Broken Glass: An Alicia Jacobs Novel (The Alicia Jacobs Chronicle Book 1)

by Amanda Thurston

  She took the paperwork and rifled through it, her face slowly morphing back into the cherub like appearance of before. “I am Sallie; your paperwork appears to be in order. When Sheriff Spencer returns he will take you to your client.”

  I went back to the god awful chair and sat down pulling out one of the law books from the large tote bag at my side and thumbing through it. They had some crazy laws for sure, for example no one was allowed to wear the color red. The bovine shifters when seeing the color red would go into a mad rage and impaled anything in sight. It had caused a few riots and many violent deaths.

  The bovine race was restricted to shifter and supernatural communities only because of their inability to control their shifting in the past. Many of them had complained about it in the past few generations. It did happen once in 1998; a female bovine had decided to revolt and went to a rave in New York. She had been dancing away and having a grand old time. This man approached her in a red tank top and she instantly shifted and impaled him- as well as fifty other party goers. The memory wiping team had their hands full that night. So the law stayed as it was to this date.

  The particular bovine in question had gone on to be a very successful business woman who was well known in the supernatural community. Unfortunately, no name was given, it would have been interesting to have met the woman and learned more about her. I also could not help but wonder, were there more than one kind of bovine shifter? There were more than one kind of cow. If I ever had the chance to meet a bovine shifter I would have to ask. Curiosity was my enemy sometimes, but I did not think that an innocent question would cause too much strife. It was hard to tell regardless of what race you were people seemed to get offended at the dumbest things.

  I continued looking through the file reading over the parts that covered supernaturals killing other supernaturals. It was a long and lengthy chapter, I had read it before when I first started studying supernatural law, but I definitely needed to review. Jen, was at least lucky that she had killed in self-defense, the hardest part was going to be proving that. I wondered if there was any camera that had caught anything, or if the supernatural community had some way of accessing events of the past. Who knew what abilities the races could have, Jen had never really explained too much about abilities, she claimed it would keep me safer not knowing.

  A few moments later Sheriff Spencer returned and cleared his throat. I looked up from the book, blinking for a moment to get the text cleared from my eyes.

  “You can go see her now, Alicia.” I stood and smoothed the wrinkles from my clothing and stepped towards him.

  He led me behind the desk and into what appeared to be the back offices. He opened the door for me and waited until I had walked through to follow me. We walked down a lime green colored hallway. It looked like an old fashioned grade school, someone definitely needed to hire an interior decorator. There were pictures and placards depicting people as cop of the month or praising some important case that were solved. Employee recognition was not a bad thing. It showed that at least here, the employees were not expendable. If only other companies could follow that same philosophy.

  We stopped in front of a barred door, the good sheriff put a key into the lock and twisted it pulling it open. The heavy metal door creaked as it opened and we stepped into a small confined room. He shut the barred door behind us and locked it once again before turning to open another door. This one seemed heavy but normal looking. It swung open with a groan and we walked into a darker hallway. There were no windows, no pictures, nothing to make this hallway seem welcoming in any way.

  I took a deep breath as we walked down the hallway.

  For some reason I felt claustrophobic, almost choking on my own air as I walked down this hall. It did not seem to end either, it just kept going on and on. I looked at the Sheriff he did not seem to notice anything wrong with the hall. But he walked down it more often than I did, so he probably wouldn't. I looked up at him and noticed a small cloth bag hanging around his neck. Had that been there before? My vision grew cloudy as my brain began to react to how difficult it was for me to breathe. I was panting and sweating, what the hell was going on here.

  I stopped and touched his shoulder my breathing ragged “I need to catch my breath.” He looked at me with surprise on his face. “I thought you were a null?”

  I gasped a moment and leaned forward grabbing my knees. “what... is... a... null...” I gasped out.

  He reached and patted my back in circles, it seemed to help and I gulped greedily at the cool air. “A null is a person who does not see, recognize, or feel anything supernatural, unless directly shown.”

  I looked at him in surprise. “I would think I am a null; I don't know of anything that would say otherwise in my genetic history.”

  He nodded and smiled a bit woefully. “The only way you would feel the barriers and spells up in this hallway, is if you had some supernatural something in your bloodline.”

  I nodded as he continued to rub circles on my back his fingers feeling like they were drawing lines in my skin. Whatever he was doing it helped me to be able to breathe again and I was able to stand up again. I looked up after I had finally caught my breath.

  "What exactly did you do to my back? It made it easier to breathe again." I questioned him curiously.

