Prisoner (Criminals & Captives #1)(5)

I’m shaking my head, glad she can’t see me.

She sighs. “Two more classes. Stick it out for two more sessions and if you still don’t like it, we’ll talk about changing your project.”

“Really?”

She purses her lips.

“Thank you,” I say.

“Those men may seem resistant to what you do. But a few of them need desperately to speak, to tell their stories. Some people need to tell their stories in order to be healed, to be whole, and you can give them a space in which to do that. You have a gift, Abby. You care deeply about stories, about people. That’s what they need.”

I think of the man in the hallway and wonder what story he might tell.





Chapter Four





I set the last memoir essay on top of the stack and take a deep breath. I may hate being here, in this room more like a prison cell than a library, but I have to admit the essays were some of the best things I’d ever read. Raw emotion tossed onto the page as if it weighed nothing.

My dad was in lockup for hitting my mom. I tried out for orchestra even though he said not to. He couldn’t do nothing from jail. I didn’t make the cut, though. It’s probably for the best cause he got out early for good behavior.

Did Teke’s father hit him too? Was that what had changed him from the hopeful musician to a hardened criminal? I press the heels of my palms to my eyes. Get it together.

A loud clang. They’re coming. The library is small, but it takes them a long time to wind around the tall metal shelves in their orderly formation. I can hear them shuffling, the clink of metal cuffs a chilling accompaniment.

Our classroom is a space in the back of the resource center with sixteen chairs and desks arranged, like everything in this prison, in an unimaginative square—four up the side and four across. A desk and chair set reserved for me faces the area where the men are to sit, like an old-school classroom. The desk at the head of the class is a reminder that I’m in charge, even if I don’t always feel it.

The furniture is bolted to the floor so it can’t be used as weapons. No walls or doors separate us from the main area, but I don’t mind. The guys spend enough of their day penned inside. In the library, with the scent of old paper and book glue wafting through the air, they can be in the open.

I greet each student as he rounds the nearest shelf. “Hello, Teke. Griff. Good morning, Jacob.”

Some of them return the greeting. Others grunt or nod. A few ignore me completely, not meeting my eyes.

All the seats are full. I wait for Mr. Dixon to round the corner. He’s the guard assigned to watch my class, and he always brings up the rear. Never turn your back, he explained the first day. I’d asked him then if he’d like to participate, since he had to sit in anyway. He blushed and told me he’d better focus on the task at hand. That was too bad. I bet he’d have stories to tell.

Except the man who turns the corner after all the students are seated isn’t wearing a brown guard’s uniform.

My breath catches. Him.

My gaze darts away, running for cover, before I can stop myself. Chin up. I may be young—younger than anyone else in the room—but I’m in charge. I’m the teacher, even if it’s only a required project for my undergrad class. My pulse thumps unsteadily, and my hands become slick with sweat.

It’s not his fault that his eyes are like dark diamonds, hard and deep. It’s not his fault that he stands a whole head taller than Dixon, the guard, or that his neck is as thick as a tree trunk.

It’s not his fault that he’s terrifying—and strangely compelling too. So handsome it’s hard not to look. Offensively handsome.

I force a smile. I can do this. “Hello, I’m Ms. Winslow.”

Of course, he already knows my name. He mouthed it from across the hall.

No, I’m overthinking this. He’s probably forgotten it by now. I’m nothing to him. I’m nobody. That theory seems to hold when he nods and says simply, “Ma’am.”

“I’m sorry I didn’t get a chance to tell you earlier,” Dixon says. “There’s one more student for you.”

One more student I can deal with. But him? “He’s already missed two classes.”

Dixon looks uneasy. His gaze doesn’t meet mine. “Grayson’s a smart one. Won’t cause you any trouble, I’m sure.”

Grayson. There’s something almost regal about it. About him.

But Dixon is wrong—Grayson is already causing me trouble. The class is sitting idle while we figure this out. And I’ll have to work with this guy one-on-one to get him caught up, and that feels so personal. Memoirs are personal, which is exactly why I don’t want this guy in my class. Bad enough I have to be here; I don’t need this strange awareness I have of him. Attraction.

I shake my head. “Maybe he can join a different class. There’s not really a desk for him anyway.”

That seems to stump Dixon, who touches his shirt pocket as if the answer to this problem might be in there. But it’s not like he can bring in a new desk and chair and weld them to the floor.

“I’ll stand,” Grayson says in that low voice.

I raise an eyebrow. “Then how would you write?”

The corner of his lip turns up, a faint challenge that Dixon can’t see. “One word at a time, same as all of them.”