Mike and Dan brought me meals much less often – I was lucky to get something three times a week now. I assumed they thought it was their fault that I’d felt I could do something like that and get away with it. I didn’t blame them, but I really missed that chocolate cake.
Eric had extensive reconstructive surgery. They estimated he would need at least six months of recovery before getting out of the hospital, but they wouldn’t be sending him back to me. No, there was a facility in Seattle for people like him.
At first, I regretted what I’d done. I wanted things back to the way they were: me getting free meals, me being respected by the only ones who actually matter (the guards), and Eric simply being a pompous ass. But after a while, after being in solitary, I got used to my predicament. All the inmates wanted to be my friend. The day I got out of solitary, they all swarmed to me like flies to garbage and started asking me questions.
“Can I get you anything?”
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“I have a connection on the outside; what can I getcha, man?”
“Who’s your next target?”
“Can I be your body guard?”
“Are you going to kill me?”
I realized they all feared me, but I knew that was the best way to be. I answered their questions as honestly as I could and tried to act the same as I had before, but it was hard not to let it all go to my head.
After all, I was now King. Why not have a little fun?
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Interlude
Samantha
“Are you sure you want to do this?” Mitch asked me. We were in the car driving to the state prison. I rolled my eyes.
“Mitch, we’ve gone over this how many times now? I want to see him, okay? He went to prison for saving my life, thanking him in person is the least I can do. You went to see him, why can’t I?”
“I just feel like it’s not a good idea.”
“You just don’t want me in the prison,” I huffed, crossing my arms and staring at him. He glanced at me and sighed.
“Why is it so bad that I want to keep you safe? After all, he just got out of solitary. I’m not even sure I should be seeing him. Who knows what he’s turned into?”
“Mitchell, just relax. It’s not like I’m going to be spending time alone with him in a butcher shop. Besides, you two are best friends. I’d think you’d trust him.”
“Are you going to tell him?” Mitch asked after a long pause. I turned to look at him.
“Why would I tell him?”
“I don’t know. I feel like he should know.”
“He doesn’t need to know, Mitch.”
“But what if it could help? You could dig into people’s thoughts, figure stuff out.”
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“Oh yeah because the judge would really believe I read someone’s mind and figured out that they lying. ‘Oh, see, judge, Jacob is thinking he’s going to get caught lying about this and go to jail for stabbing me,’” I mocked.
“It was worth a try.”
“No, it wasn’t. Zac doesn’t need to know, okay? No one needs to know. It’s just between you and me.”
I love you, he thought. I sighed and smiled, unable to be angry with him for very long.
“I love you, too.”
The state prison was a dreary building, though I wasn’t expecting anything nice and comforting. The entrance was a large concrete room with a receptionist desk manned by an average-sized prison guard. I took it there weren’t any women here. The guard looked up when Mitch and I walked in.
“Visitors?” he asked in a gruff voice.
“Juvenile ward, please,” Mitch said calmly and confidently, as if he’d done this hundreds of times before.
Truthfully, he’d only done it once, but I knew Mitch well enough to know he got used to things real fast.
“This way,” the guard said, gesturing with his chin. He got up from behind the desk and led us down a hallway.
“You doing okay?” Mitch whispered in my ear, taking my hand.
“I’m fine,” I snapped, a little miffed he kept asking. I wasn’t a child and he wasn’t my parent. There was no need for his overprotective nature.
“Both of you sign in here,” the guard said, taking a clipboard off the wall. Mitch and I both signed the clipboard and put in the time before the guard opened the door and let us in.
We walked into a large room full of circular tables, just like you always see in prison movies. Mitch and I looked around for an empty table, finally finding one in the very back.
We both sat down to wait for Zac, Mitch entangling our hands on top of the table as if to say, “Back off, she’s mine.”
Normally I would’ve been a little ticked off to not have full
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mobility of both hands, but I was so preoccupied waiting for Zac that I didn’t say anything.
Finally there was a loud ringing of a bell and the door on the other side of the room opened. A guard walked one prisoner through the door and over to his mother, who was smiling and crying. The guard went back for another prisoner, who went over to meet what I hoped was his girlfriend because they started making out over the table.
Zac was the fifth prisoner led out of the door, his hands and feet chained together. I wanted to smile or cry like the other families, but I couldn’t. A strange, awkward feeling rushed up inside me. It was the same feeling I used to get around him –
sweaty palms, the painfully hard beating of my heart – but this time I knew what it was (and what it wasn’t).
It was just adrenaline. I didn’t know why seeing Zac always flooded my system with adrenaline, but now that I knew I wasn’t in love with him I simply wanted to run away. But, I also loved the feeling, and I wanted to stay. It hurt, and it was scary, but it was also exciting. I was a real junkie.
But Mitch was squeezing my hands rather tightly, so I just sat there, my face flushing and my heart pounding.
Zac gave me a pained smile, as if he was feeling the same thing I was. He kept his shackled hands under the table, but I knew he was clenching them so hard his knuckles were white. His fight and flight instincts were at war, just like mine were.
