Strong woman

   By then, she had become a professional. She knew every single trick to travel, no matter if it had to do with packing her suitcase or buying the best hygiene products for herself. She knew which airlines offered what, the amount of room she had on any plane and the time she had in every single flight to work, sleep and relax. You could say she was a little bit to rigid with her life but Christine would have answered that she was just very well prepared. And that’s why her bosses loved her.

 Not only she was very practical in her travelling life, she was also like that with work. She travelled around the country and to other parts of the world, helping companies with their problems with technology and innovation. Christine went everywhere to hold meetings and conferences to anyone interested about how a company could survive in the new digital era. She knew about every single new development and was very well versed in the finance world too.

 Some people saw her as a danger to their way of doing things, specifically those people that were just corrupt and had arranged the system to work for them instead of working for everyone. During her fifteen-year experience, she had been responsible for unmasking a very high number of corruption scandals on many different companies. No matter if they produced video games or handled supermarkets, there was always someone trying to make more than the rest.

 That possibly was why so many people hated her too. In her world, in her order of things, there was no such thing as personal interests. She couldn’t understand how someone could put themselves in front and leave everyone else behind. Granted, she was not the best to speak about group efforts as she never did them herself, but she knew the value of having a good team to make a company go to directions no one else had ever gone. She tried not only to make them all win money and be successful, but Christine also wanted them to have a heart.

 That made her enemies very angry and that’s why many companies that had once asked for her help, suddenly rejected her and even campaigned against her actively in order for her bosses to be tempted to fire her or something but that never happened. Not only because she was really good at her job, but also because they feared her. They knew that if she was so good, she must have had something on the company she worked. It was only natural that she did, to protect her own interests.

 But that was where they didn’t understand her. She didn’t have anything on anyone in the company. She had even checked on that. And it was because she believed a relationship based on trust was much better than one based in fear. So from her side, everything was just fine. From their side not so much, but she had decided long ago that she couldn’t be worried about things she had no real control over. There was no way she could convince them that she wasn’t going to turn on them one day.

 Real problems came the day her enemies, people that had robbed millions, sued her in court with allegations of her work being unethical and, also, for receiving money in order to help improve conditions in some companies and not in other. They said that she refused to help their companies because she was under orders not to let them have any part in the business. They were very specific in their statements and even presented evidence of every single thing they were claiming.

 Christine would have wanted to laugh and she did when she got home but certainly not in the courthouse, where everyone’s eyes were fixed on her. She tried not to make any telling expressions and only limited her words to denying what those men in suits were saying. She was very calm and one could even say she didn’t care much for having to loose time there when she could be doing something much more interesting. Her rivals even pointed that out but the judge seemed not to mind much.

The actual trial was set to begin two months later. She would have to keep working until then because she had many prior commitments. But her company had asked her to please hold any engagements until after the trial was done because they didn’t want any of their clients to feel they could lose not only money but also their prestige in the business world. Of course, she understood perfectly what they were asking of her. So the day before she went to trial, was the same day she finally stopped at home and realized how her life would change now.

 The trial was very well publicized because many people in the media had been bought by the owners of the companies that were suing her. So it was obvious what their position was. They wanted her to be turn to shreds by people too, which was very hypocritical as those same companies were the ones that robbed everyone of their savings and their hard won money.  She had some big lawyers on her side too but the ones in the other side were particularly vicious. So much so that, on the second day, they even dared to attack her personal life, which was preposterous.

 Her lawyer told her not to say anything about that and she didn’t but it was the first time she seemed out of control. She wasn’t happy, at all, that her enemy was so visibly desperate that they wanted to find a weak spot wherever they could see it. Their questions and allegations hovered around the fact that she was an unmarried adult woman that lived her life travelling around. They called her irresponsible and immoral, which was perfect for the always religious people in juries. There’s always a couple.

 The trial went on for weeks. Whenever she thought they had been discredited by her very well built case, they came again with claims of bribery and corruption. It was then when she really got tired and decided not only to do her own defense but also using their own tricks. She would go personal and to the facts they were attacking on her. She was very tired and she had never felt that way. Christine was a very strong person but know, for some reason, she was beginning to feel the weight of years of work.

