My pain doesn’t matter to anyone. My father’s sins will go unseen, and thus, will multiply for as long as he likes. For as long as I’m alive to pay for his crimes.
I will never bake Sloan another strawberry tart for his birthday, because I’ll be in here still when he’s old and gray.
I’ll even miss his funeral.
More terrified screams burst out of me, but this time, they have no end. I have no anchor. I can’t feel my body unless I’m clawing at it, so I scrape at my cheeks and throat with my nails and the jagged edge of the spork, while the horrors echo off the walls.
I call for Sloan until I’m hoarse, and then rasp his name in the dark.
I’m drowning, dying in this trunk.
Sloan is my superhero, but I’m learning that even his reach has its limits.
He can’t save me from the family.
No one can.
So I scream and drown as long and as loud as I like, smearing more blood on the walls because I don’t want it. I don’t want to be Conan Valentine’s daughter. I don’t want to be his show dog.
I want Rafe, whose owner doesn’t want me.
15
Damage in the Daylight
I guess I slept, because the light wakes me up when it turns on overhead. A tray is shoved through the door’s slot, but I don’t care about food. I’m still blinking at the room, trying to make sense of it all.
Did I do this?
A dozen crimes, maybe two dozen I remember marking off on the wall, but when I examine them in the light, I can see the markings of a mind gone wrong.
I painted a wall with hundreds of lines of my own blood.
So this is what it looks like when I snap.
My uniform is spotted with patches of crimson along my legs and arms. The opposite wall doesn’t have lines but whole handprints smeared like a caged animal trying to escape with her last breath.
My arms are shaking from the cold. There wasn’t even a pillow or a blanket in here, and no cot or bed to lay atop. I’ve been spoiled by Gray’s warmth.
Gray. Cass. Charlotte.
I can’t let them see me like this. They went out on a limb for me, keeping me together and shouldering sneers aimed at me. I won’t let them bet on a limp horse. I’m stronger than this.
I had my day of falling apart. Now it’s done.
With quaking hands, I wash my face in the sink as best I can with no mirror, scrubbing off the blood that dried in divots across my cheeks. I rinse off my arms, hissing at the sting of icy water across my cuts.
I’m too afraid to look at the damage I did to my thighs, so I leave them alone and hide the indiscretions under my bloodied jumpsuit.
My breakfast is cold oatmeal. Though, to be fair, maybe it was hot when they brought it up. This room is pure ice, so the oatmeal didn’t stand a chance.
I take a page from Charlotte’s book and try my hand at meditating. The others are no doubt lining up for sewing detail and whatever other assignments people get in here. I still don’t know all the facets of this place.
I take the freedom I’ve granted myself and relax my shoulders, resting my hands atop my knees, palms up and open.
The deep breaths distance me from this place, from my father, from myself. I’m with Sloan in my imagination now, and we’re picking out curtains for my house on the Henley property. He wanted the standard emerald to match the family crest. I wanted pink.
In the end, we settled on gold, which is also in the family crest, but we had a lively back and forth of him putting the emerald curtains in the basket, and me taking them back out over and over again.
I can’t believe I’m smiling after the night I’ve had, but Sloan gets me.
Even if he can’t get me out of this.
I need to say goodbye to him. When he visits next, I’m going to release us both from the hope that we’ll ever argue over curtains again. I’m not getting out of here, and he needs to move on. He should pick his own curtains that have nothing to do with the family crest. He’ll be far away from that life without me there to tether him in the game.
I push the sadness aside as the decision forms in my mind. I had my time of crying about my life. Now comes the time for taking responsibility and making arrangements.
There’s Sloan, done the next time he visits.
My heart is colder than my fingertips and twice as hollow, but I cling to the emptiness because it feels like nothing. I don’t want to be the crazy girl painting her blood on the walls. I want to feel none of it.