  "I was drawing the symbols we were taught by the people who put up these barriers. They alleviate the symptoms enough to let the person continue. Normally supernatural visitors get a charm bag. I did not realize they would bother you so I did not give you the charm. "

  I looked at the bag around his neck. “Like that one?” I lifted my chin gesturing to the bag.

  He nodded and smiled “Yes, the only time we do not give a supernatural a bag is if they are coming here because they committed a crime. It’s sort of punishment in a way as well as protection.”

  So, Jen had walked down this hall, suffering, gasping for air and hurting with every step she had taken. That made me angrier than it should have and I must admit I lost respect for her father. I understood that he was only doing his job, but Jen was his daughter. I am sure it only made his position as Sherriff more difficult. Part of me wanted to ask if he had been the one to walk Jen down the hall to her cell. Had he been man enough? Or had he chickened out and had someone else do it.

  I could not blame him if he had. In fact, I might think better of him if he had. Something told me that he had been the one to do it. That he had taken that responsibility for himself and had watched struggling with his own emotions as his daughter suffered. That made me respect him once again. I was not going to ask him; I knew it was probably hard enough on him knowing that she had walked down this hall with no protection. I could tell just by his pained expression.

  We started walking down the hall again, Sheriff Spencer kept looking at me out of the corner of his eye. It was like he was seeing me in a whole new light and I was not sure that I liked it.

  “So tell me why you think I am not a null, you mentioned spells and barriers?” I had to admit my curiosity was piqued about what he had said before.

  “We have to put up barriers and specialized protection spells in this hallway. We have many supernaturals that have a variety of abilities and some can be especially dangerous if they are feeling cornered.” His eyes took on that pained expression again and I wondered if he was recalling Jen’s walk down the hallway of doom.

  Hey, that was a good name for this place.

  “Honestly, who wouldn't feel cornered walking down this hallway?” I said with a shaken laugh.

  He slowed his stride to match mine as he continued to tell me about the specialized magic they had in this hallway. What it summed up to is that there were barriers against physical violence and spells in place to prevent magic use. Essentially, it stripped them of all of their abilities during their walk down the all leaving them weakened by the time they reached the end. Anyone who was even remotely supernatural would feel very sick walking down this hall.

  It
was not so much intended to be like that, but more of a side-effect of for a short time at least losing their powers. It was like they for a small period of time, or as long as it took them to struggle down this hallway were human. They lost the part of them that made them special and their bodies suffered a physical response as a result. A full blood supernatural like Jen, or the Sherriff, felt its effects much stronger than I had.

  The normal symptoms supernaturals experienced were nausea, finding it hard to breathe, weakness, and fatigue. By the time they reached the end of the hallway they were considerably weak and less prone to causing trouble. When they were placed in their cell they would be able to rest and catch their breath while their powers slowly returned. They could not use this warding anywhere that someone would be housed long term. To lose their powers long term, would kill the supernatural. It damaged their organs, with long term exposure they would grow weaker and weaker until they eventually faded away. I did not want to know how they had found that out.

  The current system, I had to admit it was a good way to protect the staff that were employed by the police station as well as the police themselves.

  I would have to talk with Jen about it at some point when she was out of this building of doom. Maybe she would have an idea of why I had reacted as I did, or some way to find out. It was neat to think that I had the potential to be a supernatural, but what was the likelihood, from what Jen had told me most supernaturals went through the changing sickness at puberty.

  To my knowledge my family as far back as it dated was human. But, if I was a supernatural why had I not known or showed signs before now. Yay, another thing to think about... just what I needed. Still, I can’t say that I wanted to be a supernatural. I liked my life, I liked who I was and I did not want that to change. Even if it meant gaining power.

  We had finally reached the end of the hallway and stopped in front of a black door with bars on the windows. I instantly felt better as we stepped onto the doors threshold and took a deep, cleansing breath. I steadied myself and stepped back a bit so that Sheriff Spencer could unlock and open the door. Like all of the doors before it this one was heavy. As it groaned open I could see that this door was about three-foot-thick, it was probably the thickest door I had ever seen.

  Noting my gaze, the Sheriff looked at the door as well.

  “We still have spells up but some of them fight against it at times and try to break the door down. We went through a few different size doors before we found one that they can't seem to break down.”

  I nodded at him, his explanation seemed to make sense, hell I didn’t think a wrecking ball could break that thing down. Poor Miley. That video still made me laugh, what normal person thought riding a wrecking ball naked was sexy. Not to mention how rough that would be against your thighs. She must have had a lot of practice riding things.