 The first day, in which she defended herself, she attacked them head on with proof of their own corruption. She had the papers and the data, which she always kept on her records to bring them down. One by one, one by day, she destroyed their credibility in front of the judge. Of course, they came against her hard with more personal questions and other attacks but Christine was ready, she had prepared herself thoroughly for that occasion, so she had brought the big guns.

 Did they want to talk about hidden children, lovers, weird fetishes and many other things? Fine, she went there with proof. During her years as a woman in business she had also made a lot of good friends, friends with enough talents to actually uncover things about people that they would have never thought no one would ever know about. But those good friends, many of those owed a lot to Christine, came to help in her hour of need. They really did the best they could to help her win that damn case.

 The day she actually won, the papers suddenly went silent and she went back to work. She decided to work now for smaller companies in order to help them be bigger and better. Christine wanted no more juggernauts in the game. Instead, she wanted to help where she was really needed. And she knew that they would let her do that because now she was a big name. Now they knew who she was and what she could do: bring empires up or down to the ground. There was clearly no one better in the game and Christine knew it very, very well.

The Beast

   When the man also known as The Beast was caught, everyone was relieved. He had escaped every single police force along his path, as he killed innocent people, and he had finally committed was small mistake. The police had noticed his liking for a certain candy and it was a wrapper they found at a gas station that lead them directly to him. He was found torturing his latest victim on marsh. Fortunately, she was still alive. He had to be shot several times in the legs and spine in order to immobilize him. The police remembered that they couldn’t kill him, no matter how much they wanted revenge for what he had done before. He had killed several people, not only women but children and men too. Besides, the way he did it earned him the nickname Beast from every force chasing him.

 Finally in a prison cell, doctor that checked him upon arrival were surprised to see that the damage done by the bullets to his body was minimal. He could still walk and had only a slight limp on his left leg. He was transferred to a maximum-security prison that same day, where he was able to wait for his trial. This offended many of the victims’ families, because they didn’t thought such an animal had the right to a trial. But the law was the law and he was at least entitled to tell the people how he had done it and why. The trial, after all, was also useful as a way to explain everything that had happened and shed a light on such a monstrous behavior. If it ever happened again, authorities and society needed to know why.

 For everyone, it was a very hard time. The pictures, the police videos, the details by coroners… It was awful to hear how every body was dumped, how some of them were raped and how he tortured every single one of them. He had no real proceeding; it wasn’t like he just raped the women or something like that. He was erratic and that was proven by the first two weeks of the trial. People had asked for only a week to show evidence and so on but the judge had to change that as he had to cut short every day, because at least one person would get physically sick of all the details of the murders. He knew it was asking too much of every single person to sit there and stand such truths.

 At least five of the jurors had to be excused. They all decided to leave the trial as they realized they weren’t fit to stand all those gruesome details that they knew had to come out to the light. They were replaced as they left, and some information had to be repeated for the new jurors in order for them to understand the whole process. That week was the most difficult time in the lives of the family member, more than the moment when they had been notified that their loved ones were dead. Everything hurt up to that point and most of them just wanted it all to finish with the dead of the Beast, they needed to see how his body stopped breathing.

 The second week of the trial it was all about the Beast. Bringing him to the courthouse proved difficult, as demonstrators were always there throwing things at him. The authorities didn’t really mind but they just couldn’t allow something worst to happen. It was rumored that some of the family members were planning to kill the Beast and that had to be stopped. The police started bringing him through the back door of the courthouse and they also made a couple of arrests to make people understand that they needed to trust justice and what it stood for. It was understandable that they were angry, very angry for what happened but they had to let justice do what she needs to do. They needed closure and that couldn’t be found by killing a human being. They shouldn’t become him to prove their love.

 The first couple of days, he was cooperating so much. But by the third day, he started speaking, saying incoherent things. After the opposing lawyer confronted him, the man attempted to attack him and had to be restrained and tied to the chair he was sitting on. The lawyer asked for the trial not be cancelled for this incident and he used this event to demonstrate to the people why the murderer was called the Beast. He then read a psychiatrist’s report, where he stated that the Beast suffered a very rare syndrome were his brain thought everything and everyone was a danger to his existence. It was the only explanation they could give to killing so many people. But why torture them, they asked? No response.

