ASHLEY:

      I walk out of the bathroom and see Dawn peeking through a gap in the curtains and tapping her nails on the windowframe, a rather worried look on her face. "You okay there, darlin'?" I inquire.

      "Yeah, just checking to make sure there wasn't a mob collecting out on the sidewalk," she replies. "Since there's no way of knowing whether anyone has figured out that we're here, I'd rather not have to worry about Evie and Jed getting mobbed when they come back from the courthouse." Then she gives me a rather faint grin and adds, "Or having crazed groupies trying to smuggle themselves in on a housekeeping cart or something."

      I open the door to our room just a sliver and look out into the living-room area of our hotel suite, which we're sharing with Jinxx and Alice, along with Dawn's family, to see her aunt peering through the blinds of that window. She appears to be even more anxious, but I can't blame either one of them, considering what's going on today.

      We've been in Canada for the last two days, and almost the minute we got here, we got a huge curveball thrown our way. Apparently the process in the courts here prohibit anybody who is expected to testify at the trial from being in the courtroom to hear anyone else before they're called. This in itself wouldn't necessarily be a problem, except for the fact that his attorney decided to pull an asshole move and ask for Lily to be called before Dawn or Gwen testified, so they couldn't be there with her. But, Jed never met Berridge, and isn't on the witness list, so he was able to go with her. And since neither Dina or Reid are licensed to practice in Canada, Bob got a local lawyer he knows to help us out, so he went along with as Lily's advocate.

      I motion for her to move away from the window, and she meets me at the end of the bed, winding her arms around my waist and leaning her cheek against my chest. I wrap my arms around her and stroke her hair with one hand, since I've noticed that this seems to help her relax a bit if she's worried or upset. "Try not to worry so much, love. Jed and Perry are right there with her, and you know they won't let anything happen to her. And the RCMP are swarming the courthouse, too, so I don't think they'd let the media get too close to her."

      "It's not so much the media I'm concerned with," she replies. "It's the fact that she has nothing but awful memories of Victor, and she knows that he killed our mom, so I'm kind of worried about how well she'll deal with having to be in the same room with him again. And..." She pauses, then gives her head a bit of a shake. "Oh, never mind, it's stupid anyway."

      "Hey, if something's bothering you, it's not stupid," I tell her, lifting her face up so I can look her in the eye. "You know I'm here to listen if you want to tell me, and if I can make it better you know I will."

      "Yeah, I know you would. That's one of the things I love most about you. But you can't this time, the only thing that's going to help is going back home. It's just... this place. Being stuck here. It's starting to feel like... before."

      When she says this, I immediately understand the problem: We haven't been out of the hotel since we got there, we've only left the room to go visit with the others in their suite, and I clearly remember our conversation back at the B and B about how much she hated being cooped up, and not able to go outside. But since they've changed their names and everything, everybody pretty much decided not to go wandering around too much while they're here, since Dawn was basically front-page news after the cult got busted and everyone figured out that she's not dead, and there might still be people around who could potentially recognize Lily, too.

      "No, it's not like before," I remind her. "This is just for a few days, until we finish up in court. Then we can go back home and you can go anywhere you want. And if it gets too bad, we'll figure out some way to go out for awhile, even if we have to put on some sort of disguise and go out in the middle of the night."

      This finally earns me a laugh, then she purses her lips for a kiss, which I gladly give her. "No, I don't think we'll have to resort to that," she says. "I think I'm just letting it get to me because I'm already stressed out. But I managed to put up with it for over a year at the house, so I think I can suck it up for a few days now." Then a rather mischievous grin crosses her face, and she tips her chin up to whisper in my ear. "And since you offered to make things better, maybe you can think of something to take my mind off of it later tonight."

      "Oh, I'm sure I can come up with something," I assure her, then lean in to give her another kiss. I'm not quite as surprised as I would have been before our trip to Missouri, because she's actually starting to get more confident with expressing herself sexually. She's still a bit hesitant with the verbal stuff, and turns a rather interesting shade of pink if I try to get her to talk dirty or be explicit about what she wants, but she's definitely more comfortable with the physical aspect, and has expressed some willingness to try new things. 

        "Dawn! Ashley! They're on the way back!" Gwen calls out from the other room. "I just got a text from Jed, he says that they're coming around to the back entrance, and they'll be up in a couple of minutes."

      We leave our room and go out to join Gwen, and both she and Dawn watch the door anxiously for the next several minutes until it opens, and Lily comes hurtling into the room, followed by Jed and our Canadian lawyer, Perry Goss. She's quite obviously been crying, and both of the guys look supremely pissed off as she flings herself at Gwen. Dawn immediately turns to Jed and demands, "What happened? What did they do to upset her like this?"