I need to release Charlotte, Cass and Gray. I don’t know how to do that, because they’ve done nothing wrong, but it’s safer for them not to be associated with me. Charlotte’s so sweet, thinking she has a plan to free us all. None of us has it in us to tell her the truth: the system will never change because it keeps the treasury filled. Our parents pay a hefty sum to the government, and pass their crimes onto us.
We are not people. We are currency. We are the reason King Regis can brag that our country is strong and the royal treasury is filled.
No, no. I can’t tell her that. It would break her precious heart. But I can put a healthy distance in there. Maybe ask for a room change.
But chances are I’ll end up in a cell with three people who will use the lack of supervision to show me how they really feel. The shoves and covert bumps will turn far more violent when the guards aren’t around.
As if I’m not just like them, stuck here without a prayer of getting my old life back.
No, I’ll stay with the three of them, but I’ll be more professional. Less needy. I cringe at what a weak link I’ve been. Cuddling up to a stranger because I’m scared of the dark? No, no. It’s no wonder Gray doesn’t want me to be his girlfriend. He wants to be with me only in private, not when the world can see. I’m such a loser for wanting someone who’s embarrassed to be with me. Or maybe he never wanted me at all, and was only nice to me because I’m pathetic.
Correction: was pathetic.
I’ve got my feet under me now.
Minutes or hours tick by, marked only by the next meal coming through the slot. I’m shivering now, holding myself in the corner as if that’s the place to find warmth.
I know where true heat lies, but I won’t go back to it. Gray deserves good things, and I’m a woman who paints her blood on the walls.
Besides, I’ll never be free of Dad’s reach. We could never be together, except in here, and even that’s a stretch. I could never take Gray to my favorite haunts, dress him up in suits and ties and show him off like the hottie he is. No way would our relationship fly to the public, even if he suddenly wanted to be with me. Even at Prigham’s, where we’re distanced from our parents’ influence, the minds are too tethered to prejudice. They don’t care about how warm a shifter can be. They prefer their cold fae companions, because it’s safer and it looks like them.
I can eat the bread on my lunch tray, but nothing else. The broccoli was cooked in the meat sauce, I can tell, and the mashed potatoes have chicken gravy on top. My stomach hurts, though it’s not because I’m hungry (or not just because of that, anyways). Something acidic claws at my insides, raking its way through my intestines like glass.
My mind is tripping over too many details that should know better than to bother me now. Everly Ann misses me. She likes to sleep on her pink pillow next to mine atop my bed, and cuddle up to me when I sleep.
I can’t believe I have more tears in me, but they fall without apology this time. I miss my puppy and her tail that wagged just for me and Sloan.
Everly Ann will keep Sloan company. She’ll make sure he doesn’t die alone.
My body won’t stop rocking back and forth. Minutes feel like years, and they pile up like coffins, all with Sloan’s name on them. I need to say goodbye to him. I need to set us both free.
He’ll find a new friend who will learn how to bake strawberry tarts for his birthday.
And I will die in here, an old woman with no one by her side.
; 16
Haunted Vagina
I don’t remember laying down on the concrete, but that’s how the guard finds me. “Holy…” Officer Johnson starts, staring with horror at the walls. “What did you do?”
I prop myself halfway up on shaking elbows. “Therapy. I’m good now.”
I don’t expect kindness, but it comes to me anyway as he helps me up off the floor. Officer Johnson was a bit of a tool when I first met him in the cafeteria, but his wry sense of humor softened his edges over the past few weeks. Now, gaping at me like I’m his own child gone horribly wrong, true empathy radiates off of him.
He radios for help, and Nurse Jen is there in the next… I’m not sure how long. Time feels fuzzy to me now.
She doesn’t hold back her swearing, and I love her for it. “Shite, Arlanna. What did you do to yourself?” She frowns up at Johnson. “I thought the report said she punched Ursa. Did Ursa mark her up like this? Why wasn’t she treated before she was thrown in here?”