 The next day, it was a very long one. Again, pictures and videos of crime scenes were shown but this time in order to provoke a reaction of the Beast. His lawyer, who was trying to get him life instead of the death penalty, had not spoken much with his own client because he had become very quiet and still. He had to go through all the evidence to, at least, prove the man he was defending was insane and that he belonged to an asylum. He repeated this over and over again during the trial, without little to no positive response from the jury. They were all disgusted by what they had seen and had no space in their hearts or their heads to consider the Beast as only a crazy guy that happens to kill people.

 By the end of the week, they finally got some words out of the Beast. He said that he had to kill them all because he was afraid. But when asked if he had any reasons to torture any of them, he was quiet for a while. By the end of the session, he stood up and said that he fought against the forces of the devil and that it had been God himself who had told him what to do and how to do it. This was a low blow for everyone in the courtroom and for everyone in the city, to be honest. Blaming God was ridiculous but it was a step towards that insanity plea and it was hard to fight it because his time on the trials ended just after that.

 The following days a couple of family members gave their statements. It was, again, a difficult thing to see and hear. Most of the people in the room cried at some point and how not too, when the details of someone’s death were being given by their wives, husbands, mothers, fathers… The jury was thankful that those statements only lasted for a couple of days. After that, the judge gave the jury four days to decide about this man’s faith. Of course, they didn’t need so much time. The following day every single person had being summoned to hear the verdict: the Beast was going to die by lethal injection. Many of the families were relieved but none of them were happy or anything close to that. They just needed to close that door in their lives, once and for all.

 The execution was programmed a month after the trial had ended. Some people complained that it should have been done faster, but they couldn’t get everyone that needed to be there at an earlier date. The governor wanted to be there, as well as at least one member from every family that the Beast had destroyed. They even looked for his parents or relatives and found and old woman that denied the invitation to see a family member die. She said he had not seen him in years and that he had always been “one of those weird kids”. Television crews stationed themselves very early the day of the executions, as well as many people that supported the families. Strangely enough, there were also protesters against the death penalty. Not their best showing.

 The lethal injection process was very simple and some people complained, again, that it was too humane for such an animal. But the state had no other way of killing inmates. Firing squads were a thing of the past, there were no electric chairs anymore and communities had successfully avoided the implementation of death by gas. So everyone gathered in very small room and just watched as the man they hated so much was brought from his cell. As they saw the people from prison tie him down, many thought that the last ting their loved ones had seen was probably the face of that man. And that made them so much angrier.

 The liquids that went into his body were lowered slowly, one by one. As they saw him closing his eyes and his vital signs going away, they felt their hearts even more broke than before because it was the end of the road and they had gone through all of it together. They pronounced him dead and the governor started to applause but soon stopped. Everyone else looked at him with disgust. Somehow, people were still disgusted by the fact that people had to be killed to teach a lesson, a lesson that maybe no one was really hearing or understanding. Somewhere in the region, another person was being killed. Because the evil inside humans doesn’t stop and it has many layers and faces. The only way is to keep fighting.

Hate crime

   Rose was now terrified to come out of her house. She just couldn’t even think about it without having a serious breakdown. That’s why she had moved with her parents, in order for her to be under their watch every day, at every time. Just after the attack, she had attempted to kill herself in the hospital but she had failed due to the attention of the nurses and that she wasn’t in any real danger. But at home, anything could happen. Her mother was scared the moment Rosa asked if she could help making dinner. At first she would only let her do silly things, like break the leaves out of a lettuce or open a can or a bottle of something. No knives or other pointy objects.

 But after a year, Rose’s state of mind had improved except for her fear of the outside world. Inside, in any day, she would laugh at TV shows, share stories with her dad, gossip with her mom and even talk on her computer with some old friends. Even her former boss was thinking of letting her into the company again, working remotely of course. Because she just couldn’t take a step outside. Instantly she would start screaming and fighting anyone who helped her try some more steps or pulled her back in.

