Ruined by Shadows

by Lola StVil

  I sigh loudly and turn back to the photograph.

  “Oh Mom, what do I do?” I say.

  I hear the voice in my head. It’s the voice I assign to my mom, although truth be told, it’s been so long since I’ve heard her speak, I can no longer remember whether it’s really her voice.

  “Get out there, and face it, Jasmine. Tell them there’s been a mistake,” the voice tells me.

  It’s pretty much all I can do. I remove the photograph from the frame and push it into the pocket of my jeans. I hope having my mom close will give me the courage to face whatever is out there.

  I cross to my full-length mirror, except it isn’t my mirror, is it? Not really. I stare at my reflection critically. I’m still me. I was half expecting to see someone else looking back at me.

  My shoulder-length blonde hair is stick straight except for the one tiny kink at the front of my hair that I can never quite get rid of. I’m short, only five three, and around five pounds heavier than I’d like to be.

  Oh, well. If I’m in prison, at least I can go to the gym and get ripped. Small wins and all that.

  I’m not sure the jeans and tight black vest top I’m wearing is the right outfit for where I find myself, but what is? It’s not like I have an orange jumpsuit lying around.

  “Come on, Jazz, get it together,” I tell myself.

  It doesn’t work. I’m still reeling, but it gets me moving, and I stride out into the corridor, slamming the door behind me. I walk with purpose down the corridor towards the only other door. I reach it, pause, and take a deep breath.

  I consider knocking on the door, but as confused and scared as I am, I’m also kind of angry at the way I’m being treated, and I don’t bother. I just reach out and push the door open. I’m such a rebel.

  The room behind the door is another slate gray, cold room. In the center are a table and two chairs. A man in a black suit sits in one of the chairs, an open briefcase on the table in front of him.

  “Jasmine Miller?” he says as I enter.

  “Yeah. Who are you?” I ask suspiciously.

  “My name is Anton Harris. I’m your lawyer,” he says.

  He makes no move to get up or to shake my hand. He just nods at the empty chair. I cross to the chair, feeling immense relief. My aunt and uncle came through and got me a lawyer.

  “When do I get out of here?” I ask. “Why am I even here?”

  He watches me, his eyes scrutinizing every detail of me. I feel like he’s looking into my very soul. His piercing gaze makes me want to look away, but I remind myself he’s on my side, and I hold his look.

  “You’ve been sentenced to spend some time on the Isle of Midnight,” he says.

  He’s still talking, but I don’t hear anything after Isle of Midnight. I’ll confess now. I don’t know much about the place. Only the stories people tell—stories of an island, a prison without rules or reason. The official story is that the island is a revolutionary place, a rehabilitation center where the most hardened juvenile offenders go to learn how to become productive members of society. It seems to me to be somewhere that the offenders the system can’t control are left to rot.

  And now it seems like I’ll be the newest addition. Jasmine Miller, captain of the high school debate team and master criminal extraordinaire.

  “But I didn’t do anything wrong,” I say.

  I was aiming for a firm tone, one that left no room for doubt. Instead, my voice comes out as a little, timid squeak. That squeak was so far from my own voice that I almost didn’t recognize it.

  Anton sighs and massages his temples.

  “This would be a much easier process if we were honest with each other, Jasmine,” he says.

  That hits a nerve. I rarely lie, even when a lie would be the easiest way out. It’s gotten to the point where my friends hardly ever ask my opinion on anything because they know I won’t just throw them compliments if I hate something.

  “How’s this for honest? I’ve done nothing wrong and yet the police saw fit to bring me here, drug me, dupe me, and now this? How can a sentence have been passed—I’ve never even seen the inside of a courtroom, let alone stood trial. You’re my lawyer. You’re supposed to prove I’m innocent,” I snap.

  Anton reaches into his briefcase and pulls out an iPad.

  “Why don’t you take a look at this, and then see if you want to rethink that last statement,” he says.

  He puts the iPad down on the table between us and taps the screen. A video begins to play. I want to tell him I’m not interested in his stupid video, but then I recognize the scene. It’s the Alhambra Bank. The date and time stamp are from yesterday afternoon. The time I was there.

