Authors: Veronica Melan
“Did she actually see you there?”
“No.”
At this very moment two more guards burst into the room breathing heavily and one of them was holding what Shereen was looking thirty minutes ago - her other shoe. But now it was charred, almost completely blackened by the flame. Of course! She nearly groaned. Whoever was her enemy - they put some tremendous efforts into providing the authorities with evidences.
“It was found behind the burning barracks.”
An eerie silence filled the room and a second later it was interrupted by the nasty laughter of the senior ward.
“Were you in that much of a hurry that you lost a shoe?” He was almost rolling on the floor with laughter, knowing that this time that bitch will never avoid the heavy punishment. No way!
Hulk stopped Greg’s nasty laughter with an angry gesture and it became hushed in the office.
“Is that yours?” He asked plainly.
Shereen swallowed the lump in her throat. That was it. The end. And there was nothing she could do about this since there are too many things and people are playing against her in this game. Someone really wanted her to retire from the playing field, and now it doesn’t matter how she lived her life and what she did in the past, all her nice deeds have been forgotten in an instance and there was only this petrol canister, burnt out t-shirt and the shoe now remained in the minds of people surrounding her.
“Yes, it is mine.” Shereen replied, not looking at Hulk anymore. She was too scared. That so familiar coldness and loneliness slipped inside. The fear paralysed her limbs, thickened the blood, dried the tongue and made her hands cold and trembling. She hated it. But hatred didn’t help to get rid of the fear, quite the opposite, it felt like fear grew stronger because of it.
Hulk was silent. It was almost physically painful to see the disappointment in his eyes. Others were quiet too, waiting for the final verdict to be made. Only the clock on the wall kept on ticking and breaking the silence.
Hulk went to the window and now paused there. Shereen knew - he was now in a process of making his final decision. A tough and cruel decision - exactly the one that the person who dared to set the building with people inside on fire deserved. And this decision will be justified and adamant. It will, most definitely, please the guards, heal Greg’s wounded ego, will become a perfect illustrative examples for the rest workers at the ranch, and most likely completely ruin Shereen’s life, depriving her of the right to freedom forever.
Or even worse - will cost her a life.
She shuddered.
But she hasn’t done anything! It was someone else and she had to try and prove it to Hulk, had to make him listen to her and believe her! She must delay his wrong and inevitable final conclusion. It wasn’t right to pay for something you weren’t responsible for, it was unfair and it should never be like that! But how is it possible to make him hear her out?
Hulk stood silently staring into the darkness outside the window, where sunset faded a long time ago. It wasn’t easy to think straight. Behind him there was a hoard of heavily breathing men and one pathetic girl who dared to cross the line - the boundaries of the dangerous area marked with red, where Hulk’s patience no longer existed. No one ever dared to cross it and expect to get away with it.
Why? He almost shook his head again, but stopped himself from doing so. Why did she do this? Did her anger overpower her common sense? He didn’t want to believe it, and a part of him continued to deny Shereen’s involvement in the arson. But Hulk has already understood that recently she became his weak spot and his response to her actions was inadequate, hence, his disbelief of her involvement is probably just another attempt to justify her, no matter whether she really was guilty or not, and that was not the way to make the right decisions. Getting involved emotionally never helps to be objective, so in order to make the right decision, he has to base his conclusion on evidences provided by the guards and not on his intuition.
This thought gnawed Hulk invisibly.
Something in this whole story didn’t quite fit. He couldn’t say exactly what it was, because logically all the links were connecting the chain of events perfectly well, where everything lead to one conclusion - Shereen was directly involved in the arson and unfortunately the guards had plenty of evidence to prove this.
But why wouldn’t she confess then? After all, there were plenty of examples of her impulsive actions, after which she’d sincerely repented about the committed deeds. So why was it different now? Because this situation was way too serious? Wasn’t there any more courage to say “Yes, I’ve done that”? How was it possible to deny her involvement, when so much evidence was facing her? In fact, too many evidence...
Hulk frowned. He definitely didn’t like something about this and felt annoyed because time was pressing him stronger and stronger with every passing minute. Everyone was waiting for his final word, reprimands and punishments to be said and done. Yes, he was short of time and had to act now. Before coming to a final conclusion, he reluctantly turned and walked over to Shereen.
“Do you have anything you would like to say?”
She nodded. The words weren’t coming easily to her, and her stare was penetrating directly through to his heart as if she was mentally asking him to listen carefully to what she has to say. Ok. He can do that. And Shereen, feeling Hulk’s silent approval, began to speak.
“This afternoon, when I returned to my room from the stone-pit, some of my things were missing. I think someone has got a duplicate of my key and entered my private territory when I wasn’t there.”
Greg immediately soared.
“You lying bitch?!”
“Shut up!” Hulk roared, “All must keep quiet until she is finished talking! Go on.”
He nodded to Shereen, asking her to continue, while listening to her and trying to put the pieces of her story together. It was very important to understand which version of it was true - the one that his guards told him about or the one that was now going to be told by Shereen. Hulk knew from his past experience that in such cases haste or negligence could become a fatal turning point in someone's life, therefore his mind was working hard – analysing everything that was being said, comparing the details, going through the options and selecting those that seemed logically and intuitively correct.