 You see, Rose had been attacked a year ago and she had been left seriously affected by it. Not only was she raped, but she had also being kicked, punched and dragged into a dark corner of the world by two men. It was understandable the amount of fear she had inside and it was remarkable that she had been able to get better, as much as she had been, on her own on such a short amount of time. Other victims took much more time and some never recuperated from their attacks. Rose did because she had always been a fighter but somehow the outside world was now her most dreadful fear. She couldn’t even stare at the windows, day or night. She just thought of it all again, even felt it all again and she did not wanted that to happen ever.

 Her parents understood her situation; after all it had been them who had taken care of her since she was a baby. She had always been such a happy, free kid, the kind that would ask for money and then go alone to the nearby store and buy some candy. She would play with many of her friends in the park, even leading them in many of their games. She had always been the leader, the one people looked at for guidance. It had been like that in school and in college but now there was no trace of that Rose in her. Her fear had finished of that vivacious and strong women for another that was also strong but not so much compared to the past. She had been struck off many things that day and now she couldn’t even have a real life on her own because of her fear.

 She saw Victoria once a week. Victoria was a psychiatrist specialized in this sort of cases and she was very interested in Rose as she was the only patient of hers that had improve so much in some areas and so little in others. With special gadgets and experiments, they would try for Rose to be more acceptant of the exterior world but all of that always resulted in a huge failure. No matter if it was a blindfolded test or a session trying to confront her with the attack, it was always a traumatic experience. Rose trusted Veronica so she would often ask for forgiveness for her behavior but Veronica always hugged her and told Rose never to apologize for what happened or its results. None of that was her fault and she should only be thinking on getting better.

 And Rose did try. She started cooking cupcakes at home, as a therapy to get more and more relaxed. Her boss finally passed her proposal to work from home so she decided to change her life altogether and asked her parents if they would be with her on the creation of a small business selling her cupcakes and other desserts. They started selling for the neighborhood but soon expanded to have a proper store in their garage. This had made Rose very anxious because the store had been a success and many people came in, making her nervous. But her mother and her father helped so she would always be in control of herself, selling her delicious goods and making a life for herself.

 However, she wasn’t going to live alone or anything. Her parents and her had thought of several ways to move out to a small apartment but it was more problems than conveniences. For one, she wouldn’t be able to tend the store from a small apartment, she would be alone most of the time and, most importantly, there was no way to get there without her having a mental meltdown. The thought of blindfolding her or transport her asleep but it was all too complicated. She decided to stay at home and just be creative with her business. A friend from work decided to join her in the business, as the demand had risen dramatically. Her father was in charge of the numbers and her mother of the promotion. It was a truly good family business and that made her happy.

 Her happiness, however, didn’t last for a long time. A man arrived one day to the store and he said he was with the police. Rose and her parents talked to him in the living room and heard some news that left them without words: Rose’s attacker had finally been arrested and they needed for her to identify him. Trying not to panic, Rose started breathing slowly, obviously trying hard not to lose it right there. Her father explained to the men that she wasn’t going to be able to go to the precinct or to any courthouse for that matter. He explained his daughter’s situation and the men said nothing more. He just shook their hands and left. That was a very difficult night for Rose: she didn’t sleep, not even for a couple of minutes. She kept thinking about it and trying not to scream, trying to think about anything else other than the policeman’s visit.

But the police called again and even came back with a lawyer, the attacker’s lawyer. They said that if Rose was not going to be able to go to court and properly accuse him, then they could reach a settlement for compensation or at least bargain in some way. It was Rose’s mother who kicked them out of the house. She yelled at them that they were rats and that they had no shame in coming to a house to tell someone to shut up instead of helping the real victim. When the police called again, they told them they had done it all when she had been attacked, everything had been filed and properly done but the police explained they had to sue him, as they previously had not captured him.

