when law is illegal

Attorney’s worst enemy is their own client.   Stop her from winning another case? That's easy. Celia Lang was ready to gnaw on her elbows as she watched the next prosecutor, damned prosecutor, issue such unthinkable accusations that her eyes didn't even flutter to her forehead-she was just tired of it. But she always managed to find something to say, to smash the accusations to smithereens. Perhaps it was because she had a more extended version of what happened, communicating with the accused and the accuser, than those prosecutors who often communicate only with the accuser. She was known in the federal prosecutor's office as someone no one really wanted to deal with, or there would be another one added to their list of lost cases. The court listened to her, knowing her soft and calm way of working, where back off, allow plea bargain, she took into account the feelings and emotions of her clients, but still built a wall of defense out of hard evidence, without pushing the emotional component. Still, even on a jury, she made a lasting impression. To Oliver Hong, at least the only prosecutor she refused to deal with, it seemed like some kind of simple escape. The last time they had met in a courtroom was four months ago, and to his surprise, he was there not as a man doing his job, but as a witness. Celia had come there as a member of the public, seated in the last row and had followed his gaze until he reached his seat in the very front row and he had to stand up again because the courtroom had heard “the prosecution calls the witness Oliver Hong”. It was the first time she'd thought that the jerk who'd been tearing up every word she said was actually worried, even afraid. Anyway, just by bumping into him near the food machines, he was the one she should be avoiding again, hoping he wouldn't turn any of her words or actions against herself the next time they met as a lawyer and prosecutor instead of as a regular girl with still extremely noticeable shadows under her eyes Celia and, almost identical in condition, Oliver. “Miss Lang?” and yet he recognized her trying to walk past him unnoticed. She had to turn around, putting on the most welcoming smile she had in her arsenal.  "Hello? Oh, you're here too, Mr. Hong.” Oliver raised his eyebrows questioningly, but only barely. “I was at the trial… for my mother's case,” he seemed to hesitate, but continued. He stepped away from the vending machine, as if all the sodas would jump out of there right now and grab him. Celia was stomping around in the middle, hesitant to go over and sit down next to Oliver, who had his head down and didn't know what to get from the food. Eventually, the silence that had lengthened so much for both of them was shattered by the phone she'd sworn she'd turned off before entering the courthouse at all. Oliver woke up from his trance and turned toward the sound, shaking his head. Her dear sister, liked to talk about nothing, spilling everything she'd been saving up for months, and Celia, deciding she wasn't ready to listen to this three-hour podcast in detail, dropped the call and wrote, ‘sorry, not now. is something wrong?’ She pulled away from the phone and glanced at Oliver, who was still looking at her, apparently waiting for some sort of continuation or logical conclusion. “And what are you doing here?” he asked after all. “I'm here for your mother's trial.” “Why?” he frowned this time, either afraid that she, she, would find out some of his secrets or that she could do something about those secrets. Perhaps her image in his mind had begun to blur, and her outline had gone from bright and precise to a haze, usually gathered with a frown (though maybe that was only when she was in the same room with him) Celia looked like him for the first time, fatigue had not spared them both, and maybe that was what was helping him finally accept her as a separate person from her work. She shrugged. “Your mother's case seems hmm interesting to me? Professionally of course. I've never handled such a case, nor have I had the honor of attending as an audience, so I didn't dare miss the opportunity,” Celia stepped from foot to foot. She didn't dare sit down next to Oliver, certain that it would slowly start to annoy her. “I didn't know she was related to you.” He grinned, a new emotion she hadn't seen in the courtroom, and one she probably wouldn't have been surprised to see there. He seemed a little haughty and even vain, though Celia had never once heard him gloat over her, not openly in front of a bunch of people, not alone when he had first tried to detain her after the session by catching her by the arm. She'd never heard him gloat at her, not in public in front of a bunch of people, not alone when he'd first tried to hold her back after the meeting, catching her by the arm. “Oh, so you wouldn't have gone to see her deservedly tried for her actions if you'd known she was my mother? How funny.” “I would have come,” she answered honestly. “Maybe to laugh at you and your family later. And?” It was just a small quip she decided to indulge herself, but Oliver rose so abruptly from his seat that she even recoiled, though she was used to his abrupt movements, even his voice seemed to cut like sandpaper, and it hardly sounded the same again as it had just a few minutes ago. “Nothing. I'd love to laugh with you if you didn't recuse yourself from anything to do with me,” he put on the mask again of a prosecutor who had seen Celia as a lawyer in her grave, and any argument she made. Oliver glared at her with tightly compressed