Page 14 of Cassian
“No one votes for me.I was appointed to this job.But it’s men like you who give me a headache.Tell me what it is you want and I’ll work from there.But you’ve already taken up more time than I had today, so don’t expect me to go along with your plan even if it’s the plan of the decade.”He told him that he was going to love it as it would get two people back in the workplace and one more making money, so that he didn’t have to borrow money for groceries.“I don’t know what it is you’re talking about, but do go on.We’re all waiting on you with bated breath.”
While he didn’t have any idea what that meant, he was going to take it as a compliment.As soon as he picked up his notes on how to go on, he expounded on the bullet points as best he could.As he was explaining how things would go, he noticed that a lot of people were listening to him.They’d stopped what they were doing to notice him, and he felt empowered by it.The judge had even waved away his bailiff in favor of listening to him.That made him stronger in his conviction that this was going to work out in his favor.When he finished, he waited for the applause or something to let him know that everyone felt like this was something that would work for a lot of people.No more classes for anger management.Just find a person who needs money and have them work alongside you so that you’d have someone to take out your frustrations on.He was going to write a book about his idea and be a best seller.He could hear that famed—
“Are you telling me that you want to not have to spend any jail time for beating up a woman,nearly to death, I might add, because you think that having her with you to beat on when you’re having a bad day is a good thing.Is that what you’re saying?”He said that she’d be paid too by the company that he worked for, as she was useful for other things, like running a cash register.“Of course she is.And you say this woman is fine with this?”
“No, I think that’s where you’re going to have to step in and make her do it.I don’t want to go to any more classes that are trying to teach me not to be angry again.I should be able to embrace my true self with her help, of course, and I’ll be a much better employee for whoever I work for.I could use anyone, but she’d done such a good job at making me calmer before I figured that, why not just make her do it again?Besides, she thinks she can go to college and become an attorney, and she’s just not smart enough for that.”
“Is this woman here today?”He pointed to Raven.He also didn’t know who she was, but for the big man who was with her.She’d changed so much that he thought she’d had work done on her face and body.“Mrs.Savage, is it?”She said that was her.“Can you come up here and tell me why you have agreed with something like this?”
“I didn’t.He’s been hounding me for weeks now, how I’m too poor to turn him down, and that I’m too stupid to make my own life outside of working for him as someone he can beat on.”Daniel said that he’d have to make her work for him; it was the only way that his plan was going to work.“The day that he beat me, he actually calls it the day of the great beating.It was my last day at work, and I’d already clocked out for the day.He followed me all the way to my car to take out his anger and frustration on me.He wanted me to stay over and work so that he could take a two-hour lunch as he usually did.I had already made plans to get together with a couple of friends to celebrate my last day of work when he put me in the hospital.”
“I’ve read the report on what happened to you that day.And now he’s saying that he wants it to happen daily for you.Please tell me this isn’t anything that you agreed to?I have to have more confidence in humankind than that.”She said that she wasn’t going to work for him as she had a full schedule she was going to work on.“Good for you.And good luck with becoming an attorney.Now let me deal with this young man.”
“Your honor, see how she is?She thinks this is going to only benefit me when it will benefit a lot of people.She says she doesn’t have to work, but I know better.She has worked in fast food for the past five years.You don’t suddenly get rich working for a place like I work.There is no way she’s going to make it as an attorney either.She’s just too stupid.”He said that she was smart enough to know better than to work for him.“She wouldn’t be just working for me but for the entire company.If I’m a happy man, and beating her will make me happy, then the entire crew will be happy as well.And if I have a happy crew, then I have to have better sales than I would if I were screaming at them all the time.It will make sales better, which is the bottom line in places like where I would be working.That’s another thing I’m going to need you to do: make sure that I have my job back with no more anger classes.I’m sure you’ll see vast improvement in my demeanor when I’m working with Raven.”
The judge looked like he was confused.He would gladly explain it to him again, but he asked him to be quiet for a few minutes.He’d gladly not say anything for hours if he got out of jail and got to work with Raven.He did wonder if anyone would work in her place, but decided that they had a history and that they were meant for each other.Daniel waited for the judge before he sat down.This was going to give him just what he needed in the world to be able to find a job and keep it.He did wonder if it would work for any job and thought about him writing a book again.He was sure that it would be a best seller in no time.
“I don’t even know what to say to you, young man.”He told him that he could explain it to him again if he was confused about what he wanted.“I got it.You want someone, this young woman here, to follow you around so that you can take your anger out on her and not other people.You also want me to make it so that you get your old job back, too, if I’m not mistaken.”
“Yes.I loved that job, and I really think that I could do a good job in it with her around.She certainly did relax me the day of the great beating.I’ve never felt like I could fit in.I was so angry all thetime.And well, when she told me no that she wasn’t going to stay over and work for me, something in my head just exploded.”He asked him what he’d done in jail in order to be so calm.“I’ve been keeping notes on those that have made me angry and how I was going to take it out on Raven when she starts working with me again.You noticed that I said working with me because it would be a partnership between the two of us.”
“So you’re saying that she can beat on you when she’s angry or frustrated?”Daniel laughed.Because it was so funny to think that she would try to hit him.“I see.So this partnership would be all one-sided, where you get all the perks and she will spend a lot of time in the hospital.”
“No, no hospital.I’ll try not to hit her so hard that she ends up there, but she’s going to have to be available twenty-four/seven.And her being in the hospital will not be something that I can take a chance on.”He picked up his notes and saw that he’d written that down already.“No.She’ll have to deal with any pain that I cause her or any hurts on her own.One day without her could cause a great many people to be harmed.We don’t want that, do we?”
