Criminal Essense

Chapter 1: Hopes of fresh air

“Hey,” she said, not too loud, but enough for him to be able to hear. He didn’t look up. “Hey!”

Everyone froze. The basketballs fell to the ground, bouncing up and down before going to a stop, the people lifting weights dropped them, and Piper was pretty sure one man dropped a huge one on his head and fell backwards, but no one gave any hint of noticing. All eyes were on the fifteen-year old girl who said hardly anything, and they’d hate to get on her bad side, but watching her go after someone was something they did not want to miss. The boy slowly looked up, and when he saw her staring at him, his face looked like a mirror of hers: confused. Confused on how someone so young and so innocent had ended up in prison. He walked over to the fence and stood in front of her, arms crossed.

“What's your name?” she demanded.

He hesitated for a moment, no doubt wondering whether or not he could trust her, Piper thought. But she knew the feeling. “Tyler,” he said finally. He nodded his head in her direction. “You?”

“Piper.”

They stood there for a moment, staring at possibly the only one who could understand them. Piper could see her reflection in his dark eyes and she noticed a few things that were definitely different; her hard jaw, set eyes, tanned skin, ratty hair. But she wasn’t focused on that. She was focused on him.

“Age?” he asked.

“Fifteen. You?"

He grinned. “Fifteen.” She found herself doing the same.

“Hey!” That was the prison guard--making sure they weren't breaking any rules or causing any havoc. “Get back to your exercise time. You only get an hour, better not waste it.”

Everyone began doing whatever they were doing before, that is after giving the two teenagers weary looks and nervous glances. She motioned over to the edge of the fence and he followed her, the two never breaking eye contact.

“What’re you in for?” Piper asked when they had stopped near the edge of the fence, looping her finger over the metal wire.

Tyler shrugged. “Attempted murder. My brother was killed by a drunk driver, I was in the car, ended up in the hospital. The last face I saw before I woke up was the man who killed him. I kinda ran into him on the street. Pulled a gun on him.”

Piper paused. “You couldn’t do it, could you?”

Tyler let out a breath before putting his hands in his pocket. “No,” he said finally. “I couldn’t. What about you, you look like you’re innocent enough, what’re you in for?”

“Murder,” she deadpanned. “But I didn’t do it.” Tyler scoffed before cracking a smile. “What?”

“It’s funny, that’s all.”

“What is?” she asked.

“Well,” he said, leaning against the fence, “I’d rather have a life sentence on my plate with the satisfaction that I gave a man who had done wrong justice then let him get away and have a mere ten years.”

“But I didn’t kill--” Tyler cut her off.

“Did you want to?”

A buzz interrupted her train of thought from the cell door with it’s thirteen bars going vertically, trapping her inside, like a bird in a cage. She sat up, sweat clinging to her white wife-beater, her orange pants scuffling against the hard mattress. She shook out her hair before putting it into a messy ponytail, strands of it falling into her face. The cell door opened, and in walked a guard to escort her into the interrogation room, a guard whom she considered an acquaintance. “C’mon, Halloway, you know the drill.”

She nodded, slipping into a pair of shoes that were two sizes too big. Placing a rough hand against the small of her back, he pushed her forward, leading her along several hallways, the lights above them flickering a ghastly yellow glow. When they reached the hallway that led to the booths with the bulletproof glass in between a counter that had telephones on either side of it. Detective Reynolds was already waiting for her. There was nobody else seeing visitors this early, and Piper was relieved, because as far as anyone knew, she didn’t get visitors--at least not anymore.

The detective that interrogated her monthly wasn’t always a detective--you see, he was her arresting officer. Promoted, because of his ‘big bust’. Piper rolled her eyes at the thought. If he was a real detective, he would know that she didn’t do it. When she took a seat at the plastic chair and put the phone to her ear, she felt like breaking the glass separating her and this phony detective who was to blame for her incarceration.

“Good morning, Piper, fancy seeing you here,” he said, his voice a bit muffled and far-off sounding through the plastic phone.

She rolled her eyes. “You haven’t said that one about a hundred times.

He chuckled, leaning back in his chair. “You know what day it is, Piper?”

She pretended to inspect her nails, seeming uninterested. “Tuesday, I think. You know it’s really hard to keep track around here without a calendar.”   

Detective Reynolds rubbed his temples, frustrated. “Don’t be a smart-ass, today is the day we leave for New York.”

“Oh, is that today?” She asked, twirling the spiraled phone cord around her index finger.

“Ha. Very funny. C’mon, this is serious. Don’t you want to get out of prison? Well? Don’t you?”

“I don’t know, it’s actually not to bad around here. Heard they were getting a Frappuccino machine installed next week.”

He sighed, letting out a long stream of air from his puffy lip. “Your eighteenth birthday is next week--that’s the age you can be re-tried as an official adult. Whether you like it or not, we’re going back to New York so you can have your trial.”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa--we?” She said, sitting up straight in her chair.  

He sighed again, tapping his fingers impatiently on the table, and she could hear it faintly in the background through the phone. "Yes, I’m afraid so. I'm your parole officer.

“You’ve got to be kidding me.” She leaned against her elbow, dread overwhelming her thoughts. “When do we leave?”

He held his wrist in front of his face before placing it back on the table. “Right now.”

“Great.” She said sarcastically. “Can’t wait.”