When his meal was brought to him, he was still standing at the bars.He didn’t have any idea how long he’d been standing there, but his knees were cramping up, and his body felt like it had a rod up his spine.Sitting down on his cot, he didn’t bother with complaining about his meal.He was just glad to have something else to focus on rather than the fact that all the rumors around the man were true.He really was a monster.And a badassed one too.
After his dinner tray was taken away, he still couldn’t wrap his mind around the fact that he’d been threatened.Not that he didn’t believe that the man would do as he said, but that he’d actually threatened him, of all people.And he’d gotten away with it, too.There was no doubt in his mind that the police wouldn’t back him up if it came down to it.So he’d be fucked either way if he were to complain about it.
Every time he closed his eyes, he could see the paw while it was there.It wasn’t a small one either, but a great paw like you’d see in the zoo or something.And the fact that he’d only had to do it the one time to scare him also made him pissed off.Why would he care, he told himself, if the man could make himself into a wolf?He didn’t, that’s what.
The more he convinced himself that he had nothing to worry about, the more he thought about the paw.He just couldn’t seem to get it out of his head that he’d been hearing all those talks about the man, and they turned out to be true.He had to wonder if the fact that he’d heard other rumors might be true, too, like the one that he could take your blood and read your mind.That was something that scared him more than the paw did.Richard liked having secrets.
Looking at his hand, he could see the marks on it.There were little places where there was blood, and he tried to remember if he’d taken any blood from the wounds.No, he kept telling himself.There was no way that he would have missed him doing that and put his hand down.He no longer wanted to look at the paw prints on his hand.
Closing his eyes again, he could see the paw and wondered if the rest of him as a wolf was big.He’d never seen a wolf up close before.Big dogs but never a wolf.Now here he was related to one, and there wasn’t much he could do about it.Richard wondered too if his teeth were as big as he had imagined them to be.Shivering once, he sat up on the side of the bed and looked around the dark room.Everywhere he looked, he could see those shining eyes glaring back at him, and it made his chest hurt a bit.Christ, he’d been scared.He still was, but he’d admit that to no one but himself.
Getting up to go to the room’s only source of light, he watched the clouds move over the moon.It was just a night like this that he’d been arrested and sent to prison.Dark and gloomy, the clouds darkening the sky.He sometimes thought about that night and wondered how he’d been caught.He’d been really good at covering his tracks.
He just knew it had been his wife who had turned him in.Fat lot of good it had done her if she’d been the one.She’d spent time in prison herself and hadn’t gotten out any earlier than he had.Or had she?He didn’t know precisely when she’d gotten out.They’d been in different prisons.He’d have to check into that as soon as he got someplace to look on a computer.
While he didn’t much care for the machines, he knew that they had their usefulness.He’d use them, but only when he had no one around him to make fun of the way he one finger typed.Or that he had to rely on spell check in order for him to get a word right.His spelling was atrocious, and he knew it.But then he’d never graduated from high school, getting out when he’d been a freshman the second time.
His life had been hellish when he’d been a kid.His parents were both in the church so much that they were rarely home.He’d have to go at least several times a week to be a part of the church, but he didn’t care for it.Just like other organizations, there were just too many rules that had to be followed in order not to get into trouble.He was forever in trouble when he was there.
Finally, his mother had taken him aside and told him that since he wasn’t going to cooperate with the church, he’d been in trouble just that morning for questioning the pastor about the existenceof god, he’d have to leave their home.No amount of trying to convince her would do any good either.So at seventeen, he was kicked to the curb with a hundred dollars and his clothing in a backpack.He’d never seen them again.
Then he’d met and married Rachel.He was sure that was her name because his daughter had said her name was Sharon.She’d been an all right person when he’d met her.Going to work every day meant that he had money to spend when he wanted it.Also, since she worked all day, he had her apartment to himself for most of the day, and that suited him just fine as well.Richard could get into all kinds of trouble during that time, and he usually got to knock her around, too, when she came home complaining about working all day and then having to clean up after him, too.He nipped that in the bud before it became too much of an issue.
Then one night during his robbery period, she’d been with him.Richard would always say that it was because of her being with him that got him caught.They’d been stealing a car that they really didn’t need—it was just the joy of it for him when the police came out of nowhere and busted up their little fun.Of course, it wasn’t just the car that they’d taken, but they’d robbed the house.He’d also tied up the homeowner and beat him up a bit, too.That made it so that he had a home invasion on his record, too.
