Chapter 2

“I don’t want you to starve to death here. And your child. He is not to blame for anything, - Tores answered restrainedly and paused, watching the prisoner, who, helpless, sank onto the bed, removing the tray from it. - Can I ask one more question?

She just nodded.

- What happened this afternoon... is it killing you?

After a pause, Randall nodded again.

But can you stop it? Don't do what's killing you?

- Yes, but why? I'll die anyway. But before I die, I want to save everyone who has suffered through my fault. And others who I can. If I can. So don't wake me up. Please. Do not bother me.

- But what's happening to you... it's terrible! You're turning into a living, decaying corpse! It's... how can you stand it?

- It's going through. Disappears.

- But if you do not have time to wake up one day?

I won't die as long as I have a child in me. It is the continuation of my curse. Until he is born, it will not kill me.

- Who?

- Curse. Black mist.

The next day Thores, as promised, brought the prisoner a cheese pie and sweet rolls. Randall received them with tremulous joy, thanking them. Immediately taking a bite of the cake, she closed her eyes in pleasure. Chewed and bit off again.

- Well, is it holding up? - Thores asked with a smile, watching the woman rubbing on both cheeks. She nodded happily, smiling through her full mouth.

- Very tasty. Thank you!

- Okay. Feed the child so that it does not starve to death in your stomach. Cursed or not, you have to give birth to him. By the way, - she raised her hand and slipped a sheet of paper folded several times into the grate. - I have a pleasant surprise for you. Malyava to you from your husband.

Randall's smile and joyful expression vanished at the same moment, her gaze fixed on the piece of paper between the bars.

- Come on, take it! Not happy, right?

Clutching the plate of pie to her chest like a treasure, Randal walked slowly over and took the paper between two fingers. Putting it under her plate, she returned to the bunk and sat down.

- As you write the answer, you will say. I'll pass it on.

Turning around, Thores left. Being new here, she did not yet know that Randal had never written a response to her husband's numerous letters.

Putting her plate down on the bunk, Carol slowly unfolded the letter and stared down at the beautiful, neat handwriting. After reading, she sat motionless for a long time, then she got up heavily and threw the letter into the toilet.

From that day on, Thores sneaked her home-cooked meals every day. Scavello pretended not to notice. Secretly, Thores gave the prisoner pills for nausea, which, as she explained, helped her pregnant sister a lot with toxicosis.

Either the pills worked, or the homemade food was better, but Randal began to eat. The vomiting has almost stopped. With a friendly, grateful smile, she now always met Thores, marveling at her unexpected care and sympathy.

Thores asked every day if a letter was ready for her husband.

After two weeks, she lost patience.

"I take it you're not going to answer?" she asked forcefully.

Randall looked up at her with large eyes, which reflected bewilderment caused by such incomprehensible insistence.

"No," she answered quietly.

- Clear. Scavello told me that you never write to your husband. And he you - constantly.

An unspoken but obvious question hung in the air, but Randall said nothing.

"They say he loves you," Thores observed cautiously, never taking her eyes off her.

Randall smiled faintly, bitterly and unhappily.

- Is not it so? Thores asked even more cautiously.

- Not! - The answer sounded unexpectedly sharp and vicious.

Thores stepped back, realizing that the conversation was over and, no matter how curious she was, she did not want to share her relationship with her husband Randall, even with her. Turning away offendedly, Melinda left without another word. Walking up to the grate, Carol followed it with a sad look, then sighed and pressed her cheek against the cold metal. She didn't mean to be rude, but Thores was asking too many questions, and her curiosity was getting annoying and unsettling. Carol wondered if it was just curiosity... or not? This unexpected concern and concern, and this curiosity, began to seem suspicious to Carol.

- Well, how are you doing? Were you able to find out anything? What is with her husband? - asked Cindy Scavello over a cup of coffee, when they settled down to eat. Thores shrugged.

She's not going to answer him. It looks like she's offended.

- Well, it's not a secret, since I never wrote to him. He's probably angry that he couldn't get her off the hook. Did you read his little one? You can slip through. She does not have a heart - a stone.

- No, I haven't read it. What are you reading?

- Of course. Every note.

- And what's there?

- Love. Solid love. And promises that everything will be fine, that he will get her out, they will be together again, happy and all that. He asks for forgiveness all the time. She begs him to believe. He swears he didn't mean for it to happen. Ah, if only I could! So that a man loves me so! Yes, even such as Jack Randall. Do you think he can?

- What?

- Get her out?

Thores shrugged.

"Not likely," Cindy answered herself. - He's behind bars now. What can he do? He needs to pull his own ass out... He got himself up to his ears. He is accused of killing an official in retaliation for the performance of official duties. This crime is on the list of crimes for which the death penalty can be sentenced. Plus attempted murder with grievous bodily harm. His father survived, but it still won't help him - the charge of murder he committed is too serious. His lawyers could not even get him released on bail. No money helped. He's in the balance right now.

- But the prosecutor does not require the death penalty ... I have not heard anything like that.

- It doesn't matter... He can be sentenced to death after he is convicted. Capital murder differs from first-degree murder in that the death penalty can be imposed after conviction,” Scavello busily assured, never missing an opportunity to demonstrate her knowledge, which she received at the Faculty of Law, where she studied in absentia, gathering in the near future become a criminal lawyer.

- He'll get out. It's Jack Randall, - Thores objected, confused and not very confident.

- It's hard to get out of such a mess when the whole world is watching you. If everything was sewn and covered, then, probably, he would have got out by now. They say he has a lot of money, a lot of connections, even among crime bosses.

- Come on... it's fiction. The press always said all sorts of nasty things about him ... they didn’t accuse him of anything! What crime bosses? He's just a lawyer! I recently became a senator.

- Do you think the bandits do not need lawyers? Especially people like him... He's the best. And politicians are needed. As far as I remember, he was constantly accused of having links with bandits, although they could not prove it. And they also said about his father that he had authority in the criminal world ...

- It's all nonsense. His father is a judge. If he was connected with the bandits, he would be removed ...

- Oh-oh-oh, what naivety! What, were you born yesterday? Even a child knows that the mafia has long arms, it has its own people everywhere. From ordinary police officers to high-ranking politicians! So, quite possibly, it will turn out that even if Randall himself cannot get out, he will be pulled out of this ass by those who still really need him. If, of course, you need it. The scandal is terrible, and how this is possible, I can’t even imagine, but ... It seems to me that all the excitement is not because of what Randal did, everyone is interested not in how he is tried and accused of, but in how he will be get out. That's all the salt! All excitement! This is a bomb - an invincible lawyer, pulling out dangerous criminals from behind bars, not knowing defeat, suddenly he himself finds himself in the dock! In addition, whatever one may say, but it is so touching - a husband distraught with grief cracks down on a vile lawyer, who betrayed and deceived him, through whose fault his wife is sentenced to death. They say that this lawyer replaced the forensic psychiatric examination, in which there was a conclusion that Snezhinka was insane and could not be tried on the charges against her, with another one, where there was a completely opposite conclusion. Only which of them is the real one is not yet known. If it is proved that the lawyer replaced the real examination with a fake, this will give the lawyers a chance not only to commute Randal's sentence, but also to get his wife's sentence overturned. Only which of them is the real one is not yet known. If it is proved that the lawyer replaced the real examination with a fake, this will give the lawyers a chance not only to commute Randal's sentence, but also to get his wife's sentence overturned. Only which of them is the real one is not yet known. If it is proved that the lawyer replaced the real examination with a fake, this will give the lawyers a chance not only to commute Randal's sentence, but also to get his wife's sentence overturned.