lips, either not appreciating her sarcasm or suddenly realizing who he'd decided to talk to in the first place, and strode away. She remained standing there, apparently now guarding the couch seats from the unfortunate vending machine. Two cans of Coke remained where he'd been sitting earlier, and it also looked like Oliver had been covering the coffee can with his foot the whole time. The colas were carefully planted between the armrest and the seat, and Celia leaned over, taking them in her hands. They had warmed up and weren't as icy as they usually were when they were pulled from the recess below. The coffee, on the other hand, hadn't had time to get that cold, but it looked like he'd been warming the can in his hands the whole time until he noticed her. She'd given one of the cans of Coke to her sister, showing up unexpectedly without even giving her a warning. Rosalind only silently twirled her finger at her temple when Celia plopped down on her bed and nodded at her gesture. Her sister wasn't exactly happy about her sudden gift of a soda and an occupied sleeping place, but she couldn't get rid of it, so she silently went off to rustle something up in the kitchen. The carefully warmed coffee didn't help, and only made her sleepier, so she curled up in a kneeling position, as she had once done as a child, and drifted off to sleep. From that moment on, she never saw Oliver again at all. Either he'd vanished, or he'd been killed and the entire prosecutor's office was just grieving for him, or Celia had hurt him so badly, which she highly doubted, that he preferred not to even show up in court. Though she continued to read, mostly thanks to Rosalind, who apparently had nothing better to do than to start quietly disliking Hong on her sister's stories, sent her, who did not follow the news, articles about the prosecutor signed mostly as just Mr. Hong, who had once again smashed the defense to smithereens. She knew what he did in his spare time, having stumbled here and there on reports and rumors about his mother. Lang wondered how they hadn't gotten to him yet, having figured out through bloodlines who the federal prosecutor was to this woman. She continued to do her job as best she could, again and again dropping all the cases she knew were losers when she saw his name on them. She felt sorry for all the defendants who'd fallen under Oliver's watchful eye, and there was nothing she could do about it. Lose to him again? Hell no. A couple more lost cases and her own eye would start twitching. (“As if it hadn't already started,” Rosalind had once told her to a sudden, ridiculous complaint from her sister while she was once again take her sedatives). Celia is grateful that at least working as a public defender, she has never received a case of serial killers and just killers, those whose guilt has already been proven and they just need a lawyer just for a tick. She barely survived the one time she had to talk to a man who dismembered his young daughter and stabbed his wife a couple days later. No defense was out of the question, and she sat through the whole trial with an unreadable face, holding back from scratching her client's face before the victims' relatives did. It was the first time she'd ever met Oliver. And it was the only time she'd felt any kind of support from him, when they'd just stood silently drinking some kind of stinging tea that she'd thought would make her throat burn. She hadn't known then that a couple weeks later she'd be arguing a case she'd argued with him and it would end up being her own, personal defeat. “Miss Lang,” the secretary said regretfully, holding out a folder, “you've been appointed Mrs. Hong's attorney. You're probably the only defender who's still available, everyone else has backed out. So, uh. consider yourself out of options.” The papers were shoved in her hands and not another word was said. Well, fate had set her up with another Hong, no matter how much she tried to refuse and run away. All Celia could do was nod to the void and hear her heels clacking on the floor in rhythm with her pulse as she walked to her office. Being an ordinary public and someone directly connected to the accused were completely opposite things. Now she was about to find out for herself. Mrs. Hong's trial had been going on for almost nine months, and the evidence, proofs, and witnesses had been piling up, and the judge was still reluctant to give a clear verdict. To her own surprise, the very first was Oliver's testimony as a witness, and Celia, expecting it to be the usual ‘my mother is not guilty of anything’, still decided to read it to see if she could find out what was on his mind, a person connected with the law, who understood what the closest person to him had done. “...Yes, I thought her behavior was strange the last couple of years. Have you told any of your family or friends about your suspicions? Your brother and sister, for example? No. Why not? Because she's my mother. I couldn't slander her in such a shameless way. I didn't want to gossip and spread rumors that might not be true. Is that it? I mean, that's all that motivated you? I already said that just because she's a mother. She's one of my dearest people. I wouldn't dare say anything bad about the person I love.” Celia slammed the folder shut. She couldn't even meet with Mrs. Hong tonight if she wanted to, she had to read two more huge volumes of papers describing absolutely everything that could and couldn't be done, then most likely she would have to contact the one who represented the interests of her client