Hollister didn't flinch. He leaned directly into the microphone.
"Your Honor," Hollister interrupted loudly, "this is a classic trick. These folks bring in doctored third-party video snippets to play the victim. I have fifteen years of law enforcement experience. I know what I saw with my own eyes."
Judge Sinclair brought her gavel down with a sharp clack. "Officer Hollister, you will refrain from addressing the gallery and answer counsel's questions directly."
Whitmore pressed a key, transitioning to another document. "Officer Hollister, isn't it true that your internal affairs file contains forty-one civilian complaints regarding fabricated traffic infractions, four allegations of physical misconduct, and two sealed settlements?"
Hollister’s face flushed dark red. His jaw clenched so tightly the muscles along his neck stood out like cords. He glared across the table at Faith.
"You people really stick together, don't you?" Hollister snapped.
The courtroom fell dead silent.
Judge Sinclair slowly removed her reading glasses and set them on her desk. "Officer Hollister, that is your second warning. There will not be a third." During a brief procedural pause as the judge reviewed the video files, Hollister stepped down from the witness stand. Instead of returning directly to the prosecution table, he walked around the perimeter of the room, passing within inches of Faith's seat.
He bent down, his face inches from her ear. His breath smelled of stale coffee. He whispered a single word—a vile, historic racial slur meant to strip away her dignity in one sharp blow.
Faith’s right hand trembled under the table. Just once.
She placed her left hand firmly over her right, pressing down until the trembling stopped entirely. She kept her eyes fixed on the legal pad in front of her. She didn't exhale for six full seconds.
From the doorway, Coretta Banks saw the whisper. She couldn't hear the word, but she saw the tension in Faith's shoulders. She raised her phone behind her clipboard and switched to video recording.
Hollister took two steps back, expecting her to snap, expecting her to yell or raise a hand so he could claim threat escalation. When she remained completely motionless, his expression shifted from arrogance to unadulterated rage.
"Stand up when an officer passes you," Hollister said loudly, his voice echoing across the gallery. "That's how we do things in this court."
Faith remained seated. She didn't look up.
Hollister stepped closer. He raised his open right hand and delivered a full-force slap directly across the left side of Faith's face.
CRACK.
The sound reverberated like a pistol shot off the plaster walls.
The gallery gasped in horror. A woman in the third row covered her face. In the second row, Riley sat flanked by Sergeant Brooks; the twelve-year-old girl didn't scream, but her small hands clenched into tight fists against her knees.
The eleven seconds began.
Second 1:Faith's head snapped to the right under the force of the blow. The impact left a deep crimson impression across her cheekbone. She absorbed the kinetic energy, leaning into the blow slightly rather than fighting it, exactly as she had been trained in the Army. Her eyes closed for one single, deliberate count.
At the back of the room, Bailiff Hendricks’ hand finally reached for his radio. Bailiff Morrison, stationed near the doors, took his first step forward.
Second 2:Faith’s eyes snapped open. The pain was gone, replaced by absolute, cold operational clarity. She stood up smoothly from her chair. Her hands remained low, open, and relaxed at her sides.
Hollister, misreading her calm for shock, pulled his right arm back, pulling his fist into a broad, sweeping right hook intended to drop her to the floor.
Second 3:"Officer, stand down!" Hendricks yelled from eighteen feet away, beginning to run across the carpeted well.
Second 4:Hollister’s heavy fist came flying toward her jaw. Faith slipped two inches to the left, letting the fist pass through empty air where her face had been a millisecond before.
Her right hand shot up like a striking snake, wrapping securely around his wrist at the radio bone. Her left hand clamped onto his elbow, securing a double-joint lever lock.
Second 5:Bailiff Morrison cleared the gallery aisle, but found himself momentarily blocked by two spectators who had stood up in panic.
Second 6:Faith rotated her hips a precise quarter-turn—the exact movement she had practiced ten thousand times on the blue mats at the Second Chance Dojo. She converted Hollister's forward momentum into a fulcrum.
Hollister's two-hundred-and-ten-pound frame lifted off the ground, rotating over her center of gravity like a hinge.
Second 7:As he rotated, Faith’s right elbow came up in a controlled, measured arc, meeting the point of Hollister’s chin at the precise angle required to disrupt the brainstem's equilibrium. There was no anger behind the strike. It was pure, unadulterated physics applied with military precision.