Page 3 of Tainted Saints

I can’t stop shaking,my winter clothes providing no warmth against the shock of being arrested and hauled off to county jail. Fuck, the Ambassador will be so mad, and when he gets mad…

I have to shut down that train of thought, I can’t think of what will happen once they call him. The female officer—Officer Anne—told me they would be in touch with my family, her voice soft as if she thought I would break. I wanted to laugh, tell her that she’s too late for that. I was broken by my father a long time ago, and moulded into the perfect daughter, fit to be in the public eye.

Not so perfect if she keeps stealing things…

I wrap my trembling arms tighter around myself, trying to practise the deep breathing I read about online when I first suspected that I suffer from social anxiety disorder. It’s a form of anxiety that rears its ugly head when I’m forced to participate in the many social engagements that I have to attend being the daughter of the British Ambassador.

I never knew what was worse, knowing what was wrong with me after extensive Google searches as an early teen, or not being able to get the right medical help because heaven forbid we have any mental health issues or craziness in the family. My mother’s words when I told her my suspicions. The Buckinghams do not hold truck with that sort of nonsense, no. It’s stiff upper lips all the way in our family, and if ever you were to get too out of hand, well, you wouldn’t want to end up like Great Aunt Flo, locked away in a private institution, talking to the mice and smearing her porridge all over the velvet curtains. We have more skeletons than we know what to do with in our family’s closet, and they will stay hidden come hell or high water, not even our trusted staff are privy to most of them.

The car pulls to a stop and suddenly my chilled body is breaking out in a sweat that only makes me feel colder. The sharp tang of copper tells me that I’ve worried my lip bloody, and taking a rasping breath, I wait as the car door is pulled open. Officer Anne helps me out, a shiver working its way up my body as the now cold night air hits my face.

“Let’s get you inside, shall we?” she asks kindly and I nod, my teeth chattering too much to answer properly.

I blink rapidly at the brightness of the reception, the artificial light almost unbearable after being in the dark car.

“Well, what do we have here? Not our usual clientele,” an older man behind the desk states with a chuckle, and I suck my lower lip again, unable to form any words as I try to keep my breathing under control.

“Evenin’, John,” the male officer, who still hasn’t given me his name, greets. “Caught this one stealing at the mall. Thought a night in the cells should dissuade her from doing so again, didn’t we, sweetheart?” He turns to look at me, and his gaze leaves a slimy feel along my skin. I cower away slightly from the invasion of his stare, but Officer Anne still has a firm grip on me so I don’t get far.

“Do you have a name, darlin’?” the officer behind the desk, John, turns to me, lowering his head so he can catch my eye. He smiles, and there’s a warmth in his brown eyes that the other man doesn’t have, and it instantly eases something within me.

“A–Aspen. Aspen Buckingham,” I tell him softly, his bushy grey eyebrows rising slightly when he hears my name. “M–my f–father, C–Charles Buckingham, is t–the British Ambassador. I–I can’t remember our address, we only moved a couple of weeks or so ago.” It’s like now that I’ve started talking, I can’t stop, and it seems I have all of their attention now, all three officer’s eyes slightly wide as they gape at me.

“Right.” John blows out a breath, taking my small leather handbag from the male officer and pulling out the items inside, including my diplomatic household passport which is my current form of ID. “Well, I’ll be damned. You really are the Ambassador’s daughter.” I don’t have an answer to that non-question, so I remain quiet as he pulls out the other items from my bag, including my phone and the items that I stole. I wince seeing them laid out, John gathering evidence bags to place them into. “Let’s get you in the system, and then we’ll give your pops, I mean, Mr. Ambassador a call.”

My lips lift in a small smile at the term Mr. Ambassador. He’d be so pissed if he heard that, citing that it’s not his correct or full title. Dread pools in my stomach, my smile dropping as I wonder just how angry he’ll be when he hears that I’ve gotten myself arrested. What will my punishment be for this infraction?

“Miss?” Officer Anne’s voice breaks through my thoughts, and when I look at her and the others, I realise that they’re waiting on me for something.

“S–sorry, pardon?”

“Can you give me your age, please?” John asks, fingers gripping a pen and I wonder for a moment why he’s not typing it into the computer on his desk.

“Oh, um. I’m seventeen. My date of birth is fourteenth of February, two thousand and six,” I answer, guessing that he’d want to record that as well. Though it is all on my passport.

“A Valentine’s Day baby, huh?” John comments with a wry chuckle.

“It’s not too bad,” I tell him, not wanting to go into details about the amount of times I’ve spent my birthday at a social function, never on a date or even a party to celebrate the day. I prefer it when I am alone, when they go off without me and I can sit and read, rather than being forced to attend one of their parties, like the recent ball held by the Tailors in Colorado. Lark seemed sweet, but Aeron Tailor was pretty scary and there were just so many people there that it took everything in me not to pass out or throw up.

John asks me some more questions, which I answer to the best of my abilities, and then we’re done.

“Do you have your dad’s number? So we can tell him where you are and how he can arrange to collect you?” Officer Anne questions softly, and I shake my head.

“You’ll have better luck with his personal secretary, Robert,” I inform her, then give them his number instead. I don’t miss the way her eyebrows furrow or her soft blue eyes full of a pity that I don’t want or need.

“Thank you, Aspen. I’ll take you to the cells now,” she says, and my breathing catches, my limbs feeling shaky again. “Have you eaten anything recently?”

I hear the no-name male officer scoff behind me, muttering something about giving preferential treatment to the pretty ones. I choose to ignore him, deciding he’s a bastard anyway, and am glad that he doesn’t follow us, the place on my arm he grabbed pulsing as the new bruise forms. I shake my head at her.

“Um, not since breakfast. Mother has me on this new diet and today is a fast day, so I shouldn’t really eat again until tomorrow morning,” I tell her, my brows dipping as her jaw tightens.

“Well, how about I see what I can rustle up for you, would a sandwich work? And maybe a cup of coffee?” My nose wrinkles before I can stop it, and she laughs as she turns to lead me through a door she has to swipe an access card through, and down a corridor. “Not a fan of a good old cup of Joe?”

“Um, well, no, not really. But if you have some tea that would be lovely, thank you,” I reply, my cheeks colouring as my limbs start trembling again the deeper we go down the corridor.

“I’m sure I can get you a cup of tea. I won’t even microwave it,” she jokes, and my eyes go wide as I gasp.

“You microwave tea? And they call the British barbaric,” I comment, glancing at her out of the corner of my eye as she huffs a laugh.

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