"No, but why don't you tell me why you were removed from Applebrook and brought here? As you said yourself, the hopeless and the dangerous criminals are the ones who are brought here. Surely, you would never stoop so low as to appear hopeless, Sin. So, what is it that made you appear so dangerous?"
I look at her, waiting for her to blink or get that fearful look she gets in her eyes every time she presses me with questions about my past. Questions she knows she doesn't truly want answers for. This time, there's no fear, there's just pure anger. I tilt my head to the side a little without breaking eye contact. "I tried to kill Jackson Crownwell." And if I ever see that bastard again, I won't fail twice.
"It's a shame you didn't succeed," she says. "I'm here because of you, right? Isn't that what your dad said to me?"
"You know you've been snapping at me for days for having mood swings, and now you're kind of acting like a bitch." I'm going to go ahead and assume she just put the pieces together and realized I'm the person to blame for all of this—for the demise of her life.
"Maybe you're a little confused, but I'm not the one who dragged you out of Applebrook and then threw you into the back of a van," I tell her. That wasn't my fault. It wasn't my fault that she went looking for trouble that day.
"How did you know I was thrown into the van?" she snaps back.
"I saw you." I let out a long sigh, hating to have to admit all of this to her. "I watched from a window as he threw you in."
"You knew?"
"Yes. I watched as you were thrown into the darkness. I saw the fear in your eyes. I witnessed the exact moment your innocence was torn away from you. I wanted to tell you how sorry I was for what you were about to go through, but I was restrained."
"Your father has kidnapped others?"
"No. He took you because your mother took me." I swallow the bile rising up my throat, feeling the hatred toward myself while again admitting what I've caused this poor girl.
"My mother took you?" she asks. Confusion forces lines across her forehead, and I hate that I have to be more detailed with my explanation.
"I was blamed for my Mother's death, Reese. I was taken away because of it and detained in Applebrook after being diagnosed with psychosis. Because I was a minor, and they didn't have any real proof, they sentenced me to two years and then a probation program following that." Freedom was just around the corner for me. "I was supposed to be released the day you saw me getting dragged off down the hall, but Mr. Crownwell had other plans for me." Reese has this look on her face like I'm telling her the world ended last year.Although, would I even know if it did?
"What happened then?" she asks, appearing to have trouble swallowing her thoughts.
"Unfortunately for me, I had overheard a conversation Mr. Crownwell was having over the phone about Chipley. I was sent to his office for my discharge papers and I found myself frozen at his door as I listened to his plans, what he had rolled out, and how he was laundering the state's money by maintaining Chipley as an overflow project for Applebrook." Mom had always told me that Chipley was a place where sick people could become well again. I believed her. Now I know it's a place where the hopeless come to rot. "I was still in shock when he turned to find me listening to his conversation. I had caught him. He employed my mother and he knew I had lived in Chipley for almost two years before my mother—I wasn't supposed to know the truth."
"Wait, you lived here before?"
"Yes, my mother was a caretaker. Things were different then." Or I was just on the other side and never saw what was actually happening. "Anyway, because of everything I heard, Mr. Crownwell had me re-detained for 'trying to kill him.' He couldn't release me back into the public with the information I had." I was supposed to be released back to my home town—the normal life I had before Chipley. Mom planned it all out. Her death. My arrest. And my freedom.
"So, you really did nothing to be here?"
"No. I'm innocent. Like you."
