I thought I knew exactly what I was getting myself into.
“Bishop?” Bridge waves his hand in front of my facing along with an empty coffee cup. I let go of my mama’s bracelet that I’d been playing with, mentally chiding myself, I was going to break it if I kept this up.
“Got something interesting on your mind?” He raises an eyebrow, “or someone?” I bat him further away from me with a sigh,
“Unless you count the arrival of my Charge then no Bridge you are still only competing with yourself for my affection.” He begins to saunter his way over to the break room,
“Good because I would never compete for your affection.”
“We’ll see darling.” I blow a kiss after him which he catches with his free hand. He knows what today is, he wouldn’t be cleaning the coffee mugs away otherwise. ‘First impressions are always important’ and I’m assuming a caffeine addict wasn’t one he was willing to make. Though I’m not overly sure why he cared, considering he’d been complaining about me applying for a Charge since I’d told him of the approval two weeks ago. The liabilities, the traitorous tendencies, the… I don’t even remember at this point, he’s a useful white noise machine though.
“You do realise staring at the clock will not make them appear faster right?” I nearly shoot out of my skin at Bridge’s sudden reappearance right next to me,
“Stop that. I hate it when you do that.” He gently slaps my hand away from my mama’s bracelet as I spin my chair back to my desk to finish filing my closing case reports,
“I know, it’s still entertaining every time however.” He sits himself across from me on our shared desk and I glance down to my bracelet with its clasp hanging on by a thread. “Your mum’s told you to go and get that fixed before you get upset it’s broken.” I sigh at him as he clicks likely nonsense into his computer in order to look busy. He’s right, mama mentions it every time I ring and yet somehow I’m still finding excuses to delay it, I’m just busy I suppose.
“He is right though, both about the bracelet and you watching the clock.” Gomez rolls his way over from his desk, clearly with as much work to do as we have, “and maybe your Charge’s first impression of you shouldn’t in fact be you eagerly awaiting their arrival. Sends the wrong message.” I turn my chair towards him,
“And what message should I be trying to send Gomez? Dictator or supreme overlord?” He chuckles,
“Dictator is always a good shout in my opinion shows them who’s in charge,”
“Yes and I’m sure all the Charges who were transferred back to prison would agree with you.” He shoots me an unforgiving look,
“They broke the law again.”
“Just like yours will.” Chimes Bridge,
“You don’t know that.” They both laugh at me, Bridge produces a file from his draw,
“Your Charge got seven years for arson and then two years before her sentence was due to end was sure to add four more years for battery of other inmates.” I knew I hadn’t lost that file,
“She didn’t murder anyone.”
“She may as well have, did you read the hospital notes? Broken bones, stab wounds, even cut off someone’s finger.” Gomez cringes at the last one being read out, however Bridge is fascinated. Enthralled even.
“You seem like her biggest fan and yet have no belief she can change.” He hands the file back over to me with the picture of the young sixteen year old staring back at me, she doesn’t look like she’d done anything wrong. Moody? Yes. But a criminal? I don’t know.
“I’m impressed by her but if anything she seemed determined to stay in prison. In fact even that doesn’t match her profile because she committed six. Six! Arsons leaving no trace and then just hands herself over to the police and admits to everything? Doesn’t seem like the sociopath she is.” I stand from my desk to look him in the eyes,
“You don’t know anything about her.” He widens his eyes at me, I suppose that came out louder than I had intended. I move to apologise before the lift dings open behind us.
Two mildly out of breath officers spill out and spot us,
“Hello?” Greets Bridge and they attempt to regain enough air to speak.
“We’re reporting… an es-cap…ee,” wheezes out the first officer to the best of his ability. The boys shoot me a knowing look, I try to ignore it,
“Who exactly?” I ask. The second officer manages to draw himself back up to full height in order to answer,
“We was supposed to deliver a Charge here and she escaped.” This is not helping my argument.
“What happened?” Roman’s voice rings out from in front of his office causing us to turn and the officers to pull themselves together into a respectful position.
“Well you see Sir,” explains the first, “we were bringing the Charge here as ordered an she’d already tried to escape twice so we’d had to cuff her and as we’re going across the road she slips our grasp and then disappears behind this truck.”
“She did up and disappear, Sir.” Confirms the second. Roman’s neutral face does not quite give away his exasperation but it’s close.
“Can I have my team inside my office to deal with this please?” We move immediately up the two steps to his level before following him through the door to his office,
“Team. In light of these events there is someone I’d like you to meet,” we turn to see a pair of boots propped up on his desk connected to someone who’d I’d only seen in pictures, “This is Evaline Ered.”
