In the absence of a breeze, the corpse of a leaf drifts to the ground of the colony.
The dead leaf crunches underneath her boots as Hannah takes the heavy walk. The watchful eyes of the guard on her back and the rest waiting for her ahead, her gathered strength shakes her clutched hands. Her knuckles white, her face drained of color, she saw a light in knowing she wasn't alone.
Not this time. This time, there wasn't only one witch on trial. She certainly, wouldn't be the only one to burn. If she should die today, this colony would crumble to ash shortly after.
She had her predictions, of course. Doyle was going to be killed. Sophie, along with him. Whatever they had done to be accused, she knew it didn't matter. Russell didn't trust them, so they'd kiss death just like she was about to.
Hannah wished she could sigh, wished she could expel her discomfort in pain and mental agony, but she moves as if she's one of the infected herself. To the courtyard's platform, the beat of her own pulse brings a racing beat to her walk. Beyond, the seats on the swings from the school's playground swayed by themselves in the breeze. A harsh one warning of the winter she shuddered against last night, that stung at her cheeks to pierce colder than the eyes of her enemies upon her.
Her wrists are tied in painful zip-ties. Her bruised flesh, pinches as she takes her waiting seat, as her ankles are zip-tied together too.
In this demeaning position on the platform, Hannah felt her resolve slipping as angry tears filled her grey eyes. No justice resided for Hannah, no power, no luck. Not once. Not ever. In the grand story of her pathetic life, she'd asked herself often why she'd lived above the others. Why, she, the likes of Russell, and the rest she looked out onto escaped the clutches of the carrion virus.
She was nothing. A cashier girl with no motivation, no purpose. Now, a lowly meager survivor with no family, no hope, but somehow, she managed to find friends here. Brave friends. Friends, that assured her with nods and a bright shimmer to their grieving eyes.
All those she stared on, gave away their own verdicts by how they stared at her. Here, nor anywhere, held sanctuary from rampant tongues that wagged preposterous rumors birthed from ten percent truth. As much as she avoided people, avoided being in that mold, she somehow always found herself to be the center of everyone's attentions. No matter what card she played, if she even played at all, she was forced into the game of any standing society. Societies, she never held faith in.
Though her eyes bore now into the worn wood beneath her feet, she could feel Dalton near her. Her lawyer of sorts and juror on her side, as it were. In Dalton, she trusted above all, along with Nick. Yet, in her blackest heart of hearts, Hannah remained detached. A darker outlook on humanity, Hannah's vision may have been rattled by Dalton, but it stayed locked under key. Not even the boy with the strongest of jawlines and shoulders, coupled with his kindness, could break her. She wouldn't allow it.
To her left, another finds the vacant chair. Another accused. One, from a walk of life far different than her own.
And then, from the corner of Hannah's unwavering blank stare, the third seat fills. His form rattles in chains, showing the colony just how dangerous and non-compliant he is with the amount of restraints on his body. All for show, Hannah's sure, though she wouldn't put it past the soldier to give Russell a good beating should he get out.
Shame, really, that he hadn't.
As Russell rattles off the bogus charges against Sophie, accusing her of stealing medical supplies, Hannah can't help the sardonic laugh she gives. Complete bullshit.
Surely, Russell could have thought of better, but since the colony didn't know Sophie's good-heartedness as others did, Hannah's sure the crowd ate it up if they didn't undergo her care yet. The nurse was attentive, checked on everyone equally, and genuinely cared. Hannah saw her halo—as annoying as it was—but not many had a chance to be annoyed by it yet.
Then, Doyle's charges almost met the severity of her own. Though he hadn't fired a weapon at a guard, nor killed one, the assault charge could be enough to line up a bullet alongside Hannah's.
Her bloodshot gaze casts upward and in the profile of the older male's face, she sees what she always sees in him. There was something about the guy. Something, that lead her to stare at him in sheer curiosity and awe. He had a face that could form legions, but it was in his demeanor that radiated confident in general. She'd known soldiers. Hell, she'd even shot one dead under Russell's command to take this colony, but James Doyle was no mere soldier.
