Prisoner (Criminals & Captives #1)(9)

What. The. Fuck? I raise my hand.

She comes over, her eyebrow raised coolly. “Yes, Grayson.”

Grayson. Is that supposed to mess me up, when she says my name low and throaty? Hell, it just makes me want to hear it again. But closer, quieter. Along with buttons flying, silk tearing. Petal-soft skin I can bite and mark.

“Why didn’t you call on me?”

“This was your first class. I didn’t want to put you on the spot.”

I’d wanted to test my theory. Now I can’t. “Are you going to read our paragraphs?”

She hesitates. “That’s the idea. Feedback helps you improve and eventually prepare your work for publication.”

I can’t completely hide the smirk at that. Publication. Of our vignettes. She’s so f*cking overblown. Instead of being annoyed, though, I find it hot.

Her eyes narrow. “There’s only fifteen minutes left, so you’d better get writing.”

“Yes, Ms. Winslow.”

Something flashes in her eyes before she turns away. And I write, because this is important. Getting her approval so I can send a message to my crew.

I think about my foster brothers and the kind of things they used to feel shitty about. I remember the Jordan Clinic incident—my brother felt shitty about that. It was right after he made the high school baseball team.

I decide to write his story like it’s mine. I don’t know much about baseball—I was five when I stopped playing any kind of games—but I’m going to try to fake it. That’s typical childhood shit, right? I try to imagine what it would’ve been like.

It’s the happiest day of my life when I make the high school baseball team. Me and the guys go out celebrating, and we get really wasted. We get wild and start throwing rocks at windows and tagging walls like we sometimes do. I guess they all deserved it except Jordan Clinic. Mr. Jordan, he was never anything other than nice to us kids, but we trashed his window and spray painted inside.

I really get into it, using the scene where he told me.

The next day, I took my uniform out of the box. And my mitt. As point guard, I got the right-handed mitt. I tell my little brother about what we did, pretending it’s all a joke, but even he can see how shitty I feel about Jordan Clinic. How bad old man Jordan would feel when he saw what we did. I put on the uniform for him and show it off, but I just feel bad…

I can still see him in our room; I can still taste how guilty he felt.

It’s a little heavy-handed, but I think she’ll buy it. Senseless violence and guilt. How can you go wrong with that?





Chapter Six




Abigail


Students fill the space around me, expanding through the hallway like a deep, rushing breath. In and out, like the school is meditating its way through a day of classes. In a few minutes they thin out, leaving the door to Esther’s office in plain sight.

My appointment started fifteen minutes ago, and I’ve been standing here for much longer than that. I’ve done my two additional sessions at the prison like I said I would. I need her to let me out of the class. She’ll be disappointed, but it’s too much for me. He’s too much for me.

I square my shoulders and knock.

“Come in, Abby,” she calls right after my knock, her voice serene, expectant but not impatient.

I push inside and find her in front of her desk. Did she know I was standing just six feet away? From her gentle smile and squeeze of her hand on my shoulder, she did.

“I’m sorry I’m late,” I say. “I don’t know what got into me.”

“There’s nothing to worry about.”

That’s it. No pressure. She settles herself behind her desk and waits for me to speak.

I start haltingly. “Well, they didn’t mock me the last two class sessions like they did at first. That’s one thing at least.”

She nods encouragingly. “You connected with them.”

“The first pieces of writing they turned in were…overblown. Their second set of assignments, you could feel the truth. That part was good.” I think about the way we laughed together. Maybe there was a little connection. But I think they need someone older, someone who actually wants to be there. And I need to be anywhere but prison. “It’s not a total failure, but…”

She waits.

“It’s still not going to work. I haven’t changed my mind. The class feels out of control.” I’m the one who feels out of control.

“It sounds just the opposite,” she says.

“I got a new student,” I say. “The class was full.”

“Ah,” she says, a wealth of meaning in that one word.

“I said he could join the class, but there are too many students now, and everything’s falling apart. It’s not working. Bottom line.” And that was the deal we made. I need her to not go back on it. I did my time; now I want out—just like the inmates have their sentence and then they’re free.

“All right.” There’s no censure in her voice. I want there to be censure. “He’s disruptive?”

“Not really. Even though he’s sitting in my chair. He took over my chair.” I stifle a smile. He really is kind of brazen.

“And your class? Has he taken that over too?”