Resistance (Book 1): Juvenile

by Perrin Briar

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  Details can be found at the end of JUVENILE.

  Juvenile

  Book One of the Resistance Series

  Perrin Briar

  Chapter One

  IT’S AMAZING the sound an object can make when it’s casually tossed on a desk, especially when the object in question is the past eighteen years of your life.

  You whole life, contained within a few pieces of scrap paper. Personality tests, criminal convictions, blood test results. An identity’s dark underbelly. A paint-by-numbers portrait where all the colors were black.

  The file was an inch thick and had ‘Danielle Ward’ written across the spine in permanent marker. It contained everything King County Juvenile Detention Center knew about Dana Ward, everything the law cared to know about one of its alumni.

  If someone were to judge the subject based on the details contained within her juvenile delinquent report alone, they would have come up with a very different person to the one sitting in Miss Jenkin’s office at that very moment. But Dana couldn’t complain. After all, it wasn’t a totally incorrect picture.

  “Theft, larceny, vandalism, alcohol offenses, disorderly conduct, assault, possession of marijuana, underage smoking, disciplinary offenses, traffic violations, truancy, criminal trespass, harassment, fraud, loitering, possession of a weapon, reckless endangerment, resisting arrest, joyriding…”

  Miss Jenkins shook her head.

  “I could go on forever. It’s quite a resume. And those are only the ones you’ve been charged with. Heaven knows what else you’ve been up to that we don’t know about.”

  Today, Miss Jenkins sported her mauve cardigan. She’d read the recent article in Time magazine about how it helps soothe the listener, releasing caring endorphins, unlocking their subconscious so they’ll take note of what you had to say. Such effects relied on the target being ignorant of what you were up to. Shame Dana had read the same article.

  “You recently turned eighteen,” Miss Jenkins said. “Things look very different on this side of the law. After this, any crimes or misdemeanors you commit will result in prison or worse. This is your last chance, Dana. Your last chance to turn your life around and do something with it. Soon you’ll graduate from high school. You know what that means?”

  Dana wasn’t here to respond, only receive. She kept quiet. This was Miss Jenkin’s big moment. The speech she’d been preparing for since she’d met Dana at the age of ten. It was The Serious Talk.

  “It means I won’t be able to help you,” Miss Jenkins said. “It means you’ll go directly to prison. Don’t pass Go, don’t collect two hundred dollars. There’s no need for you to make this mistake and go to prison if you’re smart. You remember what it was like, don’t you?”

  Ah yes, the harrowing educational field trip experience. Dana and a host of other undesirables had been given the full access VIP tour of the local penitentiary. It was meant to instill in them a fear of where they would end up if they didn’t knuckle down in their studies and alter their current life trajectory. It was an opportunity to make a change.

  Dana had indeed taken advantage of the opportunity… and smuggled in cigarettes for her friend on a two-year stretch for GTA. God bless field trips.

  “I’ve seen many kids come through here,” Miss Jenkins said. “Some we manage to help, others we can’t. Society has no place for lawbreakers. You need to conform to the laws we have to make this the best place possible to live. This is a correctional facility, but I don’t see many corrections being made in your case.

  “Every juvenile has a trigger event. You don’t wake up one day and suddenly decide to be a criminal. Your father left your mother and started a new family. Your mother couldn’t take it and took her own life. You’ve blamed your father ever since.”

  Miss Jenkins’ voice faded out, her words floating past Dana like ethereal clouds. Once, those words would have resulted in a fiery explosion, but Dana had learned to ignore them. They didn’t matter to her. That wasn’t the only reason she hated her father, but it was a start.

  Miss Jenkins was looking at Dana with some expectation. Damn. Had she asked a question while Dana’s mind had wandered?

  Dana shrugged. Let Miss Jenkins read whatever she wanted into her lack of response.

  “I thought not,” Miss Jenkins said, nodding. “You’re eighteen years old. You don’t need to know specifically what you want to do with your life, but you do need direction, a purpose. Discover what you find fun and then acquire the skills necessary to pursue it.

  “We’ve discussed this many times in the past. That will give you purpose. We’ve done a lot of work on the subject, trying to identify your strengths and weaknesses. Have you thought more about the jobs you might be suited for?”

  “Not the military, that’s for sure,” Dana said with a snort.

  Her personality type was apparently ideal for officer training. She wasn’t much one for following orders, and she didn’t know how her results could have been so badly skewed. She’d been aiming for ‘rock star’, despite not being able to sing or play an instrument.

  “I disagree,” Miss Jenkins said. “It’s not the tight-lipped straight-laced hell you seem to think it is. You have excellent leadership skills, so long as you have a purpose you believe in. And you love a scrap, let’s not forget that.”

  Dana fiddled with her multicolored bracelet. It had a bunch of little plastic figures on it. She’d been in a lot of fights over it. Idiots called it childish, a kid’s toy, but Dana didn’t care. She smiled every time she looked at it, at the thought of the person who’d given it to her.

  “The military have excellent training and education systems,” Miss Jenkins said. “You’re smart, Dana. We both know that. But you need to get yourself organized. You’re eighteen. If you get in trouble again you will end up in jail. You will have a criminal record and finding a job will be difficult.”