before and clarify a million details, and after that she would have to sit down for all this mountain of information somewhere in a quiet place and quietly think about whether she was going to do anything about it, whether she would be able to protect this woman, whose gaze followed her wherever Celia went. It seemed as if not only the mother but also the son were following her, constituting a single entity. She knew for sure that if she let herself shut up during the trial and just watched the criminal being fairly tried, Oliver would open his mouth. And there was no telling what that would do to her and her career. She wandered between departments for a long time, distracted from reading the label by her thoughts, which were wrapped around her brain in tight threads, not allowing her to relax. She almost dropped a glass jar of tomato paste to some woman, but at the last moment it was picked up and someone's thin hand held it out to Celia. She lifted her head up, not noticing as she lowered it more and more. She took a step back, trying as if to chase away the newness. She felt as if she were facing damn prosecutor, but the girl, who'd been kind enough to keep her from embarrassing herself in the supermarket, by shaking her curls didn't even notice. Though the scarf she was wearing looked something like the one Oliver wore, wrapped around the collar of his coat. “Thank you,” Celia said, as if she had water in her mouth. But the girl with the bright shining eyes was gone; she'd taken the jar of tomato paste with her and had probably gone to the shelves with all the pasta she could find. Her own inner silence, which she didn't dare to stir up at least until the checkout line, was interrupted by the vibrating phone in her pocket, which she couldn't ignore so easily. The screen flashed first with missed calls from her sister, who was actually waiting for her for their typical family dinner where it was just the two of them and the neighbor's cat, who visited every twenty minutes. Then Oliver called. Just picked up the phone and called her. “Hello?” Celia froze with the basket in her hands. “Can you talk now?” he spoke as if through some kind of noise. The rattle of dishes? “Hello? Yes, I can, sort of,” she began to rifle through the groceries, all the while deciding to turn to the self-service cash register at the last minute. “You don't live on uh,” he faltered, his voice clearer, and she could hear the address where her sister lived. “I mean, are you registered there? Or do you officially have another residence?” She blinked, shoving the groceries into the bag the cashier had put in ahead of time. “No, I'm not registered there. I have a completely different address. But,” she stammered this time. Why the hell was he even calling her, asking her where she lived. And for god's sake how does he have the address of her sister, who's always stayed out of the law business. Decided to get back at Celia through Rosalind, who she didn't exactly keep a secret, but didn't reveal details about her family. “Shit, just a second,” Oliver stammered, and she could have sworn she heard the click of the door opening to the balcony in her sister's apartment. “Listen,” now all the static was gone and only his voice remained, sounding both collected and a little worried at the same time. “I have no idea how I'm supposed to explain this to you Ms. Lang, but come see your sister right now. Right this second. Perhaps three minds against one problem will be far more effective than two, one of which is out of commission.” And off he went. The time and date popped up on the screen. Celia pressed her lips together, not knowing what she should do. He wasn't playing a trick on her. He wasn't going to prank her, either. Had something happened, something that made him maybe help her? Oliver seemed so secretive that Lang wanted to drop him like an egg on the floor and watch the shell crack. Or she could beat two eggs like they do on Easter, crack Oliver and find out what the hell he's hiding inside him. But that meant her shell would suffer too, and she wasn't sure how much damage that would do. As she raced across the parking lot near the apartment buildings, Celia tried to make out through the darkness, and the streetlights that hadn't burned for so long, Oliver's car, which she'd shamelessly found in his mother's case files as evidence. The license plate looked familiar, and she grinned to herself, assuming the numbers were something like her date of birth. And then she saw her, standing somewhere in the distance, blocked by trees. There was no one in it, and only on the other side of the front window was the silhouette of some funny rubber statue with a smiling face. The door to the apartment was locked, but not with a key; someone had put something very heavy on the other side. Celia drummed her hands on it, feeling the rough surface dig into her fists. Her fear for her sister was enough for her to put her shoe in and think about calling the emergency services when she heard her sister's excited cry through the door, and it was her voice, measured and slightly hoarse. “Rosalind!” Celia raised her voice in an attempt to shout back at her and fell silent, trying to hear what the girl on the other side was trying to say. “Rosalind! Are you there?” Oliver seemed to be the only one who heard what her sister was saying, and so the door finally opened. Celia stumbled back a step, grabbing the grocery bag tighter. Thank God she hadn't decided to get too much, hoping that Rosalind wasn't starving and had her own supplies in the fridge. She