WILD BUT NEVER FREE

Waves

Hey everyone! This may seem like a bit of a filler chapter, but I quite liked it so I thought I'd put it in. Hope everyone is okay! Elz

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The walk from the courtroom to the cells had become the only sense of freedom left in my life . With my hands cuffed behind my back and a guard on either side of me, I felt somewhat at peace, far from the reality of what had been thrown in my face that day.

When I arrived back at my 50 square feet room, I was in a daze. I was thrown into my cell like a rag doll, and hardly even realised the fact that the woman who had sat by my side all day still hadn't taken her queue to leave.

Her voice echoed off the walls so violently that I couldn't pick up a word she said, so I lay on my bed and simply shut off my brain, hoping she would get the hint to leave.

Her frustrated sigh let me know that she wasn't going to walk out without at least one last attempt to grab my attention.

"We did well today York. We need to make sure we stay on track."

The word 'well' lingered in the silence between us. Doing well was what you said when you won a sports game, came top of your class or got a promotion at work. Throwing blade after blade across the room to hurt people who were already torn apart from grief in front of a sea of cameras was not doing well; it was pure evil.

"I don't see what his mental health has to do with any of this." The words surprised me as the spilled from my mouth. I should've been happy that we had found a weakness of the man who wanted to make sure I rotted behind bars for the rest of my life, but I couldn't shake the feeling of how wrong it all felt.

"The reliability of what he's said in front of court has to be questioned if he's suffering from anything that could alter the way he sees events, York." Mrs Morris stated like it was the most obvious answer in the world, but I still wasn't convinced.

I stayed silent and stared at the dirty white cracked ceiling. I had nothing more to say to Mrs Morris, but the hope that she would leave still didn't come and instead she took me by surprise by taking a seat on the end of my bed. Her strong floral perfume invaded my head in a way that felt suffocating.

She had finally taken my attention from following the cracks along the ceiling and gave me a wide eyed look that looked unusual sitting on her usually tight, stern face.

"York, do you know the one thing that every single one of those people in that room want to see from a defendant?"

Her question puzzled me, but threw me into thought. The only thing I could think of was that they wanted to see the monster locked up, thrown away for ever to pay for what he did. But before I could answer, Mrs Morris answered for me.

"Every person in that room will crack as soon as they see any sign of remorse on your face." She explained with a soft expression, but straight away I interjected her remark.

"How can I be remorseful when I didn't do what they're accusing me of doing?"

Mrs Morris gave an intriguing sigh and looked away from me, placing her hands in her lap in a thoughtful manner. When she began talking, it was almost as though she was aiming the conversation to herself, "I've worked with several of killers, everyone in the room including myself knew they were guilty and not one of them even cared to remember the name of their victim, or show any guilt that they ruined their lives." Then she looked to me, "people are going to see that you're not in that category at all; that you're remorseful even if you are innocent, because you're mourning her death."