Half Face

  HALF FACE

  Mara Li

  Half Face

  Published through Lands Atlantic Publishing

  www.landsatlantic.com

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  All rights reserved Copyright © 2020 by Mara Li

  ISBN: 978-0-9971551-3-6

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the written permission of the author or publisher.

  HALF FACE

  Chapter 1

  The Wait

  He has dark tattoos covering almost every inch of his visible body, including his face, where the ink forms a terrifying mask: one half black as tar, the other half white like a crescent moon, broken only by thick black lines that run from the bridge of his nose to his temple. The darkness makes his eyes stand out shockingly bright blue.

  I turn my eyes away from the photograph, not wanting to catch that gaze. The thought that I will have to see him for real in just a few minutes makes my hands clammy. Right now, Harry Dartes is still in the courtroom, giving his testimony. But he’ll be alright; Harry is a big, strong man. I saw a lot of anger in his eyes this morning, when we were welcomed by three court attendants of the Justice House. A lot of anger, but no fear.

  I don’t know whether I will be alright. The nightmares became a recurring dread each night, with the date of the hearing creeping closer. And now I’m finally here, and I wish I had never agreed to this.

  The room that I’m waiting in is small, and barely comfortable. I’m sitting in one of the two chairs, braiding my fingers together on the tabletop in front of me. There’s a cup of cold tea next to me; I have barely sipped from it. The other chair is occupied by a currently silent court attendant.

  I don’t like the room. I hate the silence.

  Somewhere down the hall, I hear the faint noise of a door opening and closing. I look up expectantly, but the court attendant shakes her head.

  ‘You’re due 3 at o’clock; don’t count on anything earlier. Do you want more tea?’ she adds, dropping that brisk tone, as if she suddenly remembers that I am not the one on trial today. I’m just one of the few lucky ones to survive the robbery of Fallhallow National Bank, on the day that the criminal ring, led by their leader known as the Half Face, decided to try their luck there. The silence, the empty room, they’re all just to guarantee a fair trial – or so they’ve told me. They wouldn’t want any of the witnesses to be influenced before giving their testimony in court. Personally, I can’t imagine why it would matter. The Half Face was caught with the blood of his victims still on his hands. I’d seen it myself, just as I had seen the woman whose blood it was tumble to the ground.

  ‘No, thank you,’ I mutter, shifting in my chair, uncomfortably aware that my clothes are clinging to my back. I’m wearing a knee-length skirt and a long-sleeved blouse, the most formal look I could muster with the temperature outside the building rising to tropical standards. Even here in this room, hidden away between cold stone hallways and marble pillars, the heat seems to make gravity feel thicker.

  I glance at my watch. Fifteen minutes to go. It seems both too fast and too slow.

  I go over the rehearsed words in my head. What if I forget everything I need to say? What if I black out, or cry? I don’t want to cry where he can see me. No, that cannot happen.

  In an attempt to distract myself, I slide my phone out of my pocket and mindlessly scroll through the menu. I freeze when I come across the news feed.

  Liveblog: trial of top-criminal known as “the Half Face” continuing today.

  Someone in that courtroom is twittering the events, and I’m locked up in this miserable room until they can bring me out like the next circus act.

  ‘I must ask you to put your phone away for now,’ the woman says. When I look up, I find her looking at me with a pitying gaze. ‘We don’t want you to read anything that can influence your statement.’

  Of course. ‘I’m just nervous,’ I say, and put my phone back in my pocket.

  ‘You will be absolutely fine. If you find you don’t want to look at him, you don’t have to. Remember that you’re doing this to help us put him away for good. That is why you chose to testify, isn’t it?’

  ‘Right.’

  She nods, and we fall into silence again, until there’s a brief knock on our door. The woman smiles, rises from her chair and beckons me.

  Suddenly, my heart is racing even harder than before. ‘Can...can I go to the bathroom real quick?’

  ‘Sure. Just this way.’ She leads me over to another

  door and remains outside as I enter.

  The tiles are shiny and clean. I hear the buzzing of air conditioning.

  After I flush, I take a quick moment to splash a handful of cold water in my face. It helps a little. I lean my hands on the sink and stare at my reflection in the round mirror. I’m very pale. My eyes are wide open, like a frightened animal. Strands of dark brown hair are falling from the bun that had been so tightly secured this morning. They cling to my sweaty face. I brush them away.

  The woman knocks on the door. ‘Juliet? It’s time.’

  I’m on the verge of calling out: No! Leave me alone, I’m not going! There’s a thick feeling in my throat that I try to get rid of by swallowing. When it doesn’t work, I settle for a deep breath before wiping my palms on my skirt and exiting the bathroom.

  ‘There’s no need to be nervous,’ the woman says again. But what does she know? She didn’t have to drop to the ground, pretending to be a dead body, while a monster was standing mere feet away from her barking orders.

  We make our way across the building, all the way to the end of the long corridor, and make a right turn. The entire building is so clean. We pass a large, square painting on the wall; we pass a mirror where I briefly catch my pale reflection, we pass a man with a cell phone pressed to his ear, giving us a curious glance.