  This will prove my innocence. How has Anton not watched this before now? He couldn’t have, because if he had, he would have seen I was innocent. I’m also curious to get a glimpse of the robber and see if I can make out their features now.

  People stand in line waiting for their turn to go to the window. The bank tellers work diligently. There’s no volume, but I can imagine the conversations. The mundane conversations you have while waiting for whatever it is you came for.

  The door opens, and I step into the bank. I recognize the clothes I was wearing yesterday. I don’t hesitate. I walk with a single purpose. I don’t head for the line.

  “That’s not right. I…” I start.

  What happens next causes the words to stick in my throat.

  I walk towards the counter, and as I walk, I pull a black revolver from inside my jacket. I level it at the cashier, whose face goes deathly white.

  “I think that’s enough,” Anton says, stopping the video.

  “I…” I squeak.

  I can’t say anything else. My mouth won’t form any words, and my brain won’t form any thoughts. The room is spinning wildly around me, and my head spins in the opposite direction. I see flecks of white in front of my eyes, and I know I’m on the verge of passing out. I bite down on my tongue, hard enough to draw blood. The sharp, stinging pain brings tears to my eyes, but it stops me from reeling.

  “I swear that’s not what happened. I’ve been set up,” I say finally.

  Anton raises an eyebrow.

  “I suggest you say goodbye to your aunt and uncle. You won’t be seeing them for quite some time. You have ten minutes,” he says.

  He stands up and waits for me to do the same. I remain seated. Why won’t he listen to me?

  “Did you hear what I said? That’s not what happened. I was in the line, and someone came in with a gun and robbed the bank. But it wasn’t me, I swear,” I say.

  Anton rolls his eyes.

  “You have nine minutes,” he says.

  I get to my feet. He’s not going to believe me. I suppose, in a sense, I can’t blame him. I don’t know how that video was made or why, but it was pretty damning, and Anton doesn’t know me, doesn’t know I would never do something like that. My aunt and uncle do though. I’ll be able to make them listen to me, to get me a different lawyer. I can’t go to the Isle of Midnight. I just can’t. It’s full of actual criminals, and I won’t last two minutes there.

  Anton pushes open a door that is opposite the door I entered through. He nods for me to go in. This room looks slightly warmer than the rest of the place. The walls are a pale yellow, and a thick white rug covers most of the light-colored wood flooring. A plush white couch faces an equally plush white armchair.

  My aunt and uncle sit side by side on the couch. Aunt Holly looks broken. Her face is deathly white, almost as white as the couch she sits on. It’s obvious by her red, puffy eyes that she’s been crying. She is still holding a tissue in one clenched fist. Uncle Rick is as pasty looking as her, with dark circles standing out beneath his eyes.

  “Oh, Jazz, what did you do?” Aunt Holly says as I go and sit down in the armchair.

  I lean forward and rest my elbows on my knees, imploring them without words to believe me.

  “I didn’t do anything. There’s been some mistake,
” I say.

  “Jazz, we saw the video,” Uncle Rick says gently.

  “I did too. But that’s not what really happened. The bank was robbed, and I was there. But I wasn’t the one doing it. I was just in line with everyone else,” I say desperately.

  I stop myself from telling them that the real robber was blurry, and I couldn’t make out any of their features. That will make me sound crazy. Am I crazy?

  I’m beginning to wonder. I mean, I’ve seen the video. And maybe I can’t make out the robber’s face in my mind because it was me all along, and my subconscious is holding it back or whatever. I should have paid more attention in psych class.

  I don’t feel crazy though. I really think I was set up, although why anyone would do that, I don’t know. And surely the authorities have to check the validity of a video before it’s used as evidence.

  I don’t know. I just don’t know anything anymore, not even what is real and what isn’t.

  “You do believe me, don’t you?” I say.

  Aunt Holly gives me a weak smile.

  “We want to,” she says.

  Her words pierce my heart. We want to. Which means they don’t. I stand up.

  “Got it,” I say.

  “Jazz, wait,” Uncle Rick says as I head for the door.

  “Goodbye, Aunt Holly. Goodbye, Uncle Rick. Thank you for taking me in,” I say coolly as I go back to the first room.

