“I... don’t know. I rarely ever know what Xander wants, in fact.”
“I meant with us. Tonight.”
“I know what you meant, I just don’t know.”
He paused, letting the spring slump into his right hand. He walked over next to her and laid it down on the paper, forcing her to stop.
“What are you doing?”
“You don’t have to be dead to have someone that only ever sees the best in you.” he said blankly, avoiding eye contact with her.
“What are you - -”
“He’s got a problem. Unless we figure out what’s going on soon or whether or not he can get a handle on it... we’re going to have to do it for him. Are you ready to do that?”
Cathy narrowed her eyes, then turned away from him and pushed the slinky aside, continuing to write.
Natasha fixed her blouse, making sure the top button was fastened tightly as she sat down in the cold, orange chair. She twitched nervously, rapping her nails along the edge of the burgundy notebook she carried pressed against her breasts as she squirmed and tried to get comfortable.
Her usually short hair had been allowed to grow out just a little too long and tickled the tips of her ears and eyelashes. Her mouth had gone dry the second she’d walked into the glass doors of the huge stone building, and she hadn’t been able to work up any moisture yet, except to sweat. The arm of her blouse was already translucent from wiping the sweat from her brow every few minutes.
The ceilings were high and all the walls painted stark white. It was as quiet and still as a church on Saturday, the only movement coming from the blinking light attached to the side of each camera; their lenses seeming to be trained directly on her no matter where she looked.
Directly in front of her was a glass wall that seemed to go up forever. It was so thick that everything viewed through it became distorted like a funhouse mirror. There were small cracks in it from the other side that made her squirm again.
There was a loud, metallic snap as the door on the other side of the glass unlocked itself. She swallowed hard as Adam Genblade walked out from behind it and into the visitor’s area. His head was down and covered in shadow, yet somehow she could tell that he was smiling. Smiling so wide that it could barely even be contained by the confines of his slender face. After a few steps he looked up, his eyes so light a blue that they might well have been white, locking eyes with her instantly through the pain.
He stopped walking for a brief instant when he saw her. If it had been from surprise he did not show it on his face, calmly sitting down in the chair opposite her and hoisting up his chains enough to reach the foam-covered phone and bring it to his ear.
She did the same, her hand shaking a little as she touched the receiver. She stopped herself from checking her blouse again, even though something in the back of her head was telling her it was undone again. For a moment there was no sound, apart from the moist sickle of Genblade cleaning the front of his bloodstained teeth with his tongue.
“Hubba,” he said finally, his eyes moving over her as though he owned her. “You’re not the brunette I was expecting... but you’ll definitely do. You charge by the hour, sweetie?”
“Actually, yes,” Natasha responded in a steely voice, trying her best to sound civil. “My name is Natasha Mayer of Mayer, Summers and Soul, Mr. Genblade.”
Genblade cocked his head to one side and smirked, but did not respond.
“I believe you addressed me in your letter requesting legal aid.”
There was another long silence as he looked her up and down, though now he appeared to be measuring her metal instead of her brass. After a second or two he seemed satisfied, snorting into the phone. “Never thought in a million years you’d actually show. Not now.”
“It’s a high-profile case,” she informed him, pinning the phone between her head and shoulder as she took a few pieces of paper out of her folder and began to scribble on one of them. “Win or lose, the publicity will be unimaginable. Just look at Johnnie Cochran’s career.”
“Who?” Genblade snarled, raising an eyebrow.
Natasha pasted on a fake, warm smile as she brushed the thought notion aside with a sweeping gesture. “Never mind. What’s important is that we get started on your case, Mr. Genblade.”
“You don’t actually think you’ll win, do you?”
Natasha tapped her folder again in silence, looking from one sheet of paper to another. “No. But with me behind you, I think you’ve got a much better chance.”
“That’s not exactly the position I had in mind for you... but we’ll start out that way for now.”
Again, Natasha shifted. “I’m afraid there isn’t much to offer a case like this in the long run, however,” she continued, as if he hadn’t spoken. “The fact that you admitted guilt previously hampers my ability to undermine that. It shouldn’t be too hard to claim insanity for your actions. See, if your crimes are the result of mental impairment then it’s considered inhumane to put you to death for them.”
“Darwin never was a judge,” he scoffed under his breath.
“Excuse me?” she said, almost without thinking about it.
“Darwin, Charles. Kinda pioneered the whole ‘strongest will survive’ theory of evolution. He would have hated what western society has become, catering to the mentally unfit the way you do.”
“Comments like that could also seriously undermine my efforts,” Natasha said