Officer Johnson holds up his free hand as they walk me slowly through the halls, one of them holding each elbow in case my feet stop working properly. “According to the report, she was unmarked when she was brought in here. She did this to herself in lockup.” Officer Johnson squeezes my elbow, his salt-and-pepper eyebrows pushed together in genuine concern. “It’s going to be alright, kiddo.”
When we get to the infirmary, Nurse Jen looks me over, her mouth painted and tight as she sizes up the damage. Sizes up me. “Suicide watch,” she rules.
“You’re going to watch me kill myself?” I joke. “Is there really nothing good on television anymore?”
She narrows one eye as she sits me down in a chair and hands me a paper cup of water. “Hilarious. Just means you get to spend a little extra time with someone on the outside, or some extra time with me. Your choice.”
“No, thanks. I dealt. I’m good now.”
“Then I’ll see you tomorrow for therapy, unless you want me to call a family member.”
“Can I call my bodyguard? He’s the only one who’s visited me. I don’t want to talk to my family. And I can’t afford you. You know each visit costs a week’s wages.”
She folds her arms over her generous breasts, showing off colorful tattoos up and down her forearms. Her short, dyed hair makes her look punk-ish, but not overly so. Really, she comes off as a compassionate badass, which is kind of great.
“Sloan has paid for all your medical visits, no matter how many.”
I shake my head. “I have to start living without the outside world. I need to set Sloan free.”
Nurse Jen doesn’t back down. “It’s already taken care of, so there’s no point in refusing the help. But you have to do me a favor, Princess.” She points to my visible cuts. “No more of this rubbish. Clawing your face up? I don’t do scared, and this scares me.”
“I’ll draw smiley faces next time.” I don’t know why I’m giving her attitude. My head sags. “You’re being nice to me, and I’m being a pill.”
“Well spotted. How about I cut you some slack, since you just got out of solitary, and you tell me what all this is about while I disinfect your cuts. I think that sounds fair.”
It does, but I don’t like it. Still, I can tell she honestly cares. She’s probably in her late forties, which is Sloan’s age. It’s that older sibling-slash-authority figure I actually work well with.
She grabs some ointment and a swab, instructing me to roll up my pant legs. “Why don’t you start with what possessed you to punch Ursa.”
“She started it. Called me a shifter whore because I’ve got a thing for Gray.”
Jen pauses and fixes me with a hard stare. “You’re smarter than letting her get under your skin. And she’s stupider than a squirrel searching for nuts in a coffee cup. Responding to her is beneath you.”
“Yeah, I know. I just wanted some space. Punching her was a good excuse.”
“You wanted solitary?”
“Yup.”
She shakes her head at the state of my thighs. “Good choice?”
“Not so much.”
“So next time you want some space, tell the guards you’re having a woman problem. Then come see me, and I’ll give you all the space you need to puzzle things out.”
I snort, surprised that anything’s funny. Bollocks, she’s good. “I can say ‘woman problems,’ and they’ll just let me go?”
“If you say the word ‘vagina,’ they’ll expedite the whole thing.” We share a snigger, and I feel my shoulders relax. “They’re scared of what they don’t understand. Same could probably be said about Ursa, and the other kids who called you a shifter whore.”
“That would be fine if we actually were kids, but every inmate at Prigham’s is in their twenties or thirties. They should know better.”
“Did you? I mean, before you got the burning loins for Grayson, had you ever dated a shifter? I thought you’d only ever dated Prince Paxton.”
I keep my gaze from her, though I know I have nothing to be ashamed of. “I never dated anybody, fae or shifter. And the reporters are idiots. I haven’t been in the same room as Paxton since we were children.”
No matter how many times I tell people this truth, apparently, it’s never enough.
She snorts her disbelief, but then pauses when she sees I’m not joking. “You’re serious? Well, that’s the last time I listen to those gossip sites. I thought for sure you were dating the prince, but then he didn’t show up to visit you, so I wondered if you’d broken up or something.”
