Make Your Move Katherine

Guilty Until Proven Innocent

An hour before Anthony’s arrival the next day, Kat discovered that all her contacts except her parents had been deleted. She had been a little too numb and a bit depressed last night to bother with emails and had decided she would reply to all today…but nada. All her emails had been deleted.

While surprised but not really so much- it didn’t bother her at all, for her work was now a no-no. She figured she’s been fired by now- not that she could return for she was no longer welcomed in her own country, so she was pretty sure she'd been replaced already.

Even Dominique’s contact was erased and her and Simon’s numbers were the only ones that affected her. But Simon’s vanished contact from her phone cut her deeper, after all, he is the love of her life. Then she received one message from Oscar- ‘Do not test my patience wife. Do not bring up anything from your past and do not bring up the name Simon in any conversation again.’ She understood that he meant to not even ask her parents about him as that was the only two numbers remaining.

Then Anthony took it again that night.

“Your Majesty,” the royal guard bowed his head and raised back up not quite meeting her eyes, “Your cell phone please.”

Kat’s eyes filled with tears and she gave a wet sniff before she hands him her phone.

He was just following orders.

Days later, Oni took her down to the castle stables but took a different path that led to an open field where she saw nothing but newly cut grass and shady trees. Kat felt the place was perfect for a family picnic. Kids would love it here.

“This is perfect for reading,” she told the girl who nodded with a wide smile about her face.

“Yes, Your Majesty. Julie thinks you would love it here when you are not studying.”

By studying, Oni meant her practice of the royal’s etiquette as Kat had stated so one night when she had grumbled that it was worse than school. Yes, it did feel like studies to her. She would prefer to study an entirely different course, to what she had to put up with, by Miss Moon.

She walked a bit to explore what her eyes could get into detail in the short distance before she heard Oni’s squeal of delight and turned around. The girl was bursting with joy when their eyes met and Kat saw a young guard together with another royal guard walking towards them. They were wheeling forward a purple bicycle.

Twelve days later

A phoneless Kat, is beginning to get homesick again. She had no way of contacting her friends or family and while she was lonely, she had changed. Kat had adapted to her change. She now spends her days in the garden and playing dress-up for her husband. But while Kat played ditsy in front of the castle staff, deep down she had been taking notes. She was learning about everything she could.

She had since urged Oscar to take her with him back down into the dungeon area they called white room which was anything but- more like blood room or maybe red room and although he had refused her the first few times, he finally gave in. Probably because he was fed up with her whining. She had been sick to her stomach the first few times but unlike before she had been able to walk out of the room when she couldn’t take it anymore.

Kat just wanted to show Oscar that she could be trusted.

Pretty soon she became acquainted with the officers there and they opened up a bit about some of the cases after Oscar okayed it. While she was kept away from them in a separate room most of the time, she could see and hear the conversations, for she was placed in a room similar to the previous one.

“Just press this button here,” the female detective, Saunders, had said to her,” If you want us to hear you,” when she had first taken Katherine to the room and demonstrated by having a tiny conversation with another detective who was in the room at the time.

She learned last week that Oscar froze criminals awaiting trial, for heinous crimes. At first, she had been shocked that it was even possible to do so. And was told that some died or even suffered in the long turn of being brought back to trial. It was the first time in a long time she felt the strong urge for humanitarianism.

“That’s immoral,” she had gasped out, from her seat, catching Oscar's attention and he had looked down at her from his seat- perched on the edge of a desk, with scorn. The room was cleared by Anthony, leaving Oscar, Kat, another castle guard and himself.

“This is not Armedia. Here we freeze criminals until their trial date…it’s much easier and better on our pockets.”

“It’s inhumane,” she had argued back clutching her stomach.

“What? And the victims of their crimes?”

“What if they’re innocent?”

“Look don’t tell me how to run my country,” he had mumbled and sauntered out of the room while Kat had stared at the building that he had pointed to proudly, just a minute earlier. The detective walked out with him, bowing as he smiled at her, a file in hand, leaving her alone with Anthony.

“He doesn’t do it to all, Your Majesty,” Anthony had reassured her, speaking softly when her legs failed and she stumbled onto a chair. “Just the guilty ones.”

“Guilty?”

“Yes, His Majesty takes these crimes personally- “when he saw her confused look he explained further, “His Majesty goes to court presiding.”

“He chooses who is frozen?”

“Precisely.”

“That’s even worst. That’s playing God-”

“Your Majesty, since we are alone,” Anthony had crossed the large room and stooped in front of her with his hands between his legs, a slight furrow between his eyebrows, “let me apologize for my interruption- he is King. Unlike most countries, we assume one is guilty until proven innocent here. The only difference between us is that we fight for victims, and not a way to get criminals out. His Majesty tries to read them out so the families of the victims can rest better at night knowing somebody is on their side fighting for them no matter what. That an escape is impossible- they don’t have to tremble when they walk or constantly watch behind their backs." He twisted his head slightly looking into her eyes, "Would-be criminals also adhere to this harsh punishment- wouldn’t you too?”

Katherine looked at Oscar now as he sat by the large table with two other male detectives and a lawyer- attorney. She had learned there was actually a difference between the two; a lawyer is someone who studied law at school and often may have passed the bar exam while an attorney has passed the bar exam and has been approved to practice law in his jurisdiction. A lawyer is not necessarily an attorney, although an attorney is a lawyer.

They were negotiating about a trial. The same man whom she had first seen getting beaten up had an accomplice. While the accomplice’s mother claimed her son was being framed and he had an alibi they had camera footage that stated differently.

“Find out who filed the reports and why was there no contacts for these people?” Oscar scolded the two officers who remained mum. Kat supposed they were discussing the witnesses.

“Luca- you go ahead with that and Ripley- finish up this sh*t you call paperwork here for me, asap!”

Detective Ripley while reliable as newly wedded, so he tried to reason, “But it’ll take almost the entire night-”

“Then you should have done a better job the first time,” Oscar hissed standing up and hitting the file he held loudly on the discussion table. This was the only place Oscar allowed the team to have a say- only in this room she had noticed. She figured it was necessary for the hardworking team to be comfortable to be free to talk exactly what they felt, freely. But once the door opened…King Oscar Julian.

Kat could tell he was angry by the way he held his shoulders- stiffly. He motioned with his head how frustrated he was and Kat heard him growling. The detectives hung their heads with sulking looks while the attorney grimaced.

They really wanted solid evidence in order to freeze the man just as they had the first one. And the trial was set in two years. Kat felt it was cruel for the family to be put through but Oscar felt it was necessary for people to understand that wickedness was not to be tolerated.

A new phone had been brought to her the next day by Anthony.

“Open it, Your Majesty,” he said in a soft tone and watched her open and switch on the phone and she saw it was already showing the Wi-Fi icon but she didn’t say anything. It was bugged for all she knew, for that’s how her brain works now.

Kat did have the thought about why even bother to go through the trouble of erasing her phone if Oscar was replacing her old one but she didn’t ask a thing either. She accepted that he was just being thorough when Anthony held his hand out for her new cell without meeting her eyes, “I have to inform your father about your changed number.”

Later that night Kat discovered her new phone prohibited international calls. This meant she could only make local calls and foreign calls from apps that allowed it. Who could she possibly call locally? Her maid?

With little in her life- she ventured into meeting the other royals that dwelled at the castle. If this is her life now, then she should adjust, shouldn't she?