looked up, watching the expression on Hong's face as he peered out of the ajar. “What the hell is going on?” she lowered her tone a little, reading the reproachful expression on his face as a plea for her to stop trying to scream. “What are you even forgetting in…” He opened the door fully and gestured for her to come in. Oliver moved cautiously and didn't look like he cared for jokes. Her sister's suddenly hushed voice made her feel creepy, and Celia took a not-so-bold step across the threshold. She caught a glimpse of dirt (or what was it?) on Hong's white shirt. It looked like he had just returned from his job at the prosecutor's office, too. But as far as she knew, the building was a fair distance from both her office and the apartment complex they were in now. All the questions she'd been accumulating in her mind, putting each unvoiced question into an imaginary piggy bank, were still rumbling to the bottom, because it was absolutely not something that should be voiced now. Leaning against the wall with the stupid wallpaper, Rosalind looked like she was about to faint, but Celia knew she wouldn't do that while someone else was here. She sat with her knees tucked under her and scraped the floorboards with her fingernails. Each time it left a red stain on the floor. Celia nearly stepped in a pool of blood that spread across the huge room, already starting to seep into everything around her. The body lying half under the kitchen table looked decrepit, the tattered shirt so drenched in scarlet that it wasn't clear what color it had been before. The kitchen knife, which Rosalind used to cut bread, was lying around, indicating that it had been beaten several times, the handle deeply embedded. How many stab wounds there were on the corpse was anyone's guess, and Lang didn't bother to check. It was clear enough. Looking at her sister's bloody hands and trembling lips, it didn't take long to get some idea. Celia moved toward her, careful not to turn the soles of her boots into a bloody mess, and grabbed her wrists, pulling her away from her silent contemplation of the patterns in the wood. “Did you do this? Tell me, please,” she was willing to bathe in the blood herself if it meant her sister could wipe it off her own hands. “I,” she whispered hoarsely. “I just... I don't know what happened… I grabbed…” “You know exactly what you did, Ms. Lang,” Oliver moved closer to them, leaning back on the bed, also trying not to leave scarlet marks. “You attacked him while his back was turned to you, right?” Celia swallowed the lump in her throat that also joined her in wanting to make Hong shut up and let her do something to help Rosalind. “I didn't…” she slumped into the wall, her hair disheveled and her favorite barrette that she rarely took off lying at the opposite end of the apartment. “I didn't mean to kill him, really…” Lang interrupted Oliver, who was about to say something snarky. “More than that, I'm wondering what the hell you're doing here. Are you saying that I should take your word for it that it wasn't you who left the body on the floor, but my sister? She may have attacked someone, but you could have finished them off. Explain yourself.” He shook slightly at her tone, as if scratching her interlocutor. “Interesting statements you make, Ms. Lang. I wouldn't have called you if I didn't want you to see this and help someone dear to you. I was in the bathroom at the time, and your sister can attest to that. I only came out when I heard something fall and it didn't look much like a sugar bowl.” Rosalind shook her head as if wanting him to shut up. She didn't know whether to try to whitewash herself or to let a stranger who was an acquaintance of her sister's tell her everything. Watching the news about him for fun was one thing; seeing him live and hearing his cutting voice, which was not promising to her, was another. “You let him in?” Celia turned to her sister, taking her face in her palms. She didn't know what she should do first: comfort Rosalind or throw out the window the prosecutor who'd barged into her life, into a space she didn't want anyone to manipulate. Sister nodded sullenly. “Him and his brother..." “Knowing how you feel about my brother I wouldn't have gone with him,” Oliver said. “And I probably wouldn't have covered for you by citing some sort of support from my ‘coworker’.” Celia knelt down and put her arm around her sister, patting her on the back. She wanted to hear both versions, the clear and smooth one Oliver had offered her and the jagged, nervous one from Rosalind. More than anything, she wanted to close her eyes and imagine that she wasn't lying next to a corpse, and that everything wasn't awash in scarlet, and that she and her sister were just having dinner as they'd agreed. She'd probably have made something delicious by now, and they'd be sizzling open a bottle of lemonade and gabbing about every little thing they could think of. But that would mean running away from something she had to deal with, as the one who'd decided to be in charge of this family. “Tell me what happened?” she asked quietly, whispering in Rosalind's ear. She continued scraping the floor with her fingernail under the strained silence. “I went on a date, though as it turned out it was a walk. I don't know,” her sister whispered back to her. She glanced at Oliver, who realized that he was going to be sitting here for a long time, and decided to sit down awkwardly on the edge of the plaid on the bed. “He brought his buddies with him. I have no idea who they are. And him. What was I thinking? They seemed