I shoot her a wry grin. “The papers don’t care much for facts if the story sells.”
“Well, I’ll be. You can’t trust anyone anymore.” She turns and pulls out a sachet of my special tea Sloan sent for me to have once a week.
“No, thanks. I don’t need the tea.”
She frowns. “It’s supposed to help with your heart murmur. Your doctor sent over the prescription and everything. Every week when I make you your cup, you don’t actually drink it. Don’t think I don’t notice.”
I cast her a wry look. “You and I both know tea can’t cure a heart murmur. Sloan’s a sweet bodyguard who needs to let go of the idea that I’ll ever be his charge again. It’s time I let go. I’ll pass on the tea.”
I’ll pass on anything that reminds me of home.
“Very well. No tea.” Nurse Jen fishes for a change of topic as she dabs at my neck with more ointment. “If you’re going to have a thing with Grayson, go for it.”
It’s odd to be given permission to like a boy. That’s never happened to me from an authority figure before.
“I tried, but he’s not into it.”
“Hence, your need for a break. I see.”
“I think I rushed through acclimation too fast or something. I’m not dealing so well with the change.”
Jen rolls down my pant legs. “You don’t say. You set the record, you know. Fastest anyone’s ever graduated from acclimation. Bound to be some hiccups.” She helps me to stand as if I’m fragile. It’s the first time I’m starting to realize that’s exactly what I might be these days. “If you need a break next time, instead of punching Ursa, what are you going to say?”
“I tell the nearest guard that my vagina’s haunted. Then I come straight here.”
Jen belts out a laugh that shakes her whole body. “I don’t think there’s a cream for that!” Her laugh fills the whole room, and her smile is just about the greatest sight to see.
I love it. I love that I created something happy after being completely maudlin for this long.
Maybe it’s not so bad here after all. Even if I’ll be incarcerated for the rest of my life.
17
Blood for Charlotte
I’m escorted to the tail end of brick duty, but I stay far away from the others. Nurse Jen instructed the officers I’m to stay near them because I’m unstable. One look at the scratches down my cheeks, and they don’t ask questions.
It was her way of giving me space
from the stares, the shoves and the “shifter whore” rumors so I can breathe a bit.
Or maybe she really does think I’m unstable. Either way, I get to use a shovel, which is a tool I’m familiar with.
I was never supposed to get my manicure messy. On the many detours my days with Sloan took, I was to wait in the car and do nothing. But I’m not one to let Sloan barely survive a brawl, and then force him to dig a trench behind the family cottage to hide the evidence by himself.
Daddy started checking for dirt under my nails to make sure I wasn’t helping out with the family business in such a way anymore. Sloan was to do the dirty work, and I was to keep my manicure pristine.
The shovel in my hand feels like an act of defiance, so I love it, even when it starts to give me blisters.
I dig a narrow trench around one of the buildings, knowing it’s not for me to ask what’s going into the divots. Seeds, maybe. Or a line of some sort. I can feel eyes on me, but I don’t look up at them. I don’t know how I’m certain Gray is staring at me, but it’s like there’s actual heat in his gaze. Though, it doesn’t warm me anymore. Maybe parts of me have frozen over for good.
It’s just as well.
When the bell rings, signaling the end of the work day, everyone lines up and we march toward our cells. Someone I don’t know trips me on the way, but to my credit, I don’t make a sound as my knees crack on the concrete.
Officer Johnson helps me to my feet, but that only lasts a minute before another inmate shoves me hard, jerking my body forward so I fall a second time.
Excellent.
Johnson chews out the inmates both times, and I can tell he’s actually affronted on my behalf. It’s sweet, but I don’t care. Let them be angry and take it out on me. They need someone to punish for putting them in here, and I guess the target on my back makes for a satisfying bull’s eye.
Sins of the Father: A Paranormal Prison Romance (Sinfully Sacrified Book 1) Page 12
