“You are.” She let the clothes fall on the peeling linoleum floor. “But if you want to be questioned naked, you’re welcome to.”
My gut churned with a recipe of anxiety and fear. I threw up before I got dressed.
“There has been a mistake.”
My four words were impotent to the women officer who peered over me on the other side of the desk. They handcuffed my wrists as if I could hurt her.
“I have done nothing wrong,” I said. “Merely visiting a friend.”
She brushed her eyes over a file that had my photo upon it. “You were getting an illegal insignia.”
“I need to call my brother.”
“Soulless do not have the right to a phone call. Your family will be notified of your arrest and sentencing.”
“I need my lawyer.”
“Soulless do not have the right to council.”
I lifted my finger to argue and found that she was correct. Many human rights had been taken away from the Soulless, including the opportunity to have medical attention. Thankfully my appendix was not currently bursting.
“I am not Soulless,” I said amending my circumstance quickly. “I still have three days until my twenty-fifth birthday.” Above us the clock ticked over to one am. “Apologies, two days.”
“You were engraving an illegal insignia. Only Soulless need illegal insignias.”
“You have no proof.”
She gave me a dumb look.
“I need a trial. I still have three—two days.”
“After an arrest we are required to hold you in jail and judging by the mass amounts of evidence we will need to sift through, you will be with us here for a few days. At least two.”
“Two days!” My stomach flopped. “You cannot hold me in here for two days! I will turn twenty-five and then I will be considered Soulless and then I will never get out of here. That is unfair.”
“Are you suggesting I break the law? What a Soulless remark.”
“I’m not Soulless!”
They placed a wire over my heart which connected to a monitor. It showed my heartbeat. Slow. Perfect rhythm. No heavy thrashing. Not seeking it’s matching mate.
The heartbeat of a dying thing.
The heartbeat of a Soulless.
“You don’t feel anything do you?” The woman asked. It was a whisper. A sad, pitiful voice that curled over my ears.
To see my true nature upon a screen forced me into silence.
I threw up again.
The holding cell I was shoved into looked as if it were suffering from a terrible puberty. I was not alone in my new abode; I had a bunk mate. A man who sobbed a pitch not even Beethoven could master.
Crying was a useless activity. Leaking water. Nonsensical blubbering. I was not very good at handling people who cried. Probably because I had never cried before.
I patted his back. “There, there. Do not worry, we will sort out this awful trouble together and—”
“He got caught stealing women's underwear.” The officer fiddled with the lock in the door.