weird to me, even the way he interacted with them. We walked for a while and I wanted to get home, start getting ready for you to come. Well, I was going to, but Oliver, I recognized him right away,” she shook her head uncertainly, which rested on Celia's shoulder. “Asked if he could use the bathroom.” Listening with an edge of his ear, Oliver rose and strode carefully to the dry floorboards toward the kitchen. Lang didn't even pay attention, eagerly listening to her sister's words. “One of these, friends, asked me too, and I said yes. I should have said no, shouldn't I?” continued Rosalind. “I thought well, what could happen. Besides, they both had arguments that it was too far for them to get home, so I decided to be merciful. So he started trying to molest me. I didn't know what to do, you,” she pulled away from Celia. “Said I should learn not to respond to everything with aggression, but with words. I tried. Really, I tried. I tried to scream at him," she whipped her head toward Oliver. “But he didn't seem to hear me. That asshole wanted to slam me against the table, but I did it first. I grabbed,” Rosalind swallowed. “A knife and started threatening to nail him. He wouldn't listen and threw me to the floor. Then I took it and stuck the blade in him. And…” She flinched when Hong came toward them again, this time with a glass of water, and froze, undecided which of the two girls on the floor he should give it to. Rosalind was the first to hold out her hand, so he solemnly handed her the water, which she drank in one gulp. The careful ignoring of the corpse two paces away was doing its job, helping to keep those who could still do something from going mad. “I had no idea you knew my brother and were in contact with him,” Oliver began, realizing he had to say something. “And I thought it was you at first, Ms. Lang,” he nodded at Celia. “It wasn't until later that I realized you must be at work, and you sound completely different.” He barely-there, as if scratching himself behind his ear. This would probably be the first speech she'd ever hear from him outside of a court hearing, so Celia turned almost completely at the sound of his voice. How fate had brought them together again, where it was like the lawyer defending his sister and the prosecutor she hated. Except this time is he really prosecuting, or has some sympathy finally flashed through him. “I was surprised he brought someone with him, too. My brother doesn't usually allow that kind of thing. I repent, I went along with that jerk because I was curious to see if you two were possibly related, or if I thought it was pure coincidence that there were two almost identical people living in this town. I already told you I heard a thumping sound like someone fell in and took my time getting out of the bathtub. I saw Ms. Lang heel back against the wall and only then did I notice the man lying by the kitchen.” “He was in no hurry to call the police,” The sister added excitedly. She had calmed down as much as she could, but her hands were still shaking and she didn't know where to put them again. Behind her back? Oliver shrugged, as if every man working for the law covered crimes of this magnitude committed by ordinary people on a daily basis. “I'd help you wipe blood everywhere if you'd listen to me for a second. Together you chose to scream and almost tried to kill me too. I'm still without a stab wound only because I chose to cover myself with your sister, who just happened to know me.” Rosalind gave Celia an uncertain look. It seemed that besides this absurdity, as well as the whole situation, they had had another dialog, the details of which they preferred to omit. She was grateful that he was trying to do something about it, but she wasn't quite sure how she'd earned that favor. "So what,” came the question. “we're going to do with all this?” Celia looked around the room in a circle. Were they going to cover it up, wipe the place clean, throw away all the evidence, and do something with the body? Or turn Rosalind in to the police? Or try to make it look more positive for her and then call 112? Her sister wanted to try to cuddle up to her again, but seeing that she had soiled all of Celia's light-colored clothes, she pressed herself against the foot of the bed. The cold metal of her cheek was sobering. What happens to her next is decided by these two people, one of whom she has chosen to despise and the other she was so unwilling to drag into her problems. “I should probably go get some air,” Celia jumped up, shaking herself off. She would have jokingly scolded Rosalind for continuing to accumulate dust in some places, but her hand went slack. “And we all probably should, shouldn't we?” Hong shared her opinion a hundred percent, judging by how abruptly he jumped up as well. The blood was already starting to soak not only into the floorboards, but into everything around them: the walls, the table, the food in the refrigerator, the bathtub that was closed by the door, the clothes in the closet, all those still alive who were in no hurry to leave the scene of the murder. Celia used to listen to her clients or witnesses, and it seemed strange to her why some of them stayed around the dead body for a while instead of blowing all the trumpets and yelling at the top of their lungs about what had happened. Maybe faint at the sight of such a picture. Now she seemed to understand them for the first time. Sometimes you don't want to leave even such creepy places just because leaving those left behind is insanely scary and disgusting. Rosalind shook her