Waiting.
I go with them peacefully. I don’t admit my guilt, but I don’t deny it either.
The hardest part is seeing my parents at the police station.
They demand to stay at my side at all times. They’re sitting next to me when I admit on the record that I burned down the old factory. I never mention the man I killed, and they never ask. Dad tries to explain about Elio’s kidnapping. Mom sees the grief in my eyes and recognizes that Elio’s never coming home. It’s her heart-wrenching cry that I’ll never forget.
It’ll haunt me until the day I die.
I almost wish my parents would forsake me, but they never do. They fight for me. They love me. But they don’t understand that I’m not me anymore.
It’s an unexpected relief when I finally sign the paperwork agreeing to a no-contest plea deal for two years in prison for arson. Despite being a minor, the crime was severe enough, and my age old enough, that I’m considered an adult with adult consequences. I’m glad. I don’t want any part of my old world. It’ll only remind me of what I’ve lost.
To that end, I begin a frigid December day walking into my new home at Queensboro Correctional Facility.
“Y’er big, but y’er nothin’ but a baby, ain’tcha?” A middle-aged man with a scraggly red beard and a heavy Southern accent sits down at the table across from me. My first dinner in my new home.
I continue to eat the so-called food on my tray.
The chatter in the room around us softens, and I know this isn’t a friendly chat. I expected something like this to happen upon my arrival. I’ve seen prison shows and heard rumors about what it’s like. While this is a minimum-security state facility rather than a federal penitentiary, it’s still a prison. This man is testing me to see where I fit in the hierarchy.
His test should terrify me.
If I’m honest, there’s a sliver of fear somewhere down deep, but it’s been buried by a mountain of grief and self-loathing so heavy, it has no hope of surfacing. This guy wants to taunt me? Make me fear for my life? I have news for him.
My life’s already forfeit. Killing me would be a mercy.
He swipes his finger through what I think is supposed to be mashed potatoes and sucks his finger in and out of his mouth with a pop. “Don’t suppose you’d mind sharin’? We could be friends, you and me. It’s good to have friends in a place like this.” He sounds country in a way that his mama might have also been his sister.
Not ideal friend material.
“Hey!” He flicks my tray, irritated at my lack of reaction to him. “I’m talkin’ to you.”
When his hand comes toward my tray again, I quickly shift my fork to a fist hold and stab it into the back of his hand with lightning speed. Before he can react, I stand and yank my tray up, sending food flying everywhere, then use both hands to slam the lightweight metal across his head. It’s too flimsy to cause real damage, but it sends the proper message.
Don’t. Fuck. With. Me.
The entire mess hall erupts into chaos. Some people take trays and scurry to the far walls. Some abandon their food to get a closer look at the scene, and a guard over the intercom issues a warning. The man across from me stumbles backward off the bench seat, his hand held tight to his chest, and a savage snarl on his face.
“You fuckin’cunt. You’ll pay for that,” he spits at me.
I glare back at him unmoving, keeping my senses open to detect movement at my back. I don’t expect a bully like him to admit defeat easily. As if on cue, two men sidle up to the redneck across from me so that all three can attack on a unified front.
My hands ball into fists.
The chatter all around us swells then swiftly recedes, allowing a single cackling laughter to rise to the surface. Before long, the entire room is silent, save for an old white-haired man sitting in a corner. If I’d thought the redhead’s beard was scraggly, I’d been mistaken. Not compared to the leathery-faced geezer who is now the central focus of every pair of eyes in the room.
What the hell is going on here, and why are they all staring at him?
I watch warily as inmates scatter to get out of the way when the old man stands and crosses the room toward me. Once he reaches me, he pauses, his eyes sweeping the room.
“Eat your fucking food. Show’s over.” His grizzled voice lilts with a heavy Eastern European accent. “You, too, Miller,” he adds with an edge of disgusted irritation. When he looks back at me, he flashes a wide grin of crooked, yellowing teeth and claps a hand on my back. “Sit, my new friend. My name is Grisha, and that was the most I’ve laughed in months.”
The room slowly returns to normal around us.
While he seems agreeable, I’m not about to assume anything. My shields are all still on high alert.
Grisha chuckles. “Good, good. You’re no fool. It’s good to be wary in life. Tell me, what is your name?”