Shereen cleared her throat. Her eyes were still staring piercingly into his and Hulk once again thought that he must not rush into making the final conclusion. Something still didn’t feel right. This girl never lied before; it just wasn’t her usual style and Hulk doubted she’d start doing it now.
“Somebody was in my room, I’m quite certain. I took a short nap today, because I didn’t feel very well and when I woke up, it was the first time when I noticed something was missing. And there were definitely no canisters under my bed. Then one of the kitchen ladies knocked on my door - she said that Tabitha was very angry, because someone had flooded the warehouse and ruined loads of food. I went to see Tabitha and she asked me to help with the cleaning. Yes, most of the food was already badly damaged; a lot of packaging was soaked in water and demolished. I was in the warehouse until ten o’clock. All this time my shoes were on the porch - I took them off before going inside, otherwise they would have got wet. And when I came out after the cleaning, one of them was missing and the canister had already appeared in my room. As well as this burnt t-shirt.
She finished last sentence and went quiet.
Silence hung in the office. Hulk nodded and dove into the thinking process again.
Greg was waiting, trying not to disguise his impatience.
As much as he wanted to just come and strangle this wench, he had to stand motionless, listening to this tearjerker. Fuck it - Hulk will never believe a single word of hers - it was written all over her face “I’m a damned wretch and a thief!” and this was obvious from the first day she arrived at the ranch. And look at how miserably she was singing now, “Oh, please look at me and believe me!”
But nothing will help you, bitch. There is plenty of evidence that you are guilty.
Greg tried to hide a triumphant grin that was creeping up on his face. You’re finished! Die, you!
But Hulk didn’t seem to be in a hurry to make any decision.
His face didn’t indicate a positive outcome but no final word was heard either.
Greg began to feel nervous and finally, irritated by Hulk’s pensive look he said:
“She has to be punished for what she’d done...”
“Shut your mouth.” Hulk replied unusually abrupt even for Greg’s liking.
Senior warden obeyed, feeling that something wasn’t going as planned. Why did Hulk remain so deep in thoughts when everything was so clear and obvious? How much more evidence does this man need to see before he orders to kill that damn girl? Don’t the findings prove that she is guilty? Or was Hulk even keener than the old soldier thought?
Greg reluctantly shivered, trying to fight back such thoughts. Even if Hulk suspected something, he won’t be able to verify her innocence - there was no way to do it. Too many people knew what he knew, and that will force Hulk to come up with the retribution sooner or later, even if it is to restore the illusion of fairness and keep his reputation at the top. As for his doubts, Hulk can shove them.
But what happened next Greg was expecting least of all.
Hulk finally came out of the pondering mode; his lips were tightly clenched, his face looked grim, but his gaze was expressing great determination.
“I'm not going to beat around the bush for years trying to figure out who is right or wrong.”
“Yes!” Greg immediately supported him, forgetting that he was told to shut up, “There is no need to wait any longer...”
“I'm going to use "Blind". Thankfully, I don’t need anyone’s permission to do that in Tally.”
Shereen did not even move; she had no idea what Hulk was talking about; she just stood there looking at Hulk expectantly.
But unlike her, the senior warden turned pale to the point that it became evident even in the dimly lit room.
It just couldn’t be true that Hulk had such knowledge. Even he - Greg - had only heard about this technique, but he never ever hoped to see how it works in real life.
Only the Commission could teach how to use “Blind” and they were very picky about whom they’d share this skill with. Greg knew about it because a while back he really wanted to get closer to the circle of the selected members – those, called a “Special Unit”. This Unit consisted only of a few men, because the selection process was extremely rigid and Greg couldn’t get in there for all the money of the world. Not that he ever really accepted this fact, but he learnt to live with it, though his mind still kept some knowledge from those special and very expensive books that he’s bought back then. The essence of this method was in the direct reading of the human memory but it could only be applied to recent periods of time, since the interference with the deeper layers could lead to a partial or complete insanity. Only those who were trained to perfection and passed the required number of theory tests, and then proved their practical knowledge for over a year of practice, could use the “Blind”.
And Hulk, judging by his look, was completely confident he could do this.
Greg swallowed nervously. It cannot be like that... It just can’t... Who could have guessed that Hulk was one of the squads?
Meanwhile, Hulk approached Shereen.
“Step away!” He barked at guards.
Security guards quickly moved back. They didn’t quite understand what Mr Conrad was up to but when he was in such a mood, it was a safer bet to stay away.
“Look directly into my pupils.” Hulk ordered to the girl, “I will finish with it quickly.”
Greg couldn’t believe it - for the first time he was seeing something that he’d never expected to see - Hulk’s grey eyes flashed with some glaring white light, (maybe he’s gone crazy on this fuckin’ ranch?) and then Shereen screamed. The senior warden had to give her some credit - even when screaming, she didn’t step back. Her body was shaking, tears were pouring down her cheeks (was it painful? He had a feeling it bloody was), and Hulk at this moment resembled a frozen machine, the eyes of which were flashing with some images at an incredible speed.
Greg thought that it was like a glow on the TV screen, which had some film on a video tape put on rewind. But everything was over so quickly that not now or many years later he couldn’t guarantee what exactly he saw on this day. Or he thought he’d seen.