Janelle felt her stomach sink at the realization that those fleeting moments of doubt she’d had were truly founded after all. She’d been lied to yet again. There was no “deal.” They only said there was to get her testimony.
Janelle was going down. Hard this time. She would not only have to make up the time she had left of her probation but do additional time for absconding as well. Additional charges were very likely too. Unless she escaped, of course.
She stared at the heartless bastard of a judge on the other side of the large oak desk who had her brought into his chambers upon the trial’s conclusion and conviction of some notorious cult members and wondered how he slept at night. He’d wanted nothing from her but her words and never gave a damn about all she’d been through. How could anyone lack that much compassion? How could anyone not care? How could they not see that she’d been the victim all along? How did they deceive someone who had been kidnapped and put through such hell?
Anger rose in the pit of her stomach. It was a wave of anger not even she had experienced before in her life. It was so intense that it was all-consuming. She shook with fury. The others were aware that she was now trembling with rage. She was pissed as hell at the judge, pissed at her probation officer Boris Brownly, and even pissed at herself for being dumb enough to fall for yet more false promises made by law enforcement. How the hell could she have been so utterly stupid as not to see through their lies? She guessed it was sheer desperation. Who the hell would want to believe that those who were supposed to protect, serve, and be honest, decent role models would do such a horrible thing whether she had absconded or not? Yeah, that was it. She simply wanted to believe that people weren’t that cruel, that people cared, and that her life would somehow go on.
Oh, it would go on, and Janelle Stone would see to that no matter what it took and no matter who got in her way. If she literally had to kill for her freedom, then kill she would.
“I didn’t want this to happen, Janelle,” Rick’s, voice suddenly sounded at the edge of her rage, a detective working on her case. “I told them I thought it was wrong as much as I had no choice but to go along with it.”
“NOOO!!!” Janelle’s rage burst forth like an explosion, and she finally stood up. It was as if her legs were made of springs. She shot up so fast that the heavy chair she had been sitting in toppled over.
Boris and Rick rose quickly as well.
“Not again! I won’t go through this again with the lies!” she screamed, letting out a blood-curdling wail of anguish. Janelle no longer felt exhausted due to her uncomfortable “hideaway” in jail and testimony as the adrenaline now shot through her veins with a red-hot liquid rage that made her teeth grind together so hard, she thought they’d shatter.
It occurred to her that her screams could be heard by others outside the room they were in, but she didn’t care. She was going to ensure these assholes a lifetime of pain they would never forget. That was if they even survived her wrath. She actually hoped they would so they would have to suffer for the rest of their lives, but she was so infuriated that she knew it would be hard not to get carried away.
Being the tough little hero he always thought he was, Boris dove toward her, and she immediately punched him in the face.
He stopped, stunned in his tracks, pain, and shock evident on his face as he brought his hand to his bloody lip. But Boris wasn’t scared yet. If anything, Janelle just turned on his own anger, and he lunged at her again with more determination.
And again, Janelle threw a punch at him, this time knocking him to the floor.
In the same instant she put Boris down, she dove for the judge who was reaching for the phone on his desk. She grabbed the phone from him and hit him hard in the head with it. He slumped back in his chair as Janelle grabbed him, tearing his black robe. It made an audible ripping sound as the black fabric tore.
“You fucking motherfucking, goddamn cold, calloused, heartless, self-serving little bastard!” Janelle spat in a rage. “I told you this would happen if you bullshitted me. I told you there would be consequences for lying and I don’t care who you are. You don’t falsely promise someone freedom after going through something so traumatic!”
Rick was now trying to call for help on his phone while Boris dove for her a third time.
Momentarily turning her attention from the judge, she punched Boris in one second and smacked Rick’s phone right out of his hand the next. Rick looked at her stunned as if to say, are you serious?
Boris was still more pissed and determined than anything else, but surprise and defeat were slowly starting to show in his features. Janelle could see it.
“Get your fucking handcuffs out and cuff him to the chair,” Janelle demanded, gesturing from Boris to Rick.
“Give it up, Stone,” Boris wheezed before Janelle cut him off.
“Do it, or I’ll kill the judge now.”
Uncertainty crossed Boris’s face.
“Is that what you want, you lying little prick?”
Without a word, Boris handcuffed a stunned and pleading Rick to the arms of the chair he sat in. “Janelle, please. Just listen to me. It’s not too late. We can fix this.”
“Oh, it’s too late, all right. Now shut up, Rick, if you want to come out of this unharmed.”
“I told them this was wrong and–,” Rick insisted.
“I believe you. Now shut up!”
Boris ran for the door shouting, but Janelle intercepted him and punched him in the jaw, clearly dislocating it. She could see the intense pain register on Boris’s face, but the guy was still determined and didn’t get that he simply couldn’t take her. He began throwing one punch after another. Janelle caught them all and slammed her fist into his nose. A crack could be heard, and then blood sprayed everywhere as Boris let out an audible howl of pain.
“I told you to shut the fuck up! Do you want this bastard to die?” She motioned toward the judge who sat dazed and horrified in his chair, too terrified to even move.
“You don’t want to do this,” Rick said.
“If I didn’t want to do this, I wouldn’t be doing it.”
While Boris was trying to get a hold of himself after the latest bloody blow to his face, Janelle finished the judge off by slamming a paperweight over his head, not caring if he lived or died at that point.
Boris’s features were now beginning to reflect the fear in which he had every reason to feel.
Janelle cracked a smile of pure evil and said, “Finally, it realizes it just can’t win them all and that this time there’s no being able to casually lie about whatever to whoever and order people around as if it’s some kind of God that owns them.”
With obvious defeat in his voice, Boris said, “Fuck you, you crazy bitch. You’re going to die for this.”
“Wrong,” Janelle said in a stern and matter-of-fact tone as she shook her head and then kicked her probation officer so hard in the legs she not only shattered one of his tibia bones but also knocked him to the ground with a heavy thud.
Rick was shouting, pleading, and begging for her to stop, assuring her that everything could be worked out as if she would ever believe a damn thing anyone in law enforcement had to say ever again.
Janelle picked up a walking stick that stood in a corner of the room and beat Boris mercilessly in the face with it. “Now I’m going to make you eat your fucking lies!” Janelle spat, and she jammed the stick into his mouth over and over again, each time dislodging teeth and getting blood-filled grunts of pain, fear, and anger from the terrified guy as he tried to shimmy away from her and turn his head.
“Janelle, stop!” Rick continued pleading.
“Was being obsessed with me worth it, you bastard?” she screamed at Boris.
It was then that Janelle realized with surprise that no one had stormed the room and come to the rescue of the man who had played her like a fool and used her at her expense in one of the cruelest of ways possible.
She decided this was it. She got her revenge, and it was now time to get on with her life without pushing her luck. She had only herself to trust and rely on, knowing full well that no one else would help her in any way.
She hit Boris hard enough in the head to silence him so his screams wouldn’t spill into the corridor as she opened the door and quickly closed it behind her to muffle Rick’s shouts. She would take a chance with Rick, unable to bring herself to harm the guy, believing that he was the only one who had been sincere about not agreeing to the bullshit plea agreement he was forced to go along with if he wanted to keep his job. She didn’t care about the judge, but she hoped Boris would live to suffer the damage she had inflicted upon him. Maybe then he would think twice before he bullshitted anyone else he became fixated on in any way.
Janelle was relieved to find the hallway deserted. She had no idea where she was or how to get out of the building, but she was about to do just that and right the wrongs that had been done to her for far too long.
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