“Thank you,” I said, my voice much more relaxed than I thought it would be. “Thank you for saving me.”
It felt wrong to say it out loud. Thanking him felt a little dirty, like I was betraying something, or someone, but I didn’t know what or who. It just felt wrong.
“Uh, yeah,” Zac replied. It was odd, but what was he supposed to say? No problem, I wanted to go to prison? We didn’t know each other well enough to make jokes like that.
“Uh, that was kind of all I wanted to say,” I said, swallowing hard. I wanted to leave. Being this close to Zac, knowing what he did for me, was far too much pressure. I glanced
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at Mitch, but he was glaring at some prisoner across the room.
“So, yeah, thanks.”
“How’s your throat?” he asked.
Shit, we’ve never had a conversation this long!
“It healed,” I said. Whenever someone asked me about my throat, I always reached up to scratch my scar. It never really itched, it was just a nervous habit I developed in an attempt to hide it. Of course, it always attracted attention because I was touching it, so I always felt more vulnerable than before. This time when I tried to scratch it, I realized Mitch was squeezing my hands together and I couldn’t get one loose, so I gave up.
“That’s good,” Zac said, looking down at his hands.
“I – I heard you got stabbed,” I said, realizing immediately afterward how insincere it sounded. “So, I guess we have something in common,” I added, trying to smile.
“I healed, too,” he said, looking up and meeting my eyes for only a second before looking away again.
“Good.” The conversation was going nowhere, and Mit
ch certainly wasn’t helping. I stomped on his foot to get his attention.
“Uh, yeah, good,” Mitch mumbled, turning to look at me, a questioning look in his eyes. One pleading look from me and he realized I needed to be saved.
“So, why’d you get stuck in solitary?” Mitch asked pleasantly. Oh, great, my dumbass boyfriend doesn’t read the goddamn paper.
“Mitch,” I scolded under my breath. He didn’t even look at me.
“Uh, I, uh, beat somebody up. The guy who stabbed me,”
Zac said, shifting uncomfortably.
“Yeah? Austin said you were going to. Must’ve been real bad to get you stuck in solitary.”
“Yeah, it was,” Zac confirmed, nodding.
“What exactly did you do?” Mitch asked. Oh please, Honey, for the love of God do stop talking.
“I broke his skull,” Zac said loudly. Mitch blinked and sat up straight.
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“You didn’t know?” I whispered, shielding my face from Zac with my hair. Mitch shook his head once, very slowly.
“I… I wouldn’t expect… how did you get so big?” Mitch gasped. I looked at Zac more closely this time – the adrenaline increasing so much I felt like I was going to burst – and realized Mitch was right. Zac had been pretty thin and light when we first met, but now he was looking pretty buff. In fact, his muscles were bigger than Evan’s, and I’d always thought of Evan being a real body builder.
“After I got stabbed I started working out,” Zac said with a shrug. “There isn’t anything else to do in here.”
“There’s no way you got that big in two weeks of solitary,” Mitch said. “Especially not on a prison diet.”
“I gained a lot of muscle while I was in the infirmary,”
Zac said with a shrug. “And I was working out probably ten or twelve hours a day while I was in solitary. There wasn’t anything else to do.”
Mitch stared at Zac, half in awe, half in jealousy. I glanced between the two – each staring at each other with the same expressions – and wondered what they were thinking.
Wait, I wondered what they were thinking?
I jumped into Mitch’s head so quickly it gave me a good jolt, enough to make me jump and Mitch shiver.
I can’t believe him. Really? How is it that he goes to prison and gets all buff and I can’t gain any muscle no matter how much I lift? I – Goddamn it, Sam, get the fuck out of my head!
“Sorry, babe,” I said sheepishly, yanking my right hand out of his grasp so I could pat his arm. Zac looked between us curiously.
Are you going to try and read him? Mitch thought. I squeezed his hand once, long and firm, to say yes.
“So, how’s the food? Do the guards still bring you stuff?”
Mitch began asking a lot of questions and saying a lot of things, so many that Zac didn’t have time to answer. I always wondered why in movies and TV shows, the mind-reader always read someone’s mind while that person was talking. When you’re
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talking, you think about what you’re saying, not anything else.
But when someone is talking your ear off, you tend to zone out and think about whatever’s troubling (or exciting) you. Mitch and I had worked out a routine; he would talk somebody’s ear off so they’d zone out, and I’d dig into their head.
Zac was worried about his hearing. He was also beginning to worry about his new body. He really didn’t know how he’d gotten it, and he was afraid someone had been slipping him some kind of drug.
I just wish I knew –
“Ouch!” Zac and I both cried at the same time, our hands flying to our temples.
“What’s wrong?” Mitch demanded quietly, leaning in towards me. A guard came over from the wall.
“Is everything alright?” the guard asked. Mitch looked up.
“I think there’s a bee in here,” he said, looking around.
“Yeah, something stung me,” I said, rubbing my temple.
