the palm of his hands. He felt that power under his skin as he looked at the faces staring back at him. 'You may be seated.'

'We are on the record. This is the State versus the Umbra Pack. State ready for trial?'

A woman, who would have been no taller than five feet without her heels, stood, wobbling on the tips of her toes, her shoes arching her feet. 'Yes, your honour, we are.'

'Defence?'

'Defence is ready as well.' The man who responded to the call never stood fully. His hands pressed against his files as he hunched over the desk. He had a green tweed suit, which had been steamed and pressed, though it was somehow still wrinkled. As he sat down, glancing across the room, he knew why the firm had picked him. He wouldn't win this one.

'Very well. Clerk, call the roll.'

The woman strained her voice to be heard from across the room. She started down the lengthy list: three alphas, five lunas, one beta, and eight gammas—seventeen juries would be struck from the panel due to potential bias. Of the twenty-six that remained—four humans mated to family members of alphas; two omegas, who, when asked by the State, opposed the elites; one human, with scheduled surgery, was struck; and four pack-members, with exams in the coming months, were all struck.

Fifteen remained after the examination.

Theresa Kane, 34, Omega, Sanguis pack, Orange County, United States of America.

Ailbert Greeson, 82, Elder, Herba Collis pack, Leith, Scotland.

Gerald McNogual, 54, Human, Clavis pack, Newquay, England.

Simon Levi, 41, Kappa, Ferula pack, Brittany, France.

Maja Kalsson, 24, Kappa, Flamma pack, Jokkmokk, Sweeden.

Jaysha Paudel, 68, Elder, Mons pack, Pisnag, Nepal.

Aasir Mwangi, 20, Kappa, Noctem pack, Naro Moru, Kenya.

María Quintero, 39, Human, Ardere pack, Pima County, United States of America.

Kainalu Peter, 41, Warrior, Oceanum pack, Goroka, Papua New Guinea.

Sophie Jones, 53, Kappa, Mons Igneus pack, Taupo, New Zealand.

Jules Bambi, 27, Warrior, Spadonius pack, N'Djamena, Chad.

Lucas Tremblay, 72, Kappa, Acernis pack, Toronto, Canda.

Fatima Karimov, 49, Kappa, Flumen pack, Chuy, Kyrgyzstan.

Trent Barron, 67, Kappa, Princeps pack, York, England.

Egor Ivanov, 56, Human, Timore pack, Kondrovo, Russia.

Stage Two: Opening Statements

The woman teetered eloquently in her heels. Despite the hours spent in court as she paced the floor, she had never worn shoes shorter than four inches during a trial. This time should be no different, though she was highly aware of the cameras which waited, poised outside the courtroom, piranhas, just waiting for the subsequent frenzy.

She cleared her thoughts, trying not to give all her attention to the hurry as she started pacing across the floor, the leather of her shoe pinching the skin at her ankle. She knew she shouldn't have worn the new Louboutins.

'Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. My name is Susanna Rokkmen, and I represent the plaintiff, Elliot Clarke. We are here today to decide if the defendants are liable for the mental and physical damages caused to Ms Clarke in July and August, last year in 2018. On the 14th of July, 2018, Elliot Clarke was asked to help someone she thought was a friend. Later that day, as a consequence of agreeing to help, Elliot and her friend Kendra Mcgarth were drugged and separated, held in a secondary location.

'During this trial, the State will provide evidence supporting Ms Clarke's claims. Through police and medical reports, we will prove that Ms Clarke suffered from malnutrition. Through forensic reports, we will determine that Ms Clarke was held in a cell inside the old slaughterhouse of the Clarke mansion, and a lack of due diligence was taken towards her health. Testimonies from the following eyewitnesses will further support our case. Carmon Sinclair, an alley of the Umbra pack, will outline the pressures she was under to perform the task set by the pack. Kaden Delossa, Andrew McGinnin, Jacobi Whetts, Miguel Scarpino, and Irene Faber will provide testimonials of the day they found her after she escaped the Clarke mansion. They will each make accounts stating where they found her and who was in her immediate vicinity.

'Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, Ms Clarke was just a seventeen-year-old high school student who did not provoke nor encourage the behaviours of the Umbra pack. At the conclusion of this trial, the State hopes that the jury will find the defendant responsible for causing undue hardship and grief to Ms Clarke and the Vermiculo pack, as well as Kendra Mcgarth.'

As Susanna stepped back, the new shoes, a gift to herself for landing the case, pinched at her skin. She refused to flinch as she watched Lennard step forward. There was an almost undetectable tremor in his hands as he approached the jury. No one else in the room noticed it. But Susanna did. She'd studied him across the courtrooms for years, learning his ticks and tricks. He couldn't hide anything from her anymore.

He breezed through his introductions, and the room seemed tense as he brought up his defence, trying to change the perspective of the narrative Susanna had laid before the room. The seats were filled with werewolves who supported the Vermiculo pack, not necessarily because they were right, though they were, but because it was easier to side with the higher power.

'Ms Clarke and her friend were having a sleepover on neutral territory, trespassing on land that was not theirs. They lied to their parents about their whereabouts, and there was a history of intimacy between Ms Clarke and one of the defendants. This is not the action of a pack set on a vengeance mission. This case is simply the tale of a misguided girl falling for the wrong boy.'