### **Chapter 15: The Judgment**
Harvard Law had given Elle Hoods everything it could—criticism, skepticism, resistance—but what it had never expected was that she would give something back. Not compliance, not quiet submission, but a reckoning. The kind that forced even the most rigid minds to reconsider what they thought was unshakable.
Her final presentation wasn't about winning an argument. It wasn't about proving she was right or watching the panel struggle to dismantle her conclusions. It was about something far deeper—the cost of justice when it was reduced to theory.
She stood at the podium, her words sharp but measured. "We uphold the law because it is supposed to reflect truth. But when truth is inconvenient, the law does not pause to account for the human toll—it persists, unwavering, untouched by empathy."
Preston Montgomery III watched her, arms crossed, yet there was something unfamiliar in his expression now. Less dismissal. More contemplation.
"The law demands rationality. It insists that passion is dangerous, that emotional weight is irrelevant," Elle continued. "But the people who pass through the system aren't theories. They aren't footnotes. They aren't statistics. They are survivors. And survivors are not proof of justice—they are proof of its failure."
The professor leaned forward. "You believe justice needs emotion to function?"
Elle's gaze was steady. "I believe justice needs *humility*. Because when the law moves too slowly in a survivor's space, when technicalities drown out human suffering, when precedent dictates who deserves fairness instead of truth—then the law ceases to be justice at all."
Silence.
Then, softly, she began to recite:
**The Law and Me**
Aristotle said, "The law is reason, free from passion,"
A noble ideal, a timeless fashion.
But when will its reason, so cold and austere,
Free me from the shadows I carry near?
Justice speaks in measured tones,
Yet my cries echo through hollow stones.
Where is the balance, the empathy's face,
When the law moves slow in a survivor's space?
Rationality reigns, detached and clear,
But it cannot erase what happened here.
I seek not vengeance, only to heal,
For the wounds are deep, and time won't seal.
If law is reason, then let it see,
The human cost of this agony.
Not just logic—compassion must rise,
To mend the broken and hear our cries.
When she finished, the room was still. No arguments, no immediate rebuttals. Just the weight of her words, resting in the space between tradition and reckoning.
Harvard Law had taught her how to defend legal structures. But Elle Hoods had taught them why those structures needed to be rebuilt.
She wasn't a student anymore.
She was a force they couldn't ignore.
And the system—whether it wanted to or not—had just been placed under cross-examination.