Hannah believed in there being people born to lead. In Doyle, she instantly recognized it. She's transfixed on how Doyle stares point-blank at Russell accusing him of such treachery. In all her watching, she sees him ultimately, as their only chance to get out of this mess.
Mirroring Doyle's murderous expression, Hannah casts it onto their enemy who walks free, who she'd love to kill next.
In the middle of the two, a far different presence sits in her ties. Try as she may, Sophie could not blink away the lone tear trailing down her cheek. Having always pulled strength from Doyle in the past, she knew just looking at him would do so now. With his strength, she moored her own. Though they were powerless, she found some power in being at his side as they battled through hell. When his eyes stray from the fixation on Russell to meet her, she can't help but cry.
They'd been through too much for it to end this way.
Doyle, facing a possible sentencing of death, sat in the shadow of injustice. Doyle refused to accept his fate. Or, the fate of the others standing trial with him.
Obediently he came to this stage, with his chin held high against the stares of those he would pass. His aching eyes vacant, they carved into Russell with his arrival in his need to survive. Doyle's energy, encompassed in hatred, radiated the coldness he felt in that lonely jail cell in the night. Scanning onto the stage, he lingers on Sophie and the tears she sheds that he can't wipe away. His jaw clenched, unable to stand it, and trying to form a plan on his own should the jury rule the worst for them. Sophie may very well lead to his emotional undoing, which was a very dangerous thing to reveal in front of them all. Especially, Russell and his team of onlookers.
Unsure of what they did to Sophie in the night, or if it had just been a provocation tactic to mess with him, all of it had been enough to frazzle every last one of Doyle's nerves.
The muscle in his jaw tics from his rising tension, accentuated only by the clicking of the chains around his cuffed appendages. The deafening silence from the onlookers was an awkward beat against his reflecting silence, a peaceful resolve in comparison to his normally busy mind.
Finding it difficult to succumb to the control of his own life, Doyle is unsure whether to fight, or to finally give in.
Dalton waits on the stage on the side of the convicted. Then, speaks when Russell offers him the opportunity. "There's a great deal I can say in defense of those accused today. Some of you might see them as guilty...all I see are three people under persecution. Three people, that want nothing more than freedom, who can't stand to be oppressed. They offer no danger to any of us, only those who wish to keep them under their thumb,"
Dangerous words spoken, Russell begins to take on the mad look in his eye as he watches the boy he greatly underestimated. Feeling he, himself, could win over any crowd, this kid had a talent similar to his own. Making a mistake in giving this kid a platform, he casts a worried glance to Kate that many of the others might not be able to read as easily as her. A woman, fluent in reading the minimal given emotions from men who above all, displayed anger and lust.
Dalton continues, "But you don't have to listen to me. After all, I'm new here. I don't know most of you. So, I'd like to give this time for them to speak on their own behalf. To give them a voice, much like all of you need a voice in this place, in these times where we're all just trying to figure out how to get back a small fraction of what we lost. In my short time here, I've already noticed there's a muzzle on all of you, when there isn't a need for it. Hannah, please, go first." Dalton offers, stepping aside for the girl to speak on her own behalf.
An error, he knows he made the second she decides to open her impartial mouth.
"I'm not going to sit up here and beg for you guys to have mercy. Any of you. Because you all know that today, like many other days, is bullshit. I just hope that one day.. Russell Wolfe.. you will pay for everything you have done. Not only to us up here, but to everyone in your past. If I'm up here for blood on my hands, then you should stand trial after us."
Justice for her brother burned hot in her gaze and rather than dancing around the accusation he already understood, Hannah voiced out to the colony, "Russell killed my brother in cold blood. Tossed him to the infected over the wall. It should be him up here. Not us. Fuck you." She spits, as only Hannah could—with her whole hatred and everything built up in her mouth shooting his way to land on his shiny brown boots.
Though it should have been Sophie's turn to speak, she's silent against the gasp of the colony. Hannah's bold action, causing both cheers and retreating steps from the stage.
