Judgment

Professional Reviews

Excerpt

His over-sized hands were hard and callused, yet strangely gentle as they rubbed the soap over mine, lathering my arms in a coat of bright pink bubbles. Steam rose from the running tap water to fog the dirty tin mirror. It made little difference as, obscured by dents and rust, a reflection could scarcely be seen. But I studied my impassive face anyway, and he spoke to me softly, taking great pains to keep his voice even and calm, as though he were trying to coax a frightened doe to his hand.

"That's the way. Good girl, let's get the other hand now. Okay, we're almost done."

I stood still and straight beside him, my immobility leaving him lightly holding my hands, washing them in his. Through unrevealing eyes, I watched the lather change from pink to gray as it soaked the ink from my fingertips. My prints had been taken when first I was brought to the Los Angeles Police Department. To identify me, they had said. But I couldn't understand why. I already knew who I was. My Master named me Mischief years ago.

The detective was nice. He was not a tall man, but more of a medium build. With his graying head bent over my hands and the sink, I could see he was becoming slightly bald on top. He had combed his hair over to hide the spot.

He was not paunchy, as older men generally became. He still had the lean, muscular figure of a man much younger than the lines on his weathered face suggested. And his voice was gentle and low as he spoke nonsensical words of comfort to me. Were I not already so frightened, I probably would have enjoyed the calming ministrations that were so closely akin to my Master's own touch.

"Good." The Detective gave a satisfied nod. "Now we rinse."

He passed both our hands under the steady stream of water, cupping tepid pools in the palm of his hand to wash all the way up my elbows.

Good.

I was momentarily startled and quickly glanced in the mirror to see if my face retained its appropriate degree of impassivity. It had.

Good. My Master said that word a lot, too. I wondered, and not for the first time, if Daymon Tane, the Master of the Masters, had begun to look for me yet. Would he even know where to find me? Tears threatened, but I blinked them back. Struggle though I did to smooth the fear from my expression, my mouth started to tremble and quiver as so often happened when I was scolded.

Wetting a coarse, brown washcloth, the Detective rubbed it over a piece of the cheap pink soap until froths of bubbles foamed up again. He passed it over my face and neck, then chuckled ruefully. "Well, what do you know. There's a woman under all this dirt."

I held perfectly still, letting him move my head as he wished. I closed my eyes, feeling the comforting touch pass across my cheeks, my forehead and eyelids. If I shut out his voice, I could almost pretend it was my Master who cared for me and not this stranger--kind though he was--who had taken me under his wing.

Then came the questions.

"Who put the welts on you, honey?" the detective quietly asked me. He wiped the soap away with the freshly rinsed washcloth, starting me from my thoughts. "You don't have to tell me, if you don't want to. But--" he shrugged, feigning a nonchalance which the tightening of his mouth contradicted. "--if it were me, I wouldn't want anyone to hurt me like that. I could help you, you know. Honey, I could fix it so nobody ever hurt you again. If you talk to me, I guarantee you'll never have to go back to the one who did this."

My mask of indifference broke and fell away, revealing naked terror. Though I struggled to keep silent as a Personal should, a low keening wail rose up from my throat. The welts criss-crossing my bottom pulsed and throbbed as I sank to my haunches, forcing them to stretch over bruised, discipline-damaged flanks.

Hugging my shoulders, I rocked myself. I tried to pretend my Master was there to keep me comforted with familiarity. I needed him to keep me disciplined and safe. I did not want to go with the Detective, I wanted to go home.

"Missing," I sobbed.

Why didn't he understand? I tried to enunciate clearly, but it was so hard to remember how English sentences pieced together. I know I got half the things I tried to say wrong, but it had been so long since I'd had any need for the language of my birth that, but for a stray phrase here and there, most of it was faded from my mind. All replaced by my Master's words, in my Master's tongue, now that I belonged to him.

So how to tell the detective that my Master had brought me with him when he came to this awful city for a meeting with the other masters? How could I tell him that, through my own foolishness, we had gotten separated and I was now lost?

I loved Tane! I did not want to leave him. I did not want to leave Judgment. I was tired of the city with its loud noises and strange people. I was tired of being frightened. I buried my face in my hands, remembering my home and my Master.

Oh, how I wish I was there...