      Alice and Jinxx come out of their room to join us as he practically growls, "His asshole lawyer kept badgering her while she was on the stand, trying to give everybody the impression that things she remembered didn't really happen. He kept trying to insinuate that either she's been coached on what to say, or that she was making things up because she thinks it's what we want her to say. And the whole time this was going on, that putrid piece of filth was just sitting there smirking, like everything was right with the world. If the judge hadn't shut the sonofabitch down, I'd probably be sitting in a cell right now!"

      Lily lifts her face from Gwen's chest and turns to Dawn, saying, "But I didn't let myself cry until we were out in the hall, Sissy. I remembered what you told me when I was little, and now I know what you meant."

      She bolts over to them and joins in the huddle, mumbling something to Lily that I can't make out. I give them a couple of minutes, but then my curiosity gets the best of me, and I inquire, "What did she tell you, Lils?"

      She sniffles, then replies, "She told me that Victor is somebody who enjoys making other people unhappy, and that if we cry, he wins, because we're giving him what he wants. I was too little to understand it then, so I couldn't make myself not cry, like Sissy could."

       When we hear this, Alice's eyes open wide, and I see Jinxx grimace as my mind flashes back to the conversation we all had the night I got out of the hospital, when she was writing everything down for us. I remember her saying that he had basically treated Lily like "his little insurance policy" to keep her in line, because she couldn't stand seeing Lily cry. And during some of our other talks, I learned that while she was treated a bit better than the other kids because of her so-called "destiny", that there were still times when she was denied food or hit with a belt, and she said that it always pissed him off that she wouldn't cry or beg him to stop like the others did. 

      No kid should have to deal with that, and if I'd known as much about it the day he got taken down as I know now, I'm honestly not sure the motherfucker would have made it to trial. But we can't change the past, so now we just have to focus on making sure he gets locked up for the rest of his worthless life, so he never gets the chance to hurt anybody else.

      They finally manage to get Lily calmed down, and we all sit down while Jed and Perry give us a bit more detail about what happened in the courtroom. Dawn and Gwen are both absolutely infuriated, which is completely understandable, and Jed is pretty much on the same page that I am, mumbling to himself about things he'd like to see happen to both Berridge and his lawyer. Perry gives everybody a few minutes to wind down a little, then tells us that he's going to get the others from their suite, because he has something to discuss. He walks out into the hall and we hear him knock, then he comes back a couple of minutes later with Andy, Jake, CC, and their ladies following behind him.

      After everyone finds a place to sit down, Perry informs us that they're planning to start calling us in tomorrow, so we'll all need to be at the courthouse before nine in the morning. They still haven't said when they're going to want Dawn or Gwen, which means they'll still be cooped up here while we're waiting to testify, so I start trying to think of some ideas to make things a bit more bearable for them. Perry spends a little while discussing some strategies with us, and when he's finished, Jinxx and Alice decide to go to a museum down the street, everyone else goes back to their rooms, and I pull Perry and Jed off to the side to talk to them for a minute. I talk to them about my idea, and Perry says that he knows where we can go to make it happen, so I go back to the bedroom, hunt up a hat that I can tuck my hair into, and grab a pair of sunglasses.

      When I head back into the other room, Dawn questions, "Where are you guys going?"

      "Shopping," I reply, and all three of them look a bit confused. "When Perry said we had to go in tomorrow, I started thinking about how you all were still gonna be cooped up here, so we're gonna go find some stuff to keep you entertained," I clarify. I ask them to make a list of suggestions for books or some sort of games they might like, and Gwen suggests that we also stop somewhere to get some snacks, to minimize the chances of a reporter or fan sneaking up with room service or something. They finish up their list, and Perry drives me and Jed to the mall, and then to a Safeway to grab the food, along with some sodas, bottled water, and juice.

      Perry drops us back at the hotel, and we encounter Alice and Jinxx coming in from their museum trip, so we all ride back up together. After unloading the bags, Dawn suggests that we ask the others if they want to come back to our suite for awhile so we can all have dinner together, so Jinxx runs across to extend the invitation. They all come back with him, we order some Chinese food, and let Gwen and Jed have the chance to get better acquainted with our friends, which seems to go fairly well. It turns out that Jed is almost as much of a comic-book fan as Andy is, and actually grew up just a few miles from Jake's hometown, and Gwen gets into a pretty deep conversation about musical theater with Alice, since she's a big fan of Broadway-type shows, and admits to wanting to be a dancer when she was younger.

      "Well, what stopped you, then?" Alice queries, and we all crack up when we hear Gwen's answer.

      "It's pretty simple, actually," she replies. "I absolutely suck at dancing. Just because you want to do something, it doesn't mean that you can."