  We stepped through the door and the hall opened up into a large room. All around the room were other rooms with bars of various types on it. Some of the rooms did not appear to have doors at all. The sheriff pointed out the different types of doors so that I could understand the inside of the prison area a bit better. Spell doors were the ones that there seemed to be no door. A magic spell is in place to keep the inmate confined. Iron bars for the Fae, silver for the werewolves, cold metal for the shifters, and electromagnetic for the DJinn. There were so many types of doors it was a wonder they could afford them all.

  We walked down a small hallway to a more confined area of the prison. Sheriff Spencer stopped in front of the last door and inserted the key.

  “I can let you go in here only as her legal representative. You will be on camera the entire time you are in there. While you were filling out the paperwork I let her know this as well. “

  He looked at me his expression was sad, hurting. I felt sorry for the man.

  “There can be no physical contact beyond reaching out to pet her hand in reassurance. There can be no hugging, no kissing, no other affectionate contact of any kind.”

  He said with a forlorn expression on his face, I was betting that he had not been able to console his daughter either. That probably made it just as hard on him as it was going to be for me. I nodded and stepped towards the door as he swung it open. Jen looked exhausted, her face was covered in streaks of dirt and mud matted her hair, or it could have been blood. I was not sure. Either way I knew that she had not been allowed to use the facilities and I would have to address that. I stepped into the cell and the good sheriff closed the door and locked it behind me.

  Jen stood and rushed forward moving as if she was going to hug me, then stopped as I lifted my hands in a gesture to ward her off. I smiled at her and let all of the feelings I had for this amazing, strong woman reach my eyes. She saw the look in my eyes and smiled as well. She sat back down in her chair and I sat across from her on the small cot in her room. I am sure that inside she was aching to hold me just as much as I was to hold her. It just couldn’t happen or my merit as a legal representative would go down and I would be unable to handle her case. That could not happen.

  Her room was not much to speak of; it was sparsely decorated, she had a toilet, a desk and chair, a cot and a sink. A few toiletries were on a shelf above the sink, there was no mirror. She had washed as much of the grime off of her face as possible, but one can only do so much with toilet paper- she had no towels, washcloths or soap. Something I was going to have to remedy, she may be a prisoner but she was not an animal... most of the time.

  Jen ran her hands through her hair and looked at me, I could see exhaustion, fear, desperation and a world of other emotions cross over her face. Her hair was still thickly matted with blood and when she pulled her fingers out of the soft waves they were tinged a rust color. I was surprised she was able to maintain her human form at this point.

  Usually under high stress situations shifters and those “lunarly inclined” could not control whether their bodies shifted or not. The more stressed they were the less likely they were to stay human. Jen was showing remarkable control in still being in her human form. I was proud of her.

  I reached out taking her hands in mine and patted the top of her hand gently.

  “Everything is going to be just fine Jen; we will get you out of here in no time.”

  She nodded and tears filled her eyes but she managed to choke out a thank you.

  I pulled out my notepad and looked at her with my pen ready. “I know it is hard Jen, but I need for you to tell me everything again, and this time I need more information about the man.”

  Taking a deep breath, I managed a smile before continuing. “I need to know the location of any case files that you had been storing, notes, anything like that. I want to help prove that what you did was in protection of the supernaturals privacy act, as well as the human child. I also need to argue self-defense.”

  Jen nodded and began to recite the events again, I wrote down everything that she said, while stopping her occasionally to ask questions, colors, times, things like that. She told me that any files she had were on the flash drive that was in her car and gave me the password. When she was done telling me the story and any other additional information, I let her know some of the things I was going to do for her. I needed to make sure that she received a shower, towel, washcloths and any other necessary toiletries. She looked uncomfortable and had been picking blood flakes off her skin the entire time I had been here.

  I knew that the idea that she had killed someone, good or bad, had traumatized her. It was all over her face, she looked so lost. Her eyes had that deep dark look of someone when they have done something so wrong, that they know they will never be the same. No words, hugs, kisses, or comfort would ever change the fact that she had done something in her eyes that was terribly wrong. I could only hope that with time she would become herself again and not let this destroy her. She was strong and I believed in her. I would have to make sure to tell her so, and show her once everything here was taken care of.

  I went and knocke
d on the door of her cell indicating to the guard that I wanted to be let out. It was the sheriff himself who let me out and I took him off to the side.

  “She needs a shower, she’s covered in blood, dirt and god knows what else.”

  He nodded and looked at me. “We are still waiting on the evidence team to come and check her out, as well as the medical team to fix her ear. Once that is done she can get a shower.”

  I was not pleased with his answer but we needed the evidence just as much as anyone else did. I was sure that some of the blood on her was her own, and some of it was probably his.

  I turned back to the sheriff, “She also needs toiletries, a towel, a washcloth, things like that- so she can clean herself up on her own when the time comes. “