The Proviso

21: Misfit So Alone

Once Giselle told Bryce's frigid assistant her name, she warmed instantly, eager to tell her where he could be found. Giselle smiled in spite of herself, then blushed when his assistant gave her a conspiratorial wink.

At the courthouse, Giselle patiently subjected herself to being searched, dug her permit out, and surrendered her weapon. After being frisked, wanded, and all but tossed on the x-ray conveyor belt, she was finally allowed in.

All the way through the building, up stairs and through doors, she garnered stares. Some of these people knew her from law school and gaped at her. Kevin Oakley saw her, tried to catch her attention, but she ignored him. Though she hadn't spoken with him since the day he'd declined to charge her with homicide, he could wait. Politics could wait.

She got to the right division before she slowed at all. Her heart pounding and her mouth dry, she ducked into the restroom to calm herself a bit before getting on with her business here. Leaning back against the wall, she bent over and took some deep breaths, not thinking about what she intended to do. If she thought about it at all, she knew she'd change her mind and then she'd regret it for the rest of her life.

She looked in a mirror once her breathing had slowed and she felt more capable of acting like a civilized human being. Her face was red, as she had expected, thus hid any marks Fen's hand might have made. She bent down to splash cold water on her face and gargle some of it to ease the dryness of her mouth.

The restroom door opened suddenly and though Giselle took no real notice, a flash of dull, frizzy, indeterminate red did catch in her periphery and she looked up. There, Justice McKinley staring at her in the mirror, frightened determination written all over her face.

I'll be damned.

She wondered if Justice knew or suspected what Giselle had done for her, or if she knew about her connection to Knox, because she couldn't think of any other reason the girl would detain her, now of all times and here of all places.

"Um ... Dr. Cox? May I, um, have a sec? Not about grades," she tacked on hurriedly.

"Sure," Giselle said, trying to hide her impatience. Couldn't she have done this at school, when she had unlimited access and time? "Only a sec, though."

Justice, looking very young and naïve, swallowed a bit. "I- I want-" She pursed her lips and looked away, shaking her head. "Never mind. It's stupid."

Giselle turned, leaned back against the sink, and crossed her arms over her chest. "Say whatever you have to say to me, Justice," she demanded not so gently this time. "Clock's ticking."

She started and opened her mouth. "I want to be like you," she blurted.

Giselle blinked, surprised. "Why?"

"You- You're powerful and-" She looked at the floor and whispered, "I want to learn that."

Giselle watched her for several long seconds before Justice raised her eyelashes. "I can't teach you how to be that," she said abruptly. "You have to come to it on your own, through hardship and fear. You have to know who you are and what you believe and you have to take stock of that every day. You have to walk barefoot through fire on broken glass. You have to stand up to people who frighten you under conditions that terrify you. You have to be honest with yourself about what you really want. You have to be willing to fail.

"Power is acquired, earned. You'll have many opportunities in your life to earn bits and pieces of it. You'll make bad choices; learn from them and do the best you can with them. Do not, under any circumstances, dither over what the right choice might be every single time you're presented with one. It won't teach you anything and you'll be a bore at cocktail parties."