head, still sitting up, looking around herself. She would have to walk to the nearest hospital or go straight to the police station to pretend to be a serial maniac from another victim. Celia paused, wondering what she should do instead of just letting her sister rot here, as Oliver tugged on her arm, probably unnoticed even to himself. He thought it was a sleeve and grabbed her wrist carelessly. She spun on her heels and he jerked back. Hong beckoned her toward the exit; he seemed to be the only one of this strange group who, despite his attempts to appear calm and sober, was actually ready to get as far away from here as possible and forget the address of this apartment once and for all. But for both Celia and Oliver, everything was just beginning, and they understood it perfectly well. They would have to hold Rosalind's hand through all the consequences she would face after the half dozen stab wounds she had inflicted. Her sister, by her internal compasses, understanding Oliver better than he probably understood himself and his hints, rose to her feet with a slightly awkward curl of her lips, and walking through the puddle barefoot, began fumbling in the small kitchen for napkins and a mop somewhere nearby. She waved her hand toward Celia, as if urging her to go with the prosecutor, to talk about something other than the situation. During the time Rosalind sat in the corner, clutching the hem of her dress, on the verge of hysterics, Oliver had told her a lot of things in an attempt to calm her down while they waited for Celia. She listened to his brief stories about himself as if Lang didn't already know who he was. He tried to talk of some nonsense, but he could get no answer from her, and so he began suddenly to talk of France, quoting some old poem in French, describing to her the scenery that opened before him every morning, and Rosalind preferred to drown in it, listening to all that was so painfully familiar to her, the places she herself had been to, and they sat there for what seemed an eternity, that it seemed as if she had gone to Paris instead of still being in her miserable little apartment, clutching her knees to her breast and suppressing a pathetic cry. Oliver didn't talk about his family's situation, about the courts, about the many criminal law textbooks that had loomed menacingly over him for years, but he did tell her how wild his sister was and how much he loved her. Just as Rosalind loved Celia. Since she liked him, why not help out with her sister? “Go,” she shook her head as soon as Celia took a step toward her. She wasn't sure she'd be okay, but she'd rather deal with her demons knocking on her door as soon as her sister closed it behind her than have Lang worry about her even more. Her sister has a job, a career, and finances, and that's something she'd hate to ruin just because of her stupidity, albeit necessary in her situation. “I'll be fine. I've been here for a bit… clean up?” But Rosalind still couldn't help herself and grabbed Celia, wrapping her fingers around her fingers. “I'm sorry.” And she went off to fetch a bucket of water from the bathtub after finding God knows where a mop. Celia blinked, but didn't say a word back. She saw Oliver standing by the elevator, but she didn't like being in a confined space, so she slammed the door shut firmly behind her, caught up with him, and silently touched his shoulder to get his attention, and strode down the stairs. It turned out that the walls could press on her not only in the elevator, but also when she went down the stairs, especially that white, acid-white paint. Celia almost rolled down the stairs, but she grabbed the railing just in time. She won the race, though, and was already standing in the driveway when Oliver came out. He didn't ask her what it was about – he'd decided that so much had happened in the last hour that he couldn't limit himself to the usual questions. Celia was silent, and he was too, and so they walked to the exit from the parking lot and to the beginning of the highway bridge that stretched over the river. The air felt ten degrees cooler, the whisper of the water soothing, and the passing cars seemed to create a melody that she used to like to meditate to when she lived near a similar place. She was not annoyed by the noise, nor by the harsh honking of the horns in the middle of the night, but it made her realize that life was not over and that somewhere, not far away, there were still people with a completely different mindset, way of life, with their own problems. Her bunched up hair didn't bother her much, with only a couple strands sticking to her cheeks due to the rising wind. Oliver's hair lifted so strangely that Celia wanted to laugh, without any modesty or thought of who was walking beside her or where they'd been just a few minutes ago. Surely Hong wouldn't appreciate the lawyer, with whom he'd had an almost open confrontation until recently, laughing at him at the top of her voice. Probably. Or maybe he'd listen to her laughter instead of the birds chirping nearby. Neither of them had a jacket with them, and so they were both condemned to freezing in their shirtsleeves in the wind that Oliver had to button all the buttons on the top because of how badly it chilled his neck. It didn't bother Celia in the least; the cold helped her to collect her thoughts, to get them in one direction. The bloody stains on her sleeves didn't bother her either. Tired, exhausted, finally hungry, they reached the middle of the bridge, and never said a word. Celia was walking a little ahead, and so she turned