She sighed as she laid the sheet back down, rummaging her perfectly manicured nails through her bright red hair. After scuttling it about and then fixing it again, she stopped and smiled at herself.
It wasn’t as though she wasn’t prepared.
Some would make a case that she was overly prepared, actually. She was in line to be the District Attorney for the whole area and she was going up against a lawyer who was apparently living out of her offices. She’d researched every part of Natasha Mayer’s personal and district history to make sure she knew exactly what she was up against. Had gone so far as to find out what teachers she’d studied under in University to try and extrapolate what kind of defense she might work out for Genblade. She’d researched all the pros – of which there were many –of sending Genblade to his death. She’d even researched the cons, which were few and far between. She’d spoken with doctors and psychiatrists that worked with the criminally insane. Gotten sworn statements from reputable sources that stated that Adam Genblade was unequivocally in control of his functions when he killed those children.
She was ready.
She repeated that in her mind several times, leaning back in her chair and letting out a long sigh. She was ready. After only a moment she rose again, bringing her pen to the page in front of her and scratching out a line near its middle.
Ever since she’d been a child, she’d been nervous this way when it came to preparing. Writing notes out for a test a hundred times to make sure it was memorized, even long after she’d tossed the book away and written it from memory. Reciting particularly hard passages over and over again until her tongue went numb. Once, in college, she’d stayed up studying for thirty-six hours on nothing but cold pizza and Red Bull.
The pages in front of her blurred together and then separated back apart, bulging in and out as if they were breathing. Groaning, she rubbed the bridge of her nose as she examined the empty cup of espresso next to her and tried to recall when the last pot had been brewed. Despite rumours to the contrary, coffee did in fact have an expiration date. Anything over an hour old was like drinking tar.
A tall man poked his head in through the window, his hair slicked back neatly and a charming smile pasted across his face. The smile would almost have been creepy but for the small sparkle in his eyes that somehow made it okay and made it more honest. The suit he wore had looked pressed and magnificent a few hours ago when he’d put it on, but was already showing signs of daily wear and tear from the day’s labours. “Anthony Jones paging Megan Greene, please pick up Megan Greene.”
She tried to glare up at him from her papers, but couldn’t help the smile that was slowly spreading across her lips as he entered the room. “That’s getting old.”
“No it’s not,” he responded in a chipper tone, sitting down in the chair across from her and laying a steaming cup of coffee on the desk before her. “Here. Thought you could use a break.”
“You’re sweet,” she said, taking the cup to her lips and blowing the steam away before taking a cautious sip, then downing a massive gulp.
He watched her for a moment until she noticed him.
She hummed a small laugh, then put down the cup and smirked at him. “Sorry. Thank you.”
“Hmm?” he said, looking up at her. “Oh. No big deal, I was on my way up. So, you ready for the big Genblade hearing?”
She rolled her eyes and was about to make a snide comment when she stopped herself just as her mouth opened. “I think so,” she said instead, tapping her finger against her desk.
“That doesn’t sound good. There’s a lot riding on this. I’m sure I don’t need to tell you. This could be your ticket to assistant DA. You sure you don’t need a hand with the research?”
She smiled, waving the notion away with a gesture. “I got it covered. It should be fairly open and shut. Even if he won’t confess on the stand, we’ll just read his prior statement into evidence and get him on purgery as well.”
He grinned. “That’s a bit of overkill when you’re going for the death sentence, don’t you think?”
“Why go at him with a pistol when you’ve got a cannon right there?” She smiled, shrugging as she leaned back in her chair again, crossing her arms in front of her. “I’m gonna see this through to the end, Tony... and I really do pity anyone who tries to get in my way.”
“Ow,” Natasha said as she clunked her head onto the cluttered table in front of her, feeling the impact reverberate through her skull.
She closed her eyes tightly to try and force the floor beneath her back into focus, finding it very difficult to convince her eyes to open again. Each of her lashes felt like lead weights and the bags under her eyes got bigger every time she looked in the mirror. She tried to remember the last thought to go through her head and get the train rolling again, when to her horror she discovered she was so tired that she’d actually lost the ability to think for a moment.
For the briefest of serene moments, she felt sleep nipping at her and began to fall into it.
A knock at