  Then the woman stops in front of a dark, polished door. The small plate next to the door reads Courtroom 14.

  We’re here.

  The woman gives me an encouraging smile. I pull up the corners of my mouth, just enough to make it look like I’m smiling back.

  ‘Remember, you just have to answer a few questions. I’ll be here to escort you back.’

  ‘I know.’

  She looks like she wants to say something else, but before she does, the door opens. I automatically step back, creating some space for Harry Dartes. He sees me, undoubtedly registers the worry in my eyes, and gives my shoulder a brief squeeze. ‘It’s worse just before you go in, girl.’

  I nod. He smiles one last time before another court attendant urges him on, and mine gestures to me, indicating that I will have to enter Courtroom 14 at last.

  I check my posture, make sure my shoulders are straight and my jaw is set. Then I relax my fists, which I’m clenching without really noticing it.

  ‘Good luck,’ the woman says.

  And then I take a step inside. The door closes behind me.

  Chapter 2

  Testimony

  I have only a few short seconds to take in my new surroundings.

  The room is much smaller than I had imagined. A man in a black robe is sitting behind a bench on a dais. That’s the judge, of course, and the woman in the middle of the room must be the prosecutor. The jury is on my far left side and then there are a couple of people in the gallery at the other side of the room. Journalists, I am guessing. One of them is tweeting the live blog. I can already imagine what he is writing: W
itness number 3 has just entered the hearing. She looks like she is about to puke.

  ‘Right this way, Miss Cunningham,’ says another woman, taking over the job of my previous attendant and leading me to a place between the judge and the jury. I mutter a thank-you and sit down, uneasily aware that all eyes are turned to me. I swallow, and slowly turn my own eyes to where I irrevocably will have to look.

  He is sitting far away from me, almost at the other side of the courtroom. The only person next to him is a pretty woman in her mid-thirties. His attorney, I realize. I’m confused to see a flushed look on her face when she leans close to him as he mutters something in her ear. She nods, then leaves him sitting there, all on his own, while she takes her own place close to the prosecutor.

  Suddenly, his eyes flash away from her and lock with mine. I’m caught off-guard, not quick enough to look away. He is closer to me now than he was in Fallhallow National Bank and I can see him very well. His tattooed face is a perfect yin and yang. My mouth dries up.

  ‘Our third witness today is Miss Juliet Eva Cunningham. Born on the third of October, 1994. Miss Cunningham, are these facts correct?’

  I need a moment to realize that the person speaking is waiting for my answer. The mouth of the Half Face lifts up in a lazy smile as I tear my gaze away, feeling the heat rise to my cheeks. He can’t move, I remind myself, steadying my breath. Even if he fights, he can’t break free of those handcuffs. ‘Yes. Ma’am.’

  ‘Alright then, Miss Cunningham,’ says the prosecutor. ‘I will be asking you a few questions during this hearing. Please listen well, and answer with as much detail as you can remember. It is important that you state only what you can remember. If you feel that you cannot clearly recall something, you should tell us so rather than express your best guess. Is anything unclear at this point?’

  I shake my head.

  She gives me the tiniest of smiles. ‘Then we’ll proceed.’ She pauses to straighten her microphone. ‘Miss Cunningham, you were present during the entire robbery of Fallhallow National Bank.’

  This is a fact that hardly needs acknowledgment, but I still nod and squeak out a weak, 'yes.'

  ‘Can you tell me what you were doing at said place at that time of day?’

  I lick my dry lips. I will have to speak now, and it feels like there is a whole bucket of sand in my throat. ‘I needed stamps,’ I croak, realizing that I’m barely audible at all. I clear my throat and try again. ‘The bank has a post office. I’d been sent to buy thirty sheets of stamps, for letters to the parents. The…the kids have head lice.’

  ‘You mean the children of the Expedition Fallhallow Elementary School, where you are currently doing an internship.’

  ‘Yes, ma’am.’

  ‘And how long had you been inside when you noticed the first signs of an attack?’

  ‘I…I think it must have been five minutes.’

  ‘Now, Miss Cunningham, can you give me an account of what transpired from the moment that the attackers entered the building?’

  ‘I don’t know when they entered,’ I say truthfully. ‘I think…maybe they were inside before I got there. But I heard screaming, and people suddenly panicked, so I looked around and heard the gunshots.’ My voice falters.

  ‘What did you see at that point?’ the prosecutor urges me on. ‘Take your time to think.’

  I brave another look at the Half Face. I can’t tell if he is listening to my words or not. He doesn’t look so worried. He looks quite relaxed actually, stretching his legs in front of him as if this courtroom is his home; as if he’s simply watching something mildly interesting.

  It’s not just his face that is tattooed. He has the same black ink on his broad arms. It reaches down to his wrists, like tattooed sleeves without warmth. The war paint doesn’t end there: ornate symbols adorn the knuckles of his hands, which he now puts in front of him awkwardly, the handcuff giving him little room to move.

  I stare at those hands. The hands that choked the woman with the blond braid and pulled the trigger of that jet black gun.