  Anton is gone, and the door leading out of the room is locked now. I sit at the table and put my head in my hands. I want to cry, but I don’t. I won’t show weakness. Isn’t that the first rule of prison? And it seems like prison will be my next stop. For how long, I don’t know. I stupidly didn’t even ask how long my sentence was.

  I didn’t have to sit in the room for long before I was handcuffed and shackled again and ushered into a small helicopter. I asked the pilot how long I would be on the island, but he told me he didn’t know, as he was just the pilot, and that he wasn’t really allowed to talk to me.

  I ignored the last part, begging him to tell me what the island was like and what I should be prepared for. He eventually relented and gave me some advice—find your people. I asked him what that meant, and he told me to find people I could trust and to stick with them because being alone on the island was dangerous.

  Great.

  I must have fallen asleep after that because I wake up with a start as the helicopter touches down heavily on the ground. The pilot waits as the propellers slow down, and only when they come to a stop does he move. My mind is spinning with questions, but I keep silent. I know he won’t answer them, and I’m afraid of what I might learn if he does.

  The pilot gets out of the helicopter after what feels like a long time, but also far too short a time, and comes around to my side. He opens the door and unlocks my ankle shackles. He helps me climb down clumsily, then removes my cuffs.

  “Go to building seventeen,” he says as he slams my door shut and goes back to his side.

  “Wait,” I say.

  He pauses. I didn’t expect him to, and now that he has I don’t know what to say.

  “Where’s that?” I ask dumbly.

  He just shrugs.

  “Good luck, kiddo,” he says.

  I watch as the helicopter takes off. I watch until it becomes a tiny speck in the sky, and then it’s gone. Really gone. And I’m all alone.

  I decide two things at that moment. One, I’m going to find building seventeen and speak to the guards. I’ll demand a phone call, and I’ll get my own lawyer, one who can get me out of here. And two, I’m not going to be a victim. I have to leave my soft side at the door and walk through this place with my head held high and show no weakness.

  I nod to myself, confirming my thought, and I turn in the direction of the rows of long, low buildings. I stride towards them, hoping I look confident like I’ve done this before.

  As I walk towards the buildings, I look around. The Isle of Midnight is a strange place. It has an eerie atmosphere that sends a chill up my spine for no good reason. The buildings are all identical—long gray buildings with red rooftops. Strangely, none of the many windows in the buildings have bars on them, and as I pass the first building, I notice that no guards are posted, and none of the doors seem to be locked.

  People of various ages peer out the windows at me, and some of them start flocking out to see the new kid. Some of them greet me with a nod or an “alright,” some catcall and whistle as I pass, but mostly they accept my arrival with cool indifference. A quick glance in my direction and nothing more.

  I scan the buildings’ doors, where large boards with numbers hang. I finally spot building seventeen, and I walk up to it.

  The silence that greeted me and the silence that hangs over this place worry me. I expected a loud, riotous place filled with unruly teens. These are more like zombies or Stepford wives, and it’s somehow worse.

  I tell myself it’s okay. It’s not like I’ll be staying here for much longer. I just need to speak to the guards. No, the warden. The warden can make things happen. At least he always can on the TV shows I’ve watched.

  My mind made up, I feel a bit better, but I’m apprehensive as I put my hand on the door handle. I remind myself not to show weakness. I might have to stay here for a few days while the warden checks my story and realizes I’m innocent. In the meantime, I’m not going to become someone’s bitch.

  I push the door open and step inside, trying to push down my confusion and fear.

  My confusion reaches a new level when I look around. I was expecting cells, bunks, dormitories, something like that. Instead, I step into a comfortable lounge, just like a lounge you would see in someone’s home. Six teenagers sit in the lounge laughing and chatting, teasing each other. Two of them are playing cards, and one of them fiddles with a cell phone.

  A cell phone?

  I clear my throat, unsure what to say now that I’m actually here. One of them, a guy who looks a little older than me, looks up at my cough. I’m instantly aware of how utterly gorgeous he is with tousled black hair, a square jaw, and the bluest eyes I’ve ever seen. It doesn’t stop there, though. He is just over six feet, with broad shoulders. His whole body is toned and hard, and I am certain if he would smile that would be just as perfect as the rest of him.

  I feel heat flood my face as he looks me up and down.

  “About time,” he says coldly. “We’ve been waiting for you…”

  END OF PREVIEW

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