around to see if Oliver was still following her or if he'd been blown by the wind onto the highway. At least she tried to do it discreetly, but he could see every time she slowed down a little and glanced sideways to catch a glimpse of him. They both stopped at one point, sensing that they would not reach the end of the bridge, and so they froze, leaning against the metal girders. “Did you think of anything?” asked Oliver, finally asking her. Celia held her hand uncertainly in the air. She tried to see her reflection in the dark water, but even the nightlights at the top of the bridge didn't help. Maybe the reflection would give her some advice. Even if it wasn't substantial, it might help her in some way. “I don't know what to do,” she admitted. “Rosalind… She'll probably refuse to let me be her lawyer in court. And I don't know if I'd even agree.” Oliver stared at her, running a hand through her hair to make it stop dancing to the beat of some made-up rhythm. “I wasn't asking you about that far into the future. What are we going to do right now?” Celia didn't stay long and stared at him as well. A strand of hair fell over her eyes. “I thought it was already decided. Are we turning her in to the police?” Oliver scratched his cheek, even thoughtful in surprise. "Oh, or were you thinking of helping cover up this crime after all? You're no stranger to breaking the law, I see?” she couldn't help but quip. He grinned nervously, which made her feel more uneasy than if he'd promised to push her into the river right now. “I'm more interested in how you're going to pitch this to the officers that are coming.” “I'll claim it was self-defense,” Celia shook her head and looked away from his hiccuping eyes and strange expression again. “Self-defense. Okay.” “I don't need your approval on that.” “And I didn't need to help your sister in that case,” he threw back. Celia relaxed her shoulders, and barely covered her eyes. This kind of altercation with him used to piss her off, usually a rather calm nature. She had been extremely annoyed with him, but now that feeling was gone as if she was just used to it. On the other shore you could see small brick houses painted with white paint and painted blue roofs, so that if you don't pay attention to the noise of the river instead of the sea, it might seem as if it were a cold and dank city, but just a winter evening in Santarini. With Oliver, the silence didn't hang over her like a huge block, no fear that if she took a step in the wrong direction, the stone would fall on her. She could argue with it, shout, laugh and cry, but silence was the most precious of all. “Actually, you wish you'd heard her screams to help her out,” Celia said somewhere in the gusts of wind, either asserting or asking. He didn't answer anything. She knew from the tense hands that she realized she had hit exactly the yellow circle in the middle, as if she had shot him in the heart with a bow. “It's strange actually,” Oliver replied to something else entirely, as if echoing his thoughts rather than what had been spoken aloud before. “After you started dismissing all the cases I'd been a prosecutor on, I figured I wouldn't see you anywhere else besides my mother's first couple of public trials. But this is the second time I've seen you outside of work, and you don't seem as angry as you usually are sitting in courtrooms.” “You seem even more human, too,” Celia turned to him, eyes ajar and staring into the light of the streetlamps, which cast even more shadows on her facial features. “Am I the devil to you?” inquired Oliver without a share of laughter. “Like a petty demon,” she shrugged, deciding to take some of his extremely serious expression to herself. “You're more of a devil's helper.” “Complaining about the judge, Ms. Lang?” “Only if a little.” Celia tucked both strands behind her ears because they were starting to get into her mouth. “I know she won't agree if I become her lawyer. I could do that and I'd love to, because I'm sure I could defend her position. But Rosalind will personally sign in writing that she waives my services as her attorney. I can only be there as her sister, as a possible witness, but not as someone who could actually do anything to help her. And that depresses me.” “I remember the first time you had to defend a murderer, as well as the way you almost threw up at the verdict. But listening to you now, I can't help but agree that you're betraying your morals and the law in general. You're willing to fight crime until your sister commits. Yet you put family above the law you so diligently taught and swore to follow,” Celia opened her mouth to perhaps curse him or start a fierce argument. “But since I'm still standing here next to you after everything that happened and still haven't called the police, I'm doing exactly the same thing. And I'm not ashamed, which I can't exactly say about you.” “How can I close my eyes in shame when my family, my sister needs my help, whatever she did?” Oliver shook his head, however more in an approving manner. “I liked you right away. Appreciate people with such unwavering calm and tenacity as you have, I never wanted to fight with you, seeing how well you do your job and immerse yourself completely in it. I repent, at first I only looked for faults in you, trying to find out where your weaknesses were. While I was doing that, you didn't seem to be wasting any time either.” “You have a strange way of showing respect and favor to people,” Celia said without apparent reproach, but she couldn't argue that she felt the same way. Her good