 The family called for help, a brother of Rose’s father who was a lawyer. He helped Rose by making the police release a picture of the man they had in custody. That way, she got to confirm it was one of the men that had attacked her. Yes, because the police thought it had been only one but she knew the other one had stood there, watching, doing nothing at all. For now, Rose’s uncle did everything he could to avoid her the pain of seeing him face to face. The trial’s date was set and for Rose it was a torture to wait until then. Her uncle guaranteed her presence via webcam, having been authorized to do it like that. But Rose wasn’t even sure she could do it that way either. Just thinking about it made her tremble and have goose bumps. Her body ached everyday and she had no energy to make a single cupcake.

 The day of the trial, she cried and almost lost control as she told her story to the jury. The most difficult part of it all was answering the questions; especially those that questioned that things had happened as she said they had happened. Being doubted was the worst feeling, being treated like a crazy person or a liar. She repeated the words the man had said to her and had to be excused for a moment while she collected herself again and waited for the resolution, which didn’t happened until the next day. The trial wasn’t long as the evidence was all against the man. Everyone knew he had lied and had made family and friends lie for him.

 The judge stated that this crime was a hate crime. They had investigated the man further and discovered he had almost beaten her wife to death and had even attacked his own sister after finding out she was a lesbian. The man was sick, letting his hate for everyone that live a nice life driving him to make the most awful things. He was sentenced to life in prison and Rose heard that live, feeling confused. Because she knew that it hadn’t all finished there. Her fear, her panic at the exterior world was still there. What good was this all if was still as scared as before? The fact that her attacker was in jail didn’t make things suddenly better.

 But one thing Veronica and her parents agreed was that they were grateful she was there to live on, to make an effort and keep on living. Because many died and didn’t get the chance to try again, to transform their lives. She couldn’t really consider herself lucky but she had the opportunity of being someone again, in time. She reprised her business, which grew with time. She wanted to be better and knew that someday, she would be able to go the park and just sit there and breathe.

Family's end

   The bridge crossed the gorge in all its extension. The father stopped the car at one end and head out. He inhaled the fresh air and walked near the railing of the bridge. There was a big net like structure to prevent people from falling but the view was just outstanding. There was a small river below but mainly trees, a big green mat of big and small trees that covered the valley below. The mother joined him with two small kids, which seemed to have just woken up. They held their mother’s hands and were rubbing their eyes with their free hands.

 The family stood there for several minutes, without saying a word. Even the children were silent. Then, a burst of light and smoke appeared far away, clearly visible from the bridge. The father inhaled and exhaled without saying anything, only tightening his hand in his pocket. Then he went back to the car. Mother and children followed. The engine started and they crossed the bridge fast into the highway beyond. They travelled without making a single stop. None of them complained or said anything. They were a family but it really didn’t seem like they were. The kids kept to themselves, not even playing with one another and just looking through the window or looking straight, apparently distracted with the flying dust or the sounds of the car.

 Night arrived and the car finally stopped by a roadside hotel. They paid for one room with twin beds, one for the children and the other one for the adults. But none of them really slept. They seemed to be on alert, waiting for something to happen. Every time a car drove into the hotel parking lot and the lights lit their room, they moved, opening their eyes again and shaking softly.  That was during the night and during breakfast and a nearby diner things weren’t less strange. A perky waitress tried to cheer up the kids, given them pancakes with faces on it, but the kids seemed not impressed and even worried. After they left, she told everyone that would listen about the weird family that had come in early, with a lot of money.

 Because the waitress had seen the father’s wallet and the several bills inside it. He even gave her a big tip but all with that weird face, between worry and boredom. The family kept on travelling by road until they reached the border with another country. The father and mother acted then, hugging and smiling as the immigration agents checked their passports. The mother even bought the kids some chips and candy and the kids laughed and ran. They all behave like a normal family until the immigration officer let them pass. An hour later, the car was as silent as it had always been. The terrain they were crossing at that point was desert with only a few plants to see and even a couple of rocks every few kilometers.