In the heat of the fire, Doyle finds his familiar place. He speaks as freely as Hannah, with the matching venom, "Yeah, what she said."
Cracking his neck from side to side, the tension of the storm builds. The air filled with familiar tension and Doyle thrived in it as Hannah did.
"Just let us go! None of this is right! Abby is my daughter, by all rights! Doyle, her father, her guardian, as he is mine. We need one another. If we are to be killed or exiled, she'd be traumatized, please! I beg of you! I've done nothing! We've done nothing!" Sophie, finding a different kind of panic and fight, already feels that Elisa would have their side.
The doctor who has been missing in action, now staring helplessly at them on the stage from her juror's seat.
As for the others, they were strangers. They could vote how they wanted and with the influence of this horrible leader, it was no foreign suspicion that he would surely get his way no matter how he tried to disguise his voice.
"Not guilty!" Elisa shrieks out, brought to her own tears that she wipes away guiltily behind her glasses. "Across the board, not guilty. Let them go. This has gone on long enough. It's over, Russell!'
The soft-spoken doctor Doyle and Sophie knew had no trouble finding her own voice, at last, when it mattered most. Compelled, as many were around them, Russell's grip on this colony slips by the second. Unraveling, like his best shirts and his warmest blankets back in the mansion. His mistakes today, possibly fatal to not just his position here, but now, his own life as he sees his own guard begin to turn against him.
"Not guilty," Kate suddenly stands on her high-heels and straightens her pencil skirt, "I think it's time we looked over the laws of the colony and hopefully, with Russell's continued guidance, but perhaps we should hold an election to bring some stability back to Richmond Hill?"
Keeping her distance from the fallen leader radiating in fumes, Kate vacates the stage with as much poise as possible when the crowd begins to rush upon the stage. Demanding, that the prisoners be freed. Dalton, takes it upon himself to urge the guards to free Hannah. With the turning of the crowd, they oblige.
Fisher, not needing to give his verdict, simply shrugs his shoulders. And, for the first time, finds a smile with the abrupt shift of power. Believing, that the bastard was finally getting what was coming to him. Popping a fresh tooth pick into his mouth, Fisher leans back in his chair and enjoys his front row seat.
"Ana Maria!" Russell shouts for her, as Doyle is freed, then Sophie.
When she doesn't answer his call in the crowd, Russell suspects she's fled with her presence during the trial unseen since the start. His throne, radically pulled out from underneath him, there is nothing left for Russell to stand on. His people rush upon him and when he tries to fight, Russell reaches for his gun.
As Nick then rushes onto the stage, he tackles Russell to the ground. Knee bent into his back and his arm twisted around, Nick takes the weapon and hands it off to the newly freed Doyle.
"Arrest him. Throw him in the jail. Throw away the key for all I care." Doyle says as he's restrained with the plastic ties that cut into his circulation. Not going willingly, Russell thrashes, fighting with all that's left in him. As the turned members of the guard take Russell, alongside civilians, Nick remains as the dust begins to settle from the failed trial.
The Sergeant moves to comfort Sophie, to hold her in his arms, as Dalton and Nick check on Hannah's wrist wounds.
The girl with the solid eyes of steely blue stares at Doyle, as she so often did. Whether it be from across the road, through rusted bars, or being on trial alongside her, that pillar she admires in him is one she hopes to take on within herself.
With Sophie to his chest, Doyle finds Hannah's stare and returns it. Standing alongside the girl who had an allegiance to his enemy, but now belonged to his own side. A side, she was on all the while, with their common hatred for the man in charge.
"Remind me not to get on your bad side." Doyle says to Hannah over the head he cradles.
At his voice, Sophie looks to where he speaks and then offers Hannah a smile. Elisa comes to Sophie, her friend that she couldn't abandon in this against her greatest fears. She's hugging her as Doyle lets her go, leaving a space between Hannah and Doyle that doesn't feel so strained anymore.
The corner of Hannah's lip lifts, a grin encompassing her face that presses in at her strong cheeks. Hannah replies, "Yeah. Same goes for you, Serg."