qualities no one cared about, but the evil, devilish ones everyone always wanted to bring out, to show her true colors that never were. “You value family, too,” she noted carefully while Oliver pondered what other unexpected confession to drop on her empty head. “I took responsibility for my brother and sister because I saw no other choice,” he watched as the glare of the headlights reflected in her eyes, as if they could illuminate her distant thoughts and show them to him. “I listen to their opinions because that's what family does, isn't it? I memorize my little sister’s every word, whatever it is.” “Someone once told me something similar too, in terms of family support,” she tugged her shoulder. Oliver nodded animatedly at her surprise. “You and I went to the same university, the same law school in Paris,” he quipped. “I was a year older than you and you most likely saw my graduation.” Had she ever seen his name among the graduates? Celia wasn't sure if he'd gone back there for his master's degree, or if he'd never started it at all. But she knew he lived near where she'd taken the bar exam. How good was her mini spy game, since she knew his address and his entire family tree, but she didn't think he'd studied to be a prosecutor where she'd studied to be a lawyer. “Did he also tell that story about pressing charges against a close relative because he was accused of some crazy scam?” she hanging her voice so Oliver could hear her over the noise of the car, she stopped mid-sentence because the highway was suddenly noticeably empty. “Yes. But it looks like that story he based his argument about protecting his family on doesn't compare to yours,” Hong chuckled. She wanted to smile, trying to draw at least something positive out of the situation, but the smile faltered instead and Celia turned away, reverting back to the darkness below, like a black hole that murmured. “I wouldn't be able to, you know, listen to my family that much. Maybe Rosalind, but certainly not my father for example. Depends who I consider family?” “I guess I didn't like any of my parents,” Oliver stepped closer and lowered his head, leaning on the railing beside her, as if he too was looking at something even Celia couldn't see. “They're my blood relatives, but the urge to even try to understand what they're trying to tell me went away a long time ago. It's up to you to build a family you're comfortable with, no matter what their DNA is or what. You don't hate everyone who is AB negative, do you?” “Are you asking because suddenly you have the same type as my entire blood family?” she tried to squeeze out something other than a rare mumble. “Scouting the situation.” Celia jerked her shoulder again, but he interpreted it in his own way, and so in one motion turned her toward him and touched the collar of her shirt with some concern. His hands, not even touching her skin, were warmer than a wool sweater, a hot mug of hot chocolate, and the heat on almost full blast. His fingers trembled as he tried to button the last button, whether from the cold or from nervousness, but Celia could barely resist stopping his hands and warming him with her own breath, which seemed the only thing that would keep them warm even in the freezing cold. Oliver stroked her shoulder and stepped back as if he didn't realize what he'd just done. “Well, you need to stay healthy, don't catch a cold.” How the buttoned collar of her thin cotton shirt could keep her from catching a cold, Celia didn't know. Neither did he. “Uh, wouldn't it be easier if we hugged for example?” she asked casually, scratching the back of her head. “It would be warmer. Or let's just go back already.” “No,” Hong replied hesitantly and leaned back slightly, away from Celia's omnipresent eyes, which were staring at him with interest. “I mean, if you want to hug…” She giggled openly, and he still didn't know if she was mocking him or just having fun, a not uncommon occurrence for adults completely bogged down in work all day and night. “Oh my god, I vowed to tell all my colleagues if I ever managed to embarrass a man who is riddled with frequent victories as a prosecutor.” "I'm afraid you'll then have to tell them about everything that came before it, too," trying to mirror her creepily infectious cheerful manner. And what had Oliver done to cheer her up so much? “And I'll tell them,” Celia replied with a shake of her head. “There's no escaping it, and neither are you, I take it. But.” She walked past him, going behind his back. “I could run away from you right now to the nearest store and get us a cup of coffee.” “Can I run after you?” “Only if life isn't precious,” Celia squinted. Oliver held up his hands tentatively, in a sign of ‘surrender’. So the winner proudly retired to fight over the coffee lids, and Oliver remained standing on the bridge, waiting for her. He could have gone with her, of course, but he needed to come to his senses. Too many emotions were in his head, threatening to grow tails and fins and drown him in the sea if he didn't grasp at some straw that wouldn't let him drown. Oliver leaned against the beams that chilled his back and pulled his cell phone out of his pocket. He would never wish people like her the misery they still had to go through because of work. And so Hong made one single phone call before finally dialing the police. “Yes, it's me. Yes, Oliver Hong. There's a girl being taken to one of the precincts tonight on a murder charge. Rosalind Lang. Yes. Tell her I'll be her public defender in court then, she won't need to find a lawyer on her own. Thank you.”