“No, I can see where that would cause you some issues.”He seemed to be getting on board with the way things needed to be, and he asked him when they could get started on their wonderful life together.“Did you happen to ask her husband what he thinks about all this?”
“He’s not for it.Claiming to be one of the Savages with all the money.Why would a person who has all the money in the world want to marry someone like Raven?She’s pretty enough, but she’s just too dumb to know what a good thing it is that I’m offering her and him.You’d have to show him the way it needs to be as well.”The judge asked for Cassian Savage to stand up.He asked him what he thought of the idea.“I already told you that he’s not in agreement with it.He seems to think that he and his wife are happy the way things are.”
“If he so much as touches her with intent, I will kill him.He’s done enough damage to her as it is, and I’ve had about enough of his ideas concerning Raven.”Savage turned and looked at him.“I’ve told you this before.We’re not going to be playing your little games.She’s not going to be your playmate either.I find you to be sick in the head if you think that anyone is going to go along with you on this.”
“The judge is all but convinced this is going to work.”He said that he was not.He didn’t think that it would work for anyone.“But you have to make it work for me.I just don’t know how I’d keep from beating other employees if I have to work under those conditions.”
“The company that you used to work for says that they will no longer employ you in any shape or form.Also, other places have contacted me to tell me that they don’t want you in their restaurant as a guest, much less as someone who would work for them.”He said that he was going to have to make them change their mind.He was going to be the best employee they had.“So long as you have someone that you can beat on, I guess.”
“You make it sound like a bad thing.It’s not, not really.The only person that will be getting hurt is Raven, and it’s not like she’s not going to be paid for her trouble.”The judge said he wasn’t going to entertain such a solution.“But you have to.If not, then I’ve wasted all this time.You don’t want to have wasted your time on this, do you?”
“Just to hear you talking has made me realize that I’m getting too old for this stuff anymore.To think that you actually went to the trouble to write things down of what you wanted to say, as if it was a good thing.”He said that he thought it was.“It’s not.I don’t know anyone who would think that this is a good idea and be able to live with it.Christ man, she’s a human being.Did you ever consider that when you were coming up with this hairbrained idea?”
“She’d be getting paid.It’s not like she wouldn’t be compensated for her time.”The judge just shook his head.“I don’t think I’ve made myself clear on my points here.Let me go over them again so that you have an—”
“Oh, I have an idea of what’s going on.You want to abuse this poor young woman because she told you no once, and you want to make her pay.”Daniel said that wasn’t all true.“I believe that I am telling the truth of the matter.”He banged his gavel and told him to have a seat.“If you talk once more about this great idea that you’ve had, I’m going to put you in prison right now and hope they lose thekey to your cell.Sit down and shut up.”
Daniel sat, but he wasn’t nearly finished with this.He knew what would make the company hire him back, and he’d gone to the trouble of writing it all down for the man.If he couldn’t get on board with it, he was going to go over his head and make them listen to him and his plan.
~*~
“I can’t believe that he sentenced him to ten years without the chance of parole.Then, he made him take anger management classes while he was in prison.”Raven sat on the couch in their living room, reeling from the verdict that had come down to Daniel.He’d been so angry that he’d demanded an hour in a cell with her so that he could be calmed again.She shivered every time she thought of what he would have been able to do to her in that hours’ time.“Do you suppose that he’ll find someone that he can beat on in jail?”
“Christ, I hope not.Can you imagine what that person would look like after a couple of days?Not to mention, I can’t imagine that the people who run the prison would be too keen on that going on either.They’d have to do something like put him in solitary confinement to keep him from beating people all the time.”Cassian laughed a little.“Or they might turn away from it happening, hoping that someone will take exception to what he’s doing to another person.I don’t know, but we have plenty of time for him to be gone.Then in the morning, we’re going to go and see what Jason and the Connors get for their crimes.”
Raven had heard all about the three people who had hurt Skye and Trevor.She also knew that much like Daniel, Jason Waggoner didn’t think that he should be in prison because he’d killed a lot of people.He saw himself as a professional and didn’t think that his being in prison was the way it should go for him.He also bragged about the people that he killed and that the Connors should have left it to professionals like him, so that they didn’t get into trouble with the law.She thought that people were as strange as hell.
Tonight she was going to try again to have a lift off.It didn’t bother her because the other women hadn’t been able to do it either.She thought she knew what her problem was; she just didn’t think of herself as a dragon, and she was having trouble thinking of herself as flying.She’d get there soon, she told herself, but it was just getting in the air that was keeping her down.Rolling her eyes at herself, she was going to do it tonight or know the reason why.She wanted to fly with Cassian.
For right now, she had three more chapters to read in her first class before they started on Monday.It wasn’t as difficult to remember what she was reading as she thought it might be, so she was enjoying studying.Taking notes, too, on the chapters she’d been assigned to read was helping her, too.Also, in addition to the book that she had to read, there were three other books that she was going to have to take with her on the first day of classes.She was glad now that she’d downloaded the books on her computer so she’d not have as much to carry.She didn’t think that all her classes were going to be this easy, but she was having fun getting ready for the hard stuff to come along.
“I have something for you.”She asked Cassian what he’d gotten her, then told him that she didn’t need anything.“I’ve been able to find you a complete set of law books for your office.The other cousins and I went through our boxes of books and put together an entire set for you.Also, we’ve been able to find you some recent books, too, that you can use.All of us at one point or another have been some kind of attorney.Tank has the last attorney time under his belt, so he said that he remembers enough to help you with classes when you need it.”