  No, you can’t let him distract you. Focus on the question, Juliet, I tell myself sternly.

  I had only dropped by the stately bank in the middle of town because it has a post office, and it was closest to the elementary school where I had just started my internship. My first day, a scorching 29 degrees Celsius, and me a bundle of nerves. Before I’d had the chance to come face to face with the group I would be teaching, before I could even be introduced to all of the staff in the teachers' room, someone had stuffed a few coins into my sweaty palm. Go buy stamps, they’d told me. Make sure you get, like, thirty sheets; we need to send out letters. The kids have head lice.

  I’d been scratching my own head during my entire walk down to the bank.

  And then, the world had just shattered. The humid air pierced by the high-pitched screaming of a woman, followed by a pandemonium of voices, and a rush of

  people trying to get to the exit. Their feet had made the floor of Fallhollow National Bank vibrate, like an earthquake. For a moment, I had really believed it was an earthquake.

  Then something had exploded close to my ear, and the high-pitched screaming had stopped so abruptly that I’d automatically turned my head to see where the woman had gone.

  On her belly, as it had turned out, with her arms spread out. The floor around her had been weirdly red, and wet, and she had been very still.

  As I recount all of these things aloud in the courtroom, my voice seems strangely distant. I can hear myself as though I’m an outsider.

  ‘Did he shoot this woman directly, Miss Cunningham?’ asks the prosecutor, interrupting the images that flash before my eyes.

  Recalling the look on her face as the woman crumpled to the ground ignites a spark of angry courage in me. I turn my head to glare at the Half Face, who is still looking at me with that lazy smile. ‘You would have to ask him that,’ I say venomously.

  ‘But what was your perception?’

  ‘He shot her and she fell down at once.’

  The woman nods. ‘What did you do then?’

  ‘I was scared.’ Slowly, I had started to comprehend what was going on. What the loud banging noises all around me had meant. What was being shouted at us in a rain of commands: get down on the floor now!

  I’d dropped down next to the dead woman, just in time to avoid two men brushing past me, both with loaded guns pointing at something – someone – that I hadn’t seen.

  I had covered my head with my arms and had tried not to breathe at all, while the blood was rushing in my ears just like the questions that were tumbling through my mind like a storm. Was this a robbery? An attack – Jihad? I had not even been sure what the attackers looked like, how many of them had been there, or if someone had been pointing a gun at me. I’d have had to look up in order to figure all of that out, which meant having to move, and I couldn’t have thought of anything that I’d desired less. My whole body had been weak from fear.

  But then, I’d heard his voice. It was a raspy, unpolished sound, which carried through the entire building. The sound had seemed to originate from somewhere left of the dead woman, eerily close to where I had been pretending to be shot.

  “I’m here to make a la-a-a-arge withdrawal,” the voice had said. “No? Aw, come now, Fallhollow bankers! One of you will have to do it. You see, this is a game-ah!” The way he said it made the last consonant bounce. When nothing had happened, I’d heard a chuckle. “You mean I get to choose? Why, thank you, gen-tle-men. Okay, alright, I’m gonna pick – you live, you die.”

  Immediately after: the sound of a gun being fired; close, too close to me. It left a beeping sound in my left ear. When that beeping sound had faded, I had registered heavy footsteps circling me and the nameless woman beside me, pausing just once.

  I had been breathing shallowly for long minutes, dying to take a full breath of air. The footsteps continued. I had opened my mouth, inhaling the air as quietly as possible.

  Wi
th the new breath had come a little bit of new courage, and I had gingerly lifted my head just high enough that I could see over my own arms. The floor had been scattered with people. Some were still sitting. Others didn’t move at all.

  I had watched a handful of masked men run around with large bags, but my attention had been drawn to the silent figure standing in the middle of the hall.

  I had known, without doubt, that it had been his footsteps that I had heard. That the raspy voice belonged to him.

  The man had glanced sideways, and I thought that he had been wearing a mask like the others, covering up all the features of his face. Even when he moved, I’d thought that his mask had been somehow torn, because the other half of his face had been clearly visible, even if it was ghostly white.

  It felt like hours that I had stared at that face, too transfixed and too horrified to remember to lower my head again. Finally, I had realized that I was not staring at a tattered mask, but that the face of the man before me was all solid ink.

  That face set him apart from the common species of man. It had made him a monster.

  The smile on that same face dies away when I finish that last thought aloud, and my voice trails off. Even though the Half Face is cuffed and guarded, I feel exposed to danger.

  Don’t be a coward now, Juliet. You chose to see him today. Besides, this isn’t Fallhallow Bank. We’re safe in here – I’m safe in here.

  Still, my heart is hammering away in my chest. I want to rush out of the courtroom now that I’ve told my story, run down the stairs and make my way home. Why should I testify that this man, this monster, shot a dozen people with a smile on his face? He doesn’t even want to deny it.

  The Half Face moves in his chair, whispering something to his attorney. Before she can give a reply, I’m startled to hear his voice, well audible in the silent courtroom. It’s as raspy and low as I remember. ‘I would just like to say, Juliet, that I’m not a monster. I’m not-ah.’