Nora’s place was just like her, tidy and welcoming. No frill, but everything you might expect from a lawyer’s office. Comfortable chairs, peaceful pastel colors, and a tv set on VEVO with the volume low and non-intrusive.
“We’re sure we want to do this, right?” For the umpteenth time, Hannah fought with the instinct to run home.
They still could.
Only Abraham knew, not even for sure. It didn’t mean he was going to be successful in proving his theory. He had to get the courts involved, and they would decide if the claim was worth to pursue. Courts were sweet on Purists, so he didn’t really have to sweat hard. Yet, there was a chance-
“I want to marry you,” Luke said. “All of what you are. And as things are now, it would be only another lie. I want us to be free. We deserve better than what we have now. For sure, you do.”
She took his hand, kissed it. What can she possibly say?
Nora called them personally a few minutes later. “If you wanted to go for a drink, girl, all you had to do was take the phone,” she said as she invited them to sit before taking her chair on the other side of the white desk. “I guess you’re here for something else. So, what’s up?”
Hannah looked at Luke, saw him nodding. Swallowed. Linked her fingers, only to stretch them again. “There’s, ah, no easy way of saying this.” Her eyes darted around the room. “Is this office secure, privacy wise?”
If the calm positiveness on Nora’s face didn’t change, she sobered with understanding. “Yes. You’re safe here, and with me.”
Here we go, Hanna thought.
She was going to say it.
Right now, and be done with it.
Just say it.
“Hannah, my love?” Luke prodded sweetly, and she loved how he wouldn’t start anything but waited for her to be ready. She also knew that if she got up and left, he would follow and find other ways. His trust gave her a new infusion of strength.
“I’m a Mute Swan,” she said, her words strong despite the raspy voice. “And we want to sue the state of North Carolina.”
To her credit, Nora didn’t flinch. She did lean back in the chair, though, rose an eyebrow. “I see.”
“Do you?” Hannah asked, before launching into years of mistreatment, of terror, of how the current laws kept her from pursuing the simplest things for fear of being caught. “Caught being what?” She concluded. “Myself? How is this fair? Convicted criminals, murderers, and thieves, have more rights than I do if the state learns who I really am, and I committed no crime but exist. I pay all my taxes, for heaven’s sake, and all I ask is to be left alone. And you know what? Okay. But him?”
“I can’t marry her,” Luke said. “Not without living in fear. Which we already do.”
Silence filled the room, Nora’s eyes never leaving hers, never wavering. She started nodding. “I…” she leaned over the desk. “First of all, I want to repeat how safe you both are with me, and to thank you for your trust. I’m sure it wasn’t easy. And to me, you are absolutely right.”
A weight left Hannah’s chest, and she smiled at Luke.
“But,” Nora added. “I’m a small-town lawyer. What you’re heading into is bigger, so much bigger, than I am. We’re talking about Supreme Court business. You need someone who knows how to change the narrative in civil rights laws. A big shot who has the means to stand up for what’s right.”
Hannah swallowed, her hope dimming at each word carefully spoken by Nora. “I thought that was you?”
“Aw, honey, thank you. But no.”
“So…. We’re back to square one?” Luke asked.
“I didn’t say that.” Nora went on her computer, typed in a few words, then turned the screen toward them.
“Ronan P. O’Sullivan, LLM.” Hannah frowned. “I don’t know him.”
“I do. He was behind cases involving immigrants, homeless, and medically vulnerable people. He’s the one you want and need for this, um, suicidal mission.”
“Nice.”
“Sugarcoating won’t help you when they take everything away from you.”
“What will help?”
Nora tipped the screen with a manicured nail. “This guy will.” Nora smiled. “He’s based in New York, but he goes where the case is. Let me call him, see if he can make it here for a meeting. And until then, don’t, do not, say anything to anyone. Fly low, no pun intended. I’ll call you as soon as I have news.
* * *
“Your fish BBQ is always too good,” Hannah said, setting down her fork, satisfied. “The shrimps? Class act.”
Luke smiled – an honest one, but smudged by disquiet. “What is it?” she asked.
He folded a piece of kitchen towel once, twice. Looked at her. “Should we be, I don’t know. More worried? Edgy? ‘Cause the thing is, I’m really not, and it’s weird.”
As she felt the same, she’d spent the time prepping the fish, trying to understand why she was not walking on the ceiling with anxiety, and she had gotten to one conclusion. “What did we have to lose just a couple of days ago, when nobody suspected a thing?”
“Everything,” he said low.
“What about now, when Abraham might actively come after me? When the truth is brimming on the surface, ripe?”
“Nothing.” And his smile was full now. “We’ve got nothing to lose, and everything to fight for.”
The cell phone vibrated on the table. She glanced at it, grabbed it when she saw the sender. Nora.
He can be here next week, has things to clear up in NY. We all can meet at my office on Tuesday at 3, if that’s ok with you.
“We can,” Luke answered without even thinking.
She typed, tell him we’ll be there and pressed SEND.
* * *
Tuesday, 3 PM.
Run was the first thought that crossed Hannah’s mind when Nora let her and Luke in the room, the one where Ronan P. O’Sullivan waited.
Her reaction had nothing to do with the full black tailor-made suit. Or with the serious eyes, a shade of brown so dark they might as well be black. Not even with the steely composure.