 That night, they didn’t stop driving. The father didn’t seem to be tired at all, just going on and on, his legs moving normally and just looking ahead, with a strange look in his face. They finally reached a big city and parked inside a shopping mall. Going inside, they suddenly separated. Each kid, mother and father took different directions and explored the place. The father went to an electronics store and checked out several computers, TV’s and sound systems. In spite of the money he had, he only bought a tablet computer. The mother, meanwhile, was in a department store trying out clothes and shoes. She made the saleswoman bring her so many pairs of shoes but finally settled for one pair she had seen from the beginning. She also bought a flowery dress and went out of the store already wearing it. The little girl went playing to the arcade and his brother entered a pet store and sat down in front of the many aquariums and fish bowls in one end of the store.

 They reunited several hours later. None of them had eaten anything but when meeting they went straight to the car and restarted their journey which happened to be a short one. They paid a room for each in a hotel and stayed there for a week until the secret service and other agencies got to them. They were arrested and send back to the country they had fled. There, a hearing was held to read the crimes they were being charged for but none of them seemed to be interested in the matter. They accused them to plan a terrorist attack and bomb a power plant that served millions of people in a large region of the country. Days later, they were presented with a lawyer and the father only told him to ask him about his story in front of the jury and the media.

 He did exactly that some weeks later and the father started telling his story. According to him, they were all a family. He knew it didn’t seem like it but it was true. He told everyone his family had been living a quiet life in a ranch not far from the bridge they had crossed to escape. They were happy and didn’t harm everyone. True, with no other relatives nearby and believing in homeschooling, they hadn’t really made many acquaintances. One night, he claims, their home was raided by men claiming to be the military, saying they suspected the home was used as a laboratory to make drugs. They apparently arrested them and took them to a military facility were they were tortured. Not only the two adults, but also the children.

 The father stopped his story there and asked if his wife could tell the rest. The judge agreed and the woman stepped up to her seat, not even looking at her husband as he grabbed a seat with their lawyer. She told them they noticed the place was underground, as they never saw any sunlight when being kept down there. She looked at the judge and told him they began another round of tortures, much more medical and even scientific. She had no idea how to explain it but she assured that they had been probed and tested several times. It was then when they all began to feel detached, not a family anymore.

 The hearing was stopped them because of the time and rescheduled for a later date, the week next to that one. During that pose, something happened that made the media really pay attention to the case and stop saying they were all acting because their adoration of terrorism had made them insane. The children were held in a facility for abandoned youth. They were being watched at all times but it was too late when, one night, the cop that was in charge of them arrived in the room and realized the little boy, maybe seven years of age, had committed suicide. His sister was three beds away, asleep or so he thought. The boy had planned it all because he knew he wasn’t going to be normal ever again.

 When the trial resumed, the girl was put on the stand. She didn’t cry when asked about her brother’s death. Actually, she seemed no to feel anything. It was as if she was made of stone. She told the jury she had been with her parents when they decided to escape the facility they had been held in. Somehow, they were all faster, stronger and much more intelligent than when they were abducted from their home. Something had been done to them that had rendered them better but less of a family. They used these abilities to kill several people and escape. In a matter of minutes, they used the militaries weaponry to make a large bomb and they activated it with a remote control. The facility happened to be beneath a power plant and they had not known they had destroyed it too. They just wanted revenge.

 But as the days passed, they realized revenge served no one. Something else had been done to them, much worse than any of the tortures. Somehow, in their minds, they didn’t feel any love or care for any of their relatives. It was, they described it, as looking at someone they had never seen in their life but no one else was there to help them so they united. It didn't mattered who they were as long as they weren't doing mean things to them. They felt there was something, but not enough to make them a family again. The father stated they had stayed in that hotel for a wheel in order for the police and others to finally catch them. Escaping was not their plan all along.

 People were divided on their opinions about the case. The owners of the power plant demanded justice to be done for the deaths of several of its workers and the military were rumored to release a statement soon. But none of those things were necessary not mattered. One morning, all remaining suspects, about to be convicted for the death penalty, were dead. The father had cut his throat with a cutter he stole from one of the guards. The mother took several pills she grabbed from the purse of a woman in the court room and the girl drowned herself in a tub.

 No one ever knew anything about them. Where they had come from or what had really happened to them, nor where they had gotten all the money the police had found with them in the hotel.But it wasn’t important. They had been killed by guilt, by pain, because they realized their lives would never be the same without their family united.