Story code: ST-001027
Part 3: The Cost of Salvation
Chloe stared through the windshield of her battered sedan, the phone pressed hard against her ear. The black SUV idled just feet away, its massive grill blocking her only exit, the heavily tinted windows revealing absolutely nothing.
“Who is this?” Chloe demanded again, her voice shaking but her grip on the steering wheel white-knuckled. She reached down, her thumb aggressively rubbing the rigid plastic of the flash drive on her keychain. “If Victor Helms sent you, tell him I don’t care. I have a physical backup of the ATM footage. I’m walking back into that courthouse, and I am going straight to the presiding judge.”
The distorted, metallic breathing on the line abruptly stopped.
The headlights of the SUV snapped off. The driver’s side door swung open, heavy hinges groaning in the stifling heat of the parking garage. Chloe braced herself, her hand dropping toward the door handle, ready to bolt.
A pair of scuffed, familiar brown wingtip shoes stepped out onto the concrete.
Chloe’s breath hitched in her throat as Marcus pulled his massive frame from the driver’s seat. He didn’t look like a menacing cartel enforcer. He looked like a shattered, exhausted old man. He reached into his suit jacket, pulled out a small black voice modulator, and tossed it carelessly onto the passenger seat before slamming the SUV door shut.
He strode directly toward her sedan. Chloe sat frozen in betrayal and utter confusion as he reached through her half-open window, hit the unlock button, and wrenched her door open.
“You did this?” Chloe whispered, staring up at her mentor. “You were trying to terrify me into dropping the case?”
“I was trying to keep you from putting a bullet in a nineteen-year-old boy’s head,” Marcus snarled, his voice stripped of all its usual courtroom polish. His eyes darted to the keys dangling from the ignition, locking onto the small metal flash drive. “You couldn’t just walk away. You had to be the hero.”
“I am trying to save an innocent client!” Chloe shouted, grabbing her keys and ripping them from the ignition. She held the flash drive up like a shield. “He didn’t commit the robbery, Marcus. You know he didn’t! And whatever Helms is holding over you, whatever he threatened you with-”
“Shut up,” Marcus barked, his massive hand shooting out. He didn’t grab the flash drive. He grabbed Chloe by the elbow, his grip like a vice. “You want to be the savior, Chloe? You want to see exactly what justice looks like today? Get out of the car.”
Before she could protest, he yanked her upward, practically dragging her out of the sedan. She stumbled against the concrete, but Marcus didn’t let go. He marched her away from the cars, pulling her toward the heavy steel fire doors that led back into the courthouse sub-basement.
“Let go of me!” she demanded, digging her heels in, but the veteran attorney’s momentum was unstoppable. He swiped his security badge at the restricted entrance, shoving the steel door open with his shoulder.
The blast of frigid, over-conditioned air hit Chloe instantly, carrying the sharp, institutional stench of ammonia, floor wax, and unwashed bodies. They were in the service corridors.
Marcus dragged her down a narrow hallway of painted cinderblocks, past a row of barred windows and a heavily armed sheriff’s deputy who barely glanced up from his phone as Marcus flashed his ID.
“Central Holding, Marcus, you can’t bring me down here after I’ve been fired,” Chloe hissed, trying to pry his thick fingers off her arm.
“You aren’t fired,” Marcus said grimly, pulling her to a stop before a reinforced steel door marked *Temporary Remand*. “You’re being educated.”
Marcus banged his fist against the steel door. A slot slid open, revealing the bored eyes of a corrections officer. Marcus held up his badge. The heavy deadbolts clacked loudly, and the door swung outward.
The holding area was a cavernous room lined with six metal cages. The noise was deafening-shouting, rattling chains, and the hum of massive ventilation fans. Marcus ignored it all, dragging Chloe straight to Cell 4.
Arthur sat huddled on the bolted metal bench in the corner. He still wore the oversized gray sweater, his knees pulled up to his chest, trembling violently under the harsh fluorescent lights.
“Step up to the bars, Arthur,” Marcus commanded.
Arthur looked up, his eyes widening as he saw Chloe. Tears instantly spilled down his cheeks. “Chloe… I’m sorry. I had to sign it. He said I had to.”
“You didn’t have to,” Chloe said frantically, stepping forward to grip the cold steel bars. “Arthur, I have the video. I have the backup on a drive. I can reverse the plea before it’s entered. You’re going to be free.”
“No, he isn’t,” Marcus said, stepping up right behind her. His voice dropped, vibrating with a terrible, dark finality. “Take off the sweater, Arthur.”
Arthur flinched, wrapping his arms defensively around his torso. “Mr. Marcus, please…”
“Take it off!” Marcus roared, the sound echoing off the concrete walls and silencing the other cells.
Sobbing, Arthur reached down, grabbed the hem of the heavy, oversized sweater, and pulled it over his head.
Chloe gasped, stumbling back half a step.
Arthur’s arms were a horrifying landscape of trauma. From his wrists to his biceps, his thin arms were heavily bruised, mottled with dark purple and sickening yellow patches. But it wasn’t the bruising that made Chloe’s stomach violently turn. It was the veins. They were grotesquely enlarged, bulging beneath the skin like thick, knotted ropes. The flesh around the swollen tracts was heavily scarred and punctured, the skin raised and bumpy from repeated, massive trauma.
“What… what did they do to you?” Chloe whispered, her eyes darting in horror over the mangled limbs.
“Nobody did this to him, Chloe,” Marcus said quietly. The anger was gone from his voice, leaving only a hollow, crushing grief. “Those are arteriovenous fistulas. For the fourteen-gauge needles.”
Chloe tore her eyes away from the boy’s ruined arms, looking at her mentor. “Needles?”
“End-stage renal failure,” Marcus stated, pointing through the bars at Arthur. “His kidneys died three years ago. He aged out of the state foster system six months ago. Thirty days ago, his Medicaid extension was denied. Two weeks ago, the charity clinic shut its doors to uninsured patients. He hasn’t had dialysis in twelve days. By Friday, his blood will be so toxic his heart will simply stop beating.”
Chloe’s mind spun wildly, desperately trying to assemble the horrific pieces. “So… a hospital. We take him to a hospital!”
“Emergency rooms will stabilize him and kick him back onto the street until he goes into cardiac arrest again,” Marcus countered, his voice hard as iron. “They will not provide chronic, life-saving dialysis to an uninsured adult. There is only one place in this state legally mandated to provide completely free, comprehensive, long-term medical care regardless of a patient’s financial status or insurance.”
Marcus pointed a heavy finger at the cold concrete floor of the jail.
“The Department of Corrections,” Marcus said softly.
Chloe felt all the air leave her lungs. The buzzing of the fluorescent lights suddenly sounded as loud as a chainsaw.
“I didn’t sell him out, Chloe,” Marcus whispered, staring at the nineteen-year-old boy shivering in a t-shirt. “I made a trade. ADA Helms gets his flawless felony conviction rate to run for mayor next year. He gets to put a gang enhancement on a boy who has never held a gun. In exchange, Helms countersigned the emergency medical mandate today. The transport van arrives in an hour to take Arthur to the Fishkill maximum security medical wing. He gets a bed, three meals, and dialysis three times a week on the state’s dime.”
Marcus turned slowly, looking down at the flash drive currently clutched in Chloe’s trembling, sweaty palm.
“You submit that video, you blow up his plea deal, and you exonerate him,” Marcus said, his voice completely dead. “He walks out of this courthouse a free, innocent man. And he will be dead in a gutter by Sunday. So tell me, Chloe. Are you going to save him?”