      We hang out for a couple of hours, then they all head back across the hall to shower and get some sleep, since we have to be up early in the morning. Then the seven of us decide to play with the "Life" game that Jed picked up at the mall before turning in for the night, and Lily beats the rest of us by a mile. After the game, she curls up on the sofa bed and the rest of us go to our rooms, where I make good on my promise to Dawn and introduce her to an alternative use for the can of Reddi-Whip that I brought back from the store. Then, after a shower, we crawl into bed, and I fall asleep thinking that, if everything goes well, we'll be one day closer to the time when Dawn and Lily never have to worry about Victor Berridge again.

                               **************************************************************

      "Shit, what time is it, anyway?" Andy groans, leaning back and lifting the front legs of his chair off of the floor.

      "Ten twenty-seven," Jake answers, in a bored tone. "Five minutes later than the last time you asked."

      "Totally relatable though, dude," CC rejoins. "It is boring as fuck just sitting here waiting."

      We've been sitting here in some sort of waiting room for nearly two hours, and for some reason they're apparently just calling us in randomly, because they called Ella first, then Jinxx, and now Alice is inside giving her testimony. And I have to admit, I understand Andy's frustration, since everyone had to leave their phones with the guard at the front desk, and we really can't even risk leaving the area to go grab a coffee or take a leak, since there's no way of knowing who they'll want next, or when. Plus, they have a couple of guards in here with us, to make sure that nobody talks about what happens in the courtroom before everyone has had their turn.

      I glance over to make sure that they're not standing too close, then I lean over toward the guys and almost whisper, "The thing that pisses me off most about all this is the fact that these assholes actually have the nerve to plead "Not Guilty", even though they were caught red-handed. How does that even work?"

      "What did you expect from this bunch of weirdos anyway, Ash?" Andy questions. "It's not really surprising, since the only other thing that might help them would be an insanity plea. And you know as well as the rest of us do that there's no way that homicidal David Koresh wannabe would stand for that!" 

      Before anyone can respond, the door opens, and Alice comes back into the room, with a policeman behind her. He glances at something in his hand, and says, "I need Mr. Purdy to come with me, please."

      I get up and follow him down the hallway to the huge set of double doors leading into the courtroom, and as I go in I can see Berridge and Wade, sitting at a table in the front with a couple of guys in suits, who I assume are their lawyers. I walk up to the stand and sit down, but before the bailiff can even open his mouth to swear me in, there is a commotion at the front table as Wade stands up from his seat, bellowing, "You! You're the one who kept me from my rightful destiny! Blasphemer!"

      His lawyer is trying to get him back into his chair, without any luck, and he keeps screaming at me, so I stand up and shout back, "Your destiny, my ass! You were trying to rape a comatose girl, and if you think I was just gonna stand there and let that happen, you're even stupider than you made yourself look with your 'ghost-buster' schtick. But just in case nobody ever told you, let me give you a heads-up, jackass. Unconsciousness does not imply consent."

      The poor lawyer is still trying to get him to sit down and be quiet, while Berridge looks at him like he's an idiot, but doesn't say a word. Wade is on a roll, though, and he slams a fist on the table and curls his lip at me like a bad Billy Idol impersonator. "You use those words like they matter, but I know better. She may have been chosen by the Master, but she's still nothing but a female. Her 'consent' is irrelevant, so it hardly matters whether she was awake or not," he announces to the entire courtroom. "It was her duty to do whatever she was told, but she was defiant, so she had to be punished."

      "Sit down, Mr. Monroe," his lawyer groans. "And for the love of Christ, will you please stop talking?"

      The jury is just gaping at the chaos, and a couple of the door guards are coming toward him, with tasers in their hands, but he keeps right on ranting, and jiggling the cuff that's fastening him to the table. "My father wanted to be Master's conduit, but I knew I'd find a way to take his place, where I should have been from the beginning. The disobedient little slut actually had the nerve to think that she'd get away from me by running off with my weakling traitor brother, but we put a stop to that, and she would have been mine then if my father hadn't screwed things up. And Sawyer knew it, too, because I told him exactly what I was going to do to her right before I put a bullet in his brain!" 

      The entire courtroom instantly goes silent, so quiet that you could, as my uncle used to say, hear a fly fart. Because of this, the attorney sounds even louder than normal when he practically wails, "Monroe, sit your ass down and shut up, now!"

       "I think it may be a bit too late for that, Mr. Geary," the judge observes, his voice almost frighteningly calm. "Perhaps you and Mr. Goss should meet me in my chambers, so we can discuss whether you might want to... reconsider your client's plea."

      He picks up the gavel, bangs it on the wooden block in front of him, and declares, "Court is now in recess while I confer with counsel. Please be ready to resume where we've left off at one-thirty this afternoon. Dismissed!"

      Which means I have to be back here in two and a half hours to actually testify. Assuming that nothing else goes haywire. 

      This is going to be a very long day.