He’d been surprised that Rachel had gotten any prison time at all.All she’d done was complain about getting caught.Then, when they got to the house, she refused to go inside with him, so he’d done all the other stuff on his own.He’d actually enjoyed beating the man and had been thinking about it a great deal since then.
If he’d been sure that there wasn’t a cell phone on her when they’d gotten to the house, he was positive that she’d called the cops on him.It would have been just like her to do something like that.She was forever bitching about how he didn’t have a real job, but he thought that robbing people of things that he wanted was hard work.She never understood that.Then there was the fact that she left him with their kid all day long while she worked.
She refused to take her with her, and that would piss him off.But every day, he had to keep an eye on the kid just to make sure that she wasn’t hurt.By the time she was old enough to go to school, it got easier, but he still resented the fact that he had to make sure that she was healthy and unharmed when Rachel got home from work every day.And she’d check her out, too, just to make sure that there were no bruises on her.
While she could be a pussy about some things, she sure was a good momma in keeping him in check over the kid.He might well have enjoyed knocking her around a bit.She’d been an uppity sort of kid.Then, when they’d gone to prison, she’d made sure that someone would watch over her and picked her momma over his own.Not that he knew where she was or anything, but he was hurt that she’d never even asked about her.
Feeling better about going to sleep, he laid down on the cot and closed his eyes.He’d had fun in prison, but it wasn’t a place that he wanted to go back to.Just too many rules were holding him back from having some real fun.Like none of the guards would allow him to touch their gun.That was just fucked up.
Also, he couldn’t get in merchandise like he wanted, so that he could make some hard money.Too many rules is what he thought, and didn’t understand why, with all the rules, someone didn’t pass some kind of law about it.Laughing to himself, he couldn’t believe the shit that would come up in his mind.If people could hear some of the shit that he thought of sometimes, he’d be in some kind of loony bin.Or a padded room for sure.
Finally able to get some sleep, he thought about tomorrow.He was going to have to figure out a way to get out of the mess he was in and get his daughter to turn over her money to him.He’d not harmed her as a kid, and that should get him something, he figured.Even if she didn’t give it all to him, she should at least give him half of it.It’s what he deserved after all the years that he’d had to put up with her bull shit.
~*~
Standing in his office, Kendrick popped his neck twice before he felt like he could face his patients.He’d been in a sour mood since he’d left the jail, and it wasn’t getting any better.Just as he was set to go out and see his first patient of the day, his door opened, and there stood Sharon.
“Are you in a better mood?”He just growled at her.“Very mature.I know you understand how to use your words.But in the event you care about my opinion, I thought that yesterday went well.I got to tell him off, and you got to be all macho and take some of his blood.I thought for sure you’d be tormenting him about now, but here you are with your feelings hurt, acting like a child without any cookies.”
“I’m not being childish.”He realized how badly he sounded and growled again.“I’m not being childish.I’m pissed off because he thinks that you’re stupid enough to just hand over the money without questioning him about it.You’re not going to do that and never would.How would he begin to think that was ever going to happen?”
“I’m sure it’s because he thinks that it’s his way or nothing.And he’s gotten used to that somehow, and now he thinks that the world owes him, and he can do just whatever he wants.Are you going to sulk all day?”He said that he wasn’t sulking either.“Could have fooled me.You’re really in a shitty mood, and I’m not.I wonder why that is.”
“Because you can’t see into his mind to see the things that he’s done.Not to mention he’s stupid.Did I tell you last night that he can barely read?That’s the type of person that we’re dealing with right now.”She said she didn’t care what his mentality was.“I do.I wonder if it was his upbringing.”
“His father was a pastor at one time, and when Dick started acting out, they asked him to step down.About the time, he was being kicked out of school, too.He was a freshman at seventeen and not going to pass the grade for the third time.”He asked her how she’d found that out.“Cass did one of those deep background checks on him and my mom.The only reason that she ended up in prison is that she was with him the night he was arrested.They claimed that she was driving the getaway car.I don’t know how that was to work since he stole a car and was driving it when they caught him.”
“Where were you when this went down?”She told him she’d never thought to ask.“More than likely in the car with one of them.They neither one sounds like they have much in the way of intelligence.”
“Mom didn’t graduate from high school either.The reason is that she got pregnant with me.Her parents kicked her out, or she might well have gone on to make something of herself.As it was, she and my dad got married so that she could put him on her insurance at her job.That’s what Cass figured out.Because almost as if the ink had dried, he was on her insurance policy at work.”
“Have you been talking to your mom?”She said other than that first time, no, she hadn’t.“Why not?I thought you wanted to get to know her.”