No.
It came from the instinct of a swan facing a predator.
Others’ instinct, an inherent recognition ability, made it so that Others felt the presence of another. Life taught them to ignore, pretend it wasn’t there, and carry on. One peek too long in the wrong place and at the wrong time could snowball into something nobody wanted to face.
True to that unspoken law, he didn’t flinch. Nothing happened in his dark eyes. His body language remained so inscrutable she would have called herself silly if he wasn’t oozing that much animal power.
This man wore control like a skin, a quality he had to have in spade to get where he was. Control over himself and over the environment he lived in. He must also possess reckless courage and a rebel heart. She bet he got on a lot of people’s faces for his job, had a lot of attention on him, but he kept going, taking on battle after battle.
So, if her swan instinct told her to go, fast, this man was hers and Luke’s best chance.
“Miss Kyknos, mister Evans,” O’Sullivan said, shaking their hands and motion them to take a seat. “Mrs. Morales tells me you want to talk about a personal circumstance that might require my assistance.”
Hannah squirmed in the chair. O’Sullivan took the long and polite route of words while she wanted to know if they had a chance, how big, and how expensive it was going to get. A famous New York City lawyer would not come cheap.
“How much will this cost us?”
“I will not charge you one penny for as long as this case will go on, which I expect will be quite a while.”
“You want to do it pro-bono?” Luke asked, shocked.
“Most of the cases I take are pro-bono. That is one weight you don’t have to carry, and it will be on the contract.” His lips smiled, but not his eyes. “Knowing what the case actually is would help.”
Her head high up, jaws set, she declared, “I’m a swan.”
“We want to get married,” Luke chimed in. “And as things are, we can’t. Not really.”
For all the emotions he showed, they might have told him they wanted to get a vacation in California. Nothing crossed his face and changed his composure. How did he do that?
“I see,” he said, linking his fingers on the desk. “That’s useful information, and I understand how hard it must have been to decide to contact me. Would you care to walk me into what brought you here? Besides the obvious, that is. And please, don’t be shy. Any detail is important.”
She and Luke started to tell him everything that had happened since they got together. Moving from Tennessee to Florida, and, when suspects rose in there too, their last journey to North Carolina. They managed to build a good life until a few months ago, when the Purists got wind of them and started sniffing around. She unloaded an entire life of frustration, and O’Sullivan took it all in, taking notes, sometimes asking her to go through something again. Until she and Luke, spent, rested back on the chair. “That’s all. Oh,” Luke said, pointing a thumb in her direction. “And she doesn’t want to pay taxes.”
It pulled the first sign of emotions from O’Sullivan in the form of a dark raised eyebrow. “Excuse me?”
Hannah shook her head. “It’s not that I don’t want to. The thing is, taxes pay for a lot of things I wouldn’t get if I was charged with being who I am. I would pay for a police system that would get me, even if I committed no crime. And roads. I could literally fly everywhere if I was free. Which I’m not.” She took a long breath. “Not only I would be a prisoner. I couldn’t even get a job, and I am damn good at what I do. They wouldn’t care because I can turn into a swan. An honest, law-abiding, hard-working freaking swan, who is terrified of marrying the man she loves.”
Something she said must have gotten to him because he got a faraway look as he read his notes. Well, she’d love to know all about it. She was about to ask him when he started talking. “Okay. You gave me quite a lot of material to go through. Any questions for me?”
“Do we stand a chance?” Hanna pressed, her curiosity forgotten.
O’Sullivan closed his notes, and for the first time, in his eyes brimmed something - a mixture of empathy and anger. “I could sit here and give you a story you will like. The truth is, I don’t know. I can tell you right now it doesn’t matter what we do, it will get ugly. You most likely will lose all you have. Jobs, stability, friends. It’s important you have arrangements in case you both find yourselves jobless. My firm and I can help. We’re in contact with agencies who assist in these occasions, but you still need to be prepared.” He looked at her, then at Luke’s, straight in the eyes. “If you want some time to think—”
“We’re good,” Luke stopped him. “We figured all this already. We just want to move forward.”
O’Sullivan’s only comment was, “Excellent,” but it carried so much weight Hannah found she breathed a little better. “I need a few weeks to tie things up in New York. After that, I’ll relocate momentarily to Asheville. The firm has offices there.”
What? “You’re moving here? For us?”
“Well, no. I’m not moving. But when I work on a special case, a case like this, I do like to be close. Courts, judges. You. It’s easier all around.”
“What case is this?” Luke asked.
O’Sullivan pondered the answer for a moment. “Fundamentally needed.”
Wow. Okay.
She smiled. “Are we stirring shit, lawyer O’Sullivan?”
This time, when his lips curved, the emotion behind was real. “Plenty.” He gathered all his things from the desk. “Let’s meet again in a couple of weeks. Someone from my office will call and arrange the next meeting. Agreed?”
Hannah and Luke nodded.
“Miss Kyknos, mister Evans,” he said, getting up. “It’s been an absolute pleasure.”
He left, accompanied by Nora.
Hannah took Luke’s hand, brought it to her lips as hope warmed her soul. “You and I.”
“Always.”
Together, they were going to change the world, or be killed trying. And danger never felt this good.
THE END
Find Ronan’s story and the next The Other story in Dragon’s Wrath