Page 60 of Ghosted in Arkadia
“Bill Roman was trying to kill us,” I say, and she nods like she understands.
“When you say us, you mean you and your partner, Killian. Correct?” the female judge says, her tone soft and encouraging.
I nod. “Killian and I were out to dinner together.”
“You were in the mated district. Pretending to be mated,” another female judge scoffs, there is a sense of venom to her tone.
“We were working undercover,” I say, correcting whatever assumptions she assumed.
“Do you often pretend to have a soulmate?”
“What?” I ask, turning but unable to locate exactly which one of them asked the question. “I don’t pretend to have a soulmate.”
“The guards in the police station report that when they found you with your wrist torn apart, you claimed you did it because you were trying to contact your soulmate.”
“What?” I turn, this time recognizing the voice of the stern male judge in front of me.
“You don’t have a soulmate, Kira,” he says, with that little smirk. Like he knows what he’s talking about.
But he doesn’t. None of them do. I laugh.
The judges’ expressions change. Some are taken aback, while others look at me with a sense of uncertainty.
“You don’t know shit about me.”
The male judge in front of me narrows his eyes, before his gaze flicks to the woman by his side. She’s clearly his soulmate. Everyone here is sitting next to their soulmate, except me.
“You created a soulmate in your mind, Kira. You created him because the world would not love you. You missed your partner so much, you created another bond. But you must understand, it was all in your mind.”
My heart clenches when I think of Cathy.
“You wanted vengeance.”
“You wanted to be important.”
“So, you killed someone important.”
“No,” I say, shaking my head. “The Roman’s have been experimenting on people. They’ve had people killed. I was just trying to build a case.”
“You couldn’t find evidence, so you took matters into your own hands.”
“No!” I twist and turn, feeling disoriented by all the voices coming at me from every angle.
“It’s alright, Kira,” the female judge in front of me says, chiding me like I’m a child. “We see you. The question is, do you?”
The lights turn low, so low I can barely make out the faces of the judges around me. I can hear movement, chairs scraping as furniture is being rearranged. A spotlight turns on, just above me, making me squint. In front of me is me, or at least my reflection, trapped inside an ornate frame.
“Look. See the face of the one who betrayed you.”
I look into the mirror and for just a moment, I see the white painted skeleton of Ghost’s mask, just behind me. I turn, squinting into the darkness, but cannot even make out the faces of the judges behind me. It’s too dark. I turn back to the mirror and get a good look at myself for the first time in at least a week.
My skin is pale and haunted. Dark rings have formed beneath my eyes, giving me a skeletal look. My right arm hangs limply at my side while the edges of a bandage pokes out from the collar of my jumpsuit. A large bandage sits on my wrist, covering the brutal wound I inflicted on myself.
“Was it really me all along?” I whisper.
“We have recognized the fracture within you,” one judge announces. “You are not evil, Kira Blackwell. You are… unwell.”
“We forgive you,” multiple judges say at once, creating a harmony of multiple.