The guard shrugged and walked back over to the wall. I looked up and Zac and leaned across the table, furious. “What did you do to me?” I demanded.
“Sam, babe, chill out,” Mitch soothed, rubbing my back.
“Tell me what happened.”
“He kicked me out,” I snapped. “How did you kick me out?”
“What the fuck are you talking about?” Zac asked, obviously confused.
“How did you do it?” I demanded again, ripping my other hand away from Mitch so I could slam them on the table.
“Babe, calm down, the guards will make us leave,” Mitch said, gently pinning my arms to my sides.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Zac said.
“Kick you out of what?”
“Out of your MIND!” I growled, using all of my self-control not to start screaming. The adrenaline was pumping so hard and fast through my veins I couldn’t control myself.
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“Holy shit, Sam, shut the fuck up!” Mitch whispered, frightened. He had no idea what was going on, and I didn’t blame him for freaking out.
“I’ll be in the car,” I managed to say without yelling. I stood up violently and half-ran for the door. A guard opened it for me and made me sign out.
Once outside the prison, I leaned against the side of the building and took a few deep breaths, letting the adrenaline seep out of my body. I wasn’t sure how I’d managed to have a class with him for so long – the pressure of being that close was too much now.
After a few minutes, I felt exhausted. I walked over to Mitch’s truck and realized I didn’t have a key, so I searched for the hide-a-key under the bedrail. I found it, unlocked the door, and put it back.
Once I was safely inside the truck with the doors locked again, I leaned the seat back and closed my eyes. Taking a deep breath, I let myself relax completely, and I fell asleep.
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Chapter four
“You want to tell me what her deal is?” I asked, extremely relieved Sam had left. I hadn’t realized how intense seeing her again was actually going to be. It wasn’t that I was attracted to her anymore, I was certainly over that, but I still felt that heightened awareness, the same I’d felt when I beat up Eric.
It lingered after she’d left, but I felt much more functional now. It was also a lot more comfortable to be talking to Mitch, not the reason I was in prison.
“It’s weird,” Mitch sighed, licking his lips. “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”
“Why did she say I kicked her out of my mind?” I asked.
Mitch twisted his hands together and his eyes darted around the room.
“I didn’t believe her at first, but she proved it so many times I had to accept it. Nobody else knows. We’re afraid of what’ll happen to her,” he said.
“Are you trying to say she can read my mind?”
“Not just yours,” he said. He gestured to the whole room.
“Everyone’s. It happened after the accident.”
“That’s ridiculous. She’s just trying to get attention. It started happening after she healed, right?”
“Well, yeah, but…”
“Attention, Mitch,” I interrupted. “She healed up all nice and perfect and everyone quit giving her so much attention. Just
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like Macy; everyone started ignoring her so she pierced her own nose, got it all infected and gross.”
“Zac, really, you don’t understand,” Mitch said, leaning forward. “She heard me say I love you.”
“So?”
“No, we were having a picnic and she was laying with me, her head on my chest, not looking at me, and she said, ‘I love you, too,’ and I said ‘What do you mean, you love me, too?’ and she’s like, ‘You just said I love you,’ but I didn’t say it, I thought it. And she heard it! I know it’s crazy but she really can read minds!”
“I think it was the fact she almost died,” Mitch said, completely ignoring me. “Maybe coming that close to death changes you, gives you some kind of advantage when you come back. Look at you!”
“What do you mean, look at me?” I snapped, uncharacteristically angry at being compared to Sam.
“You almost died,” Mitch said, gesturing towards me.
“When that guy stabbed you, Austin said you almost died. Now look! You got four times as big as you were in two and half months – and you were in the hospital most of that time! Maybe this is your gift.”
“You sound like a stupid religious…” I stopped. I was going to say, “You sound like a stupid religious nut,” but that reminded me of someone else I’d called a religious nut.
What was it Eric had said before I broke his face (literally)? He apologized to the Greek god of war… he called me the Seeker. He said he’d do anything to protect the Palace. What palace?
“Have you ever heard of anyone called the Seeker?” I asked.
“Uh, yeah, Harry Potter,” Mitch said with a laugh, giving me a funny look.
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“Oh, uh, yeah, right… never mind,” I said, brushing it off with a laugh. Maybe Eric was just nuts.
“So, do you believe me?” Mitch asked eagerly. I looked up.
“How can I? You realize how ridiculous it sounds, right?”
“Of course I do. I know it sounds totally dumb, but I swear it’s true.”
I stared at Mitch, wondering how he could possibly believe that his girlfriend could read his mind. Clearly she had him wrapped around her finger, and it was sad to see him so incredibly whipped. Then again, I at one point probably would’ve believed anything she said, so I guessed I couldn’t fault him for that.
But as far as I was concerned, Sam was crazy, and I was beginning to feel like saving her life hadn’t been worth it.
My hearing was the day after Mitch and Sam came to visit. I’d met with my lawyer four times since the initial visit, and my mother was yet to see me. So when I saw them at the hearing, speaking as if actually concerned for me, I was pretty enraged.
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