  “I know,” Dana said, rolling her eyes. “But it all just seems so… pointless. You study, you work, you have a family, you work more, you retire, and that’s it. When you’re dead you end up taking the same amount of things with you whether you’re rich or poor. I don’t see the point.”

  “Except you’ll get judged by the All Mighty,” Miss Jenkins said. “It’s not too late for you to make something of your life. God will forgive you, but you need to forgive yourself first.”

  “I didn’t know you were a priest,” Dana said.

  “I’m not,” Miss Jenkins said, fingering her own plastic talisman—the cross hanging from her neck. “Only a believer. It gives me purpose, direction. You don’t have to choose religion, but you do need a pillar, a rock.”

  I have a rock, Dana thought, fiddling with her bracelet. But she didn’t say it.

  “Life is about the journey as much as the destination,” Miss Jenkins said. “Perhaps more so, because we can change the destination while we’re moving toward it.”

  “Moving the goalposts,” Dana said. “That hardly seems fair.”

  “Sometimes we decide to remove goals altogether,” Miss Jenkins said, ignoring Dana’s objection. “So long as it’s for constructive reasons, it’s fine. But don’t be a flake. Don’t make plans and then constantly change your mind. People grow tired of such people. See things through. Meet targets.”

  “You always wanted to be an adviser to juvenile delinquents?” Dana said.

  “I did,” Miss Jenkins said, a smile spreading across her face.

  “You seriously wanted this life when you were young?” Dana said
. “Dealing with snot-nosed kids?”

  “Not specifically,” Miss Jenkins said. “But I knew I wanted to help people. So in a way, yes, I did.”

  She smiled, a great beam that knocked Dana off guard.

  “You’re an adult now,” Miss Jenkins said. “It’s time to start acting like one. After working in a place like this for a while, you develop senses, a way of seeing into people and knowing what they’re capable of. I see great potential in you. You just need direction, a path to follow.”

  “You been watching Coach Carter again Miss Jenkins?” Dana said with a grin. “You should lay off that stuff.”

  “You’ve graduated now,” Miss Jenkins pressed on. “You’ll soon leave high school behind. You need to do something, anything, with your life. Otherwise you’ll end up drifting. Leaving high school can be a big change for people your age. Sometimes they cling to their old lives, to their old routine. But now is when you should be pushing yourself. The world doesn’t change. But you do, and can, easily and all the time, and it’s within your control. You just need to decide what kind of person you want to be.”

  A knock at the door caused Miss Jenkins to start. Dana had been patiently awaiting it. Miss Jenkins checked her watch.

  “That’s it for today,” she said. “That’s it forever, actually.”

  “Thank you for everything,” Dana said, getting to her feet.

  Miss Jenkins squinted at her, sensing a trap. But there wasn’t one. Dana honestly meant it. It wasn’t Miss Jenkins’ fault she wasn’t able to reach her. Dana was unreachable. She was in the doldrums of society, the rotten apple at the bottom of the barrel, infecting all others and turning them to mush.

  “I appreciate everything you’ve done to try and help me,” Dana said. “Really.”

  There was a strict no-contact rule at the correctional facility, but Miss Jenkins leaned forward and hugged her. Dana allowed the hug. Miss Jenkins must have thought it would help Dana in some way, or provide comfort for the difficult life she had ahead of her. Nonetheless, it felt awkward.

  “Society wasn’t built to cater for everyone,” Miss Jenkins said. “Only the meek and the conformist. But don’t mistake those traits for weakness. The rules are in place to protect us, and yes, in some ways, to control us. But you resist them with every fiber of your being, and it is your resistance that will get you in serious trouble some day. The world wasn’t built for people like you. You have to conform, or one day you’ll wake up and regret you didn’t.”

  They were some of the starkest, most honest words of advice Miss Jenkins had ever given Dana. These words did not come from a textbook or a script written by an upper-level incompetent. They came from hard experience, expensively bought. They gave Dana pause for thought.

  “Then the world will have to change,” Dana said.

  Miss Jenkins smiled.

  “A world subscribing to survival of the fittest?” she said. “It’s not a world I relish seeing.”

  Another knock on the door.

  “Our time really is up, I’m afraid,” Miss Jenkins said. “But yours doesn’t have to be. Think deep and hard about your future. No one else will, not anymore.”

  Dana blinked. The words were sharp and surprised her. Miss Jenkins was cutting the apron strings, letting Dana strike out into the wide world alone. Dana realized then how much she’d been relying on Miss Jenkins and their weekly meetings. She suddenly felt very alone.

  Miss Jenkins moved to the other side of her desk, preparing herself for her next case. Dana hesitated before turning around. She suddenly had so much to say to Miss Jenkins, but now she had run out of time.

  She opened the door to find a tall guy around Dana’s age leaning against the doorframe. He had dark hair, effortlessly fashioned, and wore a leather jacket in a similar style to the one Dana had on. His name was Henry, one of the few male juvies she knew.

  She was vaguely aware of him. She knew him by reputation, not personally. He was the leader of an upstart gang who’d caused serious problems for Seattle’s finest. A budding Mafioso. His eyes were dark, a distance in them that never seemed to be present in the current moment.

