The Dealer by Trish Bell, (c) 2006 It wasn't a man in a scruffy coat on the corner. It was a woman, decent-enough-looking, really. In a suit jacket and skirt, smelling faintly of something sweet. Sugar cookies. Or maybe donuts. It was not at all what the girl had expected. She sidled shyly up to the shiny BMW the woman was sitting in. The woman looked so calm. The girl couldn't help thinking it. So calm. The girl's nervous fingers fisted around the wad of bills in her pocket. Too calm. Much too calm. It was as if the woman didn't know the consequences. Didn't know what would happen if they were caught. That they would go to jail. That they wouldn't even receive a jury trial. The law was clear. They were breaking it. But it couldn't be helped. A wave of nausea bubbled up in her throat, and she fought it back. The girl's hand shook as she reached through the open window. She didn't want to get caught. Didn't want to go to jail. Didn't want to die. But it was 2035. A new President had just been elected. And the authorities were really cracking down on this kind of crime. The girl shuddered at the thought, remembering the late-night news... the screaming, the crying. But she couldn't leave without the pills. Even though she knew, Knew that if the authorities could prove a death had resulted from the use of the drugs, The drugs the woman in the car was handing out the window, In a brown paper bag, so calmly... If they could prove a death had resulted, a life would be taken in exchange. It was the New Law. A new law, yet a very old one at the same time. An eye for an eye. A life for a life. The girl sighed, a heavy, pregnant sound in the sudden stillness. Her fingers trembled as they closed around the bag. One way or another, her life was already over. She was pregnant. Her stepfather, the father. She wanted the drugs - no, NEEDED them, really. It was the only way out. But not for herself. She wanted the drugs to save her sister. To save her from the kind of life that she might be otherwise forced to live. The girl snatched the paper bag from the woman and stepped away from the car. She took two steps. She heard the woman's voice behind her. And another voice from her left side. And a tinny, electronic voice, from inside the BMW, interspersed with static. A police radio: "Suspect in sight." The girl's eyes filled with tears as she started to run. She didn't get far. The woman jumped out of her car. "Stop! Police! Hands on your head!" A man emerged from the bushes at her left. Guns were pointed at her from all directions. "Halt!" The voice was cold, accusing...and too close. The girl stopped running. It was futile. "Drop the birth control pills! Put your hands in the air!" the voice screamed. And so she did. She had no choice. The officers tackled her unresisting body to the ground. The pills clattered out of the bag. She watched from the corner of her eye, as the container rolled into the high grass just off the sidewalk, out of her grasp. As one of the male officers handcuffed her, The other radioed back to headquarters. The girl's cheek was against the ground, But she could see the tips of a pair of shoes. High heels - the high heels belonging to the undercover female officer. "How could you?" The girl thought the words silently. Betrayed by another woman. Surely she - the officer, a woman herself - could understand why she needed the pills? The girl bit back a sob, a pebble from the sidewalk embedded in her cheek. She didn't want to believe the unthinkable. But then, as the two male officers spoke briefly with one another, the girl saw it. Unmistakable. The bottle of pills, next to that familiar pair of high heels, Scooped up, silently, efficiently, almost soundlessly, by a pair of red manicured nails. And who would miss them, anyway, in all the excitement of the arrest? "They probably got lost in the fracas." That's what they'd say, after. The girl's face twisted in anguish, suddenly realizing the truth. The woman - that female officer - did understand. She understood far too well. The girl swore under her breath. She should've known better. The damned donut smell should have warned her. SOMETHING should have warned her. "Trust no one," she mumbled into the ground. But she had. And now, she would probably be sentenced to death. After her baby was born, that is. And she couldn't do a thing about it. And so...she did the only thing she could do. She put her hand on her softly rounded abdomen and cried. Her cries were engulfed by the sounds of a city too busy with its own concerns to care. ###