Libertà Correction Facility
The steels door slid open ceremoniously, announcing the presence of a visitor. Giving a proper view of the inner room, the bare cold empty room. Just like the others in the huge departmental complex.
A husky make guard scoffed at Karla for wasting...as he deemed fit to call it, much of hers and his time. Surely, the young woman had better things to indulge in, and visiting the societal reject detained in the government's custody. Just had to be on her list.
"I'd like to speak to her privately, you can wait here." Karla announced, her hands placed behind her, as she sneakily walked into the detention room.
"You know the rules, you cannot talk to her alone. I have to be within a six metre radius at all times." The guard insisted, sensing trouble around the young blonde's aura.
"Just a few minutes, and look." Her hand pointed at the CCTV cameras placed all around them. Indicating that he had a front row view to whatever would go down.
"Five minutes, that's all I need, surely the government can grant a tax paying citizen that much." Said Karla, with a hint of irritation in her voice, mixed with forced patriotism and sarcasm.
"Do whatever the hell you want, I need the break anyway. Just don't do anything that could land you in a deeper hellhole." The man vaguely proclaimed before briskly walking away from the holding cell.
Shutting the door from the outside.
Karla's gaze shifted from the steel door to the woman seated across her, her wrists and ankles chained to the table and chair.
{They have her chained here like some sort of animal!. Fuck bloody civility!.} Karla crooned in her mind, while walking towards the brunette that was held captive.
"Who is that?." The woman's agitated voice cried out, her nervous fingers violently striking against the table.
"It's just me, no need to get distressed, am here now." Her voice matched her mood, she was petrified, but had to keep it together.
With all the frequent visits she had made time to make, this was by far, the most startling of all. Lina's health was nothing to want to write home about, her skin looked more oxygen deprived than the last time.
{The government could burn in hell for all I cared!.} Karla thought, keeping her gruesome thoughts to herself, lest she'd be digging her own grave.
*********
"Your skin looks paler than before, and you look thinner as well." Karla let out, her eyes never leaving Lina for a second. Her hands instinctively found their way to Karla's, placing them on hers, taking a feel of her.
"I missed hearing your voice, the sound of my breathing was starting to get repetitive. It drove me mad not hearing the twins cause a ruckus. Davin at the very least, you know, Willa was so reserved. A sharp contrast to her brother, can you imagine?."
"They didn't let me see them, the bloody guard said something about them being too young and too small. And my presence was not encouraged." Karla said, repeating the idiotic words that had been issued to her.
"How are you holding up? Do you eat thrice a day here?." Karla interrogated, her eyes now on the cameras stationed around the room.
{Why need so many precautions against people with simple disabilities?. Most especially, disabilities that could be cured. What the actual hell is all this?...} Karla's thoughts were penetrated by the frightened squeak from Lina.
"Listen to me sweetie, I don't know if am risking my life by saying this to you. But heavens know if you might ever see me again." Lina spat out.
"Alive." She swiftly inserted, spilling the tea. Arousing fear from her daughter, raising the tension in the room.
"Don't you dare say that to me, it's just a facility. I admit it's shitty but..."
"Someone died last week, a woman I knew, a friend I made here. She couldn't say a word to anyone, and had never seen the light of day before." Lina arched her body forward to say the rest part of her information.
"They took her out, because people stopped coming for her, and she was forgotten. A dead memory, who couldn't say a word to defend herself. And they...dissolved her..."
"Dissolve?." Karla asked, wrinkling her brows, sheer frustration eating out of her. Her chest tightened, nothing made sense to her at that second.
"My friend was just like me, I knew it, even if we never spoke verbally, I knew that she was unto them. She knew..."
Lina's voice was interrupted by the sound of the red alarm built to the ceiling. Followed by the distinct sound of the metal doors sliding open.
Lina immediately withdrew her body, her reaction timed a second too slow, her facial expression indicating that she was guilty of some sort of unspeakable crime.
"I think your five minutes are up, time to leave, visiting hours are over." The guard firmly declared, pulling his pants up, and firmly placing his belt in the right position.
"We're done here." Lina chimed, her face gazing so intently at the cameras that it almost seemed as though she was staring directly at the person at the other side. The person who was watching her every movement, and listening to her every word.
"I'll come visit you as soon as I get the chance to. Take your drugs and comply with your therapists okay." Karla maliciously retorted.
The sight of this place sickened her, more than the idea of arriving late due to some welcome party for a bastard of a billionaire.
Mr Grey.
Whoever he was, he was certainly in Karla's black book, he was just another person for her to push the blame on.
*Ring*
Karla's phone rang on her way to the subway. Her job payed well, but not well enough for her to take a taxi to every damn place she went.
"Hey, Jen what's up?." Her pitched raised higher once she realised who it was that called.
"Yuri asked me to drop off some files for you to sort out at your apartment, but I don't actually know where you live, and it's a bit of a squeeze for me to pop up this late." Jen said into the phone.
"And without a house warming gift." She chipped in, humouring the situation.
"Just drop it off at my desk, I'll pick em up before heading on home." Karla checked the time on her phone, realising just how late it was.
{No one is probably going to be there now.} Was her deduction, she ran her fingertips through her temples, stressed out.
"I can drop them off at this bar that's close to my location, though, you'd have to take a cab here tonight." Jen pressed, if Karla didn't know any better, she'd assume that Jen was insistent on staying wherever she was. Or whomever she was with, at the very least.
"Jen! That really isn't convenient for..."
"Great, I've texted you the address, you have to be quick, the bartender won't hold onto it for very long." Those were the last words Jen said before the other end of the call went dead.
"Not very accommodating are you?." Karla voiced out loud, looking into her phone for the address of the place.
"The least you could do was wire me cab fare!." Lamented Karla, she shoved her phone into her coat, making a one eighty. Changing the direction of her destination, cursing herself inwardly for ever agreeing to her job.
*********
"This place is fancy..." observed Karla on her entry, taking some steps inside, she could deduce one thing.
{And not open I see.}
She placed her fingers on the smooth table letting her fingers take a feel of the wood, the intoxicating scent filling her up.
"Looks like no one's here, where's the damned bartender supposed to be?." Karla asked in-between a groan. The events of today had taken a massive tole on her, and her mind went out to a chilled bottle of beer.
Luckily, she was stationed at just the perfect place for that. If the damned bartender would resurface, from where he was hiding.
As if on cue, the sound of someone barging into the bar from an unknown entrance caught Karla's attention.
Her whole body tensed, she immediately jolted out of the seat she took, getting on both feet to either take on the offence or defense.
"Oh!. Am so sorry..."
Karla's words were drowned by the sight before her, even if she was able to say anything, her brain wouldn't have registered it. And she would not have given whatever she said a thought of the day.
In front of her stood a man, not just any man, no, this man was different, Karla was sure of it. Naturally, it was smart to run, or find out who the hell he was. But in her case, Karla found her feet working against her.
Leading her towards him, one messy step at a time.
The man stood at the middle of the bar, tattoo necked and all, allowing her to drink in his features, while he did the same.
Once they were both standing in front of one another, Karla's green eyes fell on his, staring deeply into his eyes.
His midnight blue eyes.
"I..." This time she didn't stop herself from speaking, it was the enchanting baritone voice belonging to the stranger.
"I found you." He vaguely issued, leading them both against the closest wall, cornering Karla. The young woman was about to say something to clear up any misconception this drunk man might have, but the next word he uttered startled her.
"Mate." His voice echoed about the walls of the bar, resounding multiple times in Karla's ears.