  The boys and girls’ dorms were separated so they didn’t have much contact with each other. But they shared gossip. Some of the other boys and girls, determined to find love, always found a way to meet.

  Neither Dana nor Henry said a word as Dana stepped out of the office and he stepped into it.

  “Hello Henry,” Miss Jenkins said. “Take a seat.”

  As Dana brought the door closed she heard a thud as a file, almost as thick as her own, was tossed onto Miss Jenkin’s desk.

  “Theft, larceny, vandalism, alcohol offenses…” Miss Jenkins began.

  Dana smiled and shook her head. So much for personal advice. This was personal advice for the masses, one size fits all.

  Chapter Two

  THE RAIN spat and clawed at the bus windows as the Seattle skyline slid past. It was like the bus wasn’t really moving. They were on a conveyor belt and the city was nothing more than a moving image on a screen. Such was the world of someone who had just lost their life anchor that was Miss Jenkins.

  Dana had never thought losing Miss Jenkins would have much effect on her. But it had, more than she could say. It baffled her. But then, Miss Jenkins had been a major part of Dana’s life for the past eight years. The worst part of her life, she supposed. The part she was supposed to later regret.

  During that time, Miss Jenkins had been her guiding light, had been what no one else had been to her. A caring parental figure.

  Dana felt Miss Jenkins’ business card in her pocket. Business card. Business. Was that all Dana was? Just another client? Someone the state paid for her to deal with so they didn’t have to deal with a guilty conscience? Probably. It was the way the world worked. Miss Jenkins did the best she could with the time and resources she had, but it was just a job. Nothing more.

  Outside the window, people clutched umbrellas tight to their chests, rushing down the street to find shelter as if it were acid rain they were running from. The temperature had dropped suddenly, the way it always did when rain fell in Washington.

  Dana buried herself deeper inside her muffler and folded her arms. She was warm and comfortable, the bus gently jostling her side to side. The bus had to keep slowing and stopping, sometimes standing in place for minutes at a time. Dana drifted off into the land of nod.

  Dana grunted.

  She’d been jostled by someone who took a seat beside her, poked in the ribs by a sharp elbow. She scowled at the guy, but he didn’t seem to notice. He dabbed at the trails of sweat running down his round face with a sodden handkerchief and let out an exhausted puff of air.

  He pulled at his shirt collar with a finger. His neck was bright red. He scratched at it. Either he had a rash or he had an itchy throat. He clearly wasn’t well, but that didn’t mean Dana had to put up with him jabbing her every few seconds.

  Dana lowered her elbow and placed it beside his, a shield in case he elbowed her again. Fatties. Dana could care less if they ate more than they needed and ballooned to his size, but don’t squeeze into a seat next to her on the bus.

  She edged as close to the window as she could. Despite the cold that filtered through, she preferred it over the heat of the sweaty man beside her.

  A bell dinged, and the bus pulled to the side of the road. The doors opened, inhaling a chill breath of air. Dana, sat in front of the doors, buried herself deeper into her sweater. A man got off. He was wearing tight cycling gear, a helmet and gloves. Defeated the purpose of cycling, really, taking the bus. The doors hissed shut and the cold was exterminated.

  Dana leaned her head against the window. A breath of mist emanated from Dana’s heat on the cold glass. She looked out at the people milling about, with purpose. Buying, selling, earning, losing… It was enough to make her head spin.

  They all faced the same issues and problems, the same concerns. They even all had the same dreams and hopes
of success and riches, though they took on different forms.

  There was nothing particularly special about anyone, Dana thought. No magic bullet that made a life richer or more worthwhile, though many of them thought there was. And yet, at the same time, they were all of them important to someone. Dana shook her head. Was she getting religion?

  The system they existed and played out their lives under was a fragile thing. The power went out, and systems broke. It rained, and public transport is less efficient. Everything was inextricably linked. All people too, she supposed.

  But Dana didn’t want to be a cog in the machine, didn’t want to play out her life under the same rules as everyone else. It wasn’t that she thought she was special. She just needed to know there was more to life than collecting a paycheck each month.

  Was she missing something? Despite all the bullshit Miss Jenkins had spouted over the years, some of it actually did stick, reaching Dana on some level.

  Miss Jenkins had always told her she needed purpose. She needed a reason to keep going. Unbeknownst to Miss Jenkins, she actually did have something to live for. Dana fingered the plastic pink elephant on her bracelet. A smile came to her lips.

  She was the one thing she had in her life, her anchor now that Miss Jenkins was gone. She was her everything.

  Did Dana really want to be a thief? Is that the kind of person she wanted to be? Someone who took things that didn’t belong to her? She couldn’t face letting herself become part of the system. There was something about it that made her feel physically sick.

  But wasn’t being a thief also part of the system? A bug. And systems always developed ways to wipe out bugs, to remove them so they were no longer a problem. Was that what Dana was? A problem to be dealt with?

  The fat man jostled her again, but this time Dana was ready and jerked her elbow down, into the soft flesh of the man’s arm. He turned to her, his neck apparently a part of his torso as it all came with him.