“Through those doors, you’ll find lockers where you can put your keys and phone. Get rid of that wallet chain, too, kid.”
I eyed the Neo-Nazi-looking corrections officer like he could take his orders and shove them up his ass. He was bald, white-like-he’d-never-seen-the-sun, and as fat as a dozen Krispy Kremes a day will do to you. I wanted my shit on me, because I fully expected to turn around and walk out of here the moment I laid eyes on the sick bastard that was my father.
My father. My stomached turned at those words.
“How does this work?” I asked, reluctantly. “Will he be like in a cage, and we talk through some air holes or are there phones we use?”
Asking questions wasn’t my style. I either figured it out for myself, or I shut up and fumbled along. But the idea of seeing the twisted f**k made my muscles tense. I wanted to know exactly what I was walking into. Looking like a helpless kid to this cop was nothing if I could walk in there like a man in front of my father.
“Cages with air holes?” the Nazi-with-a-badge teased. “Watching a little Prison Break lately?”
Fucker.
He looked like he was trying to hold back a smile as he buzzed me through the double doors. “Thomas Trent isn’t here for murder or rape. No additional security needed, kid.”
No, of course not. It’s not like he was dangerous. Not at all.
Tipping my chin up, I walked calmly though the doors. “The name’s Jared,” I corrected him in an even voice. “Not ‘kid.’”
The visitation room—if that was what it was even called—boasted a high-school-like common area. Benches, tables, and snack machines filled most of the room, and windows along the south wall brought in enough light, but not too much.
It was Saturday, and the room was packed. Women held children in their arms, while the husbands, boyfriends, and significant others smiled and chatted. Mothers hugged sons, and kids shied away from the fathers that they didn’t know.
It was all happily horrible.
Scanning the room, I wasn’t sure if my father was already in here, or if I was supposed to sit down and wait for them to announce him. I wanted to dart my gaze everywhere at once. I didn’t like him knowing my position when I didn’t know his. My mouth was dry, and my heart pounded in my ears, but I forced myself to slow down and do what I always do.
I surveyed and tried to appear calm and comfortable, like I owned the place.
“Jared,” I heard a voice call, and I stilled.
It was the gruff voice I’d never forgotten in my dreams. It always sounded the same.
Patient.
Like the snake sneaking up on its prey.
Slowly, I followed the sound until my eyes landed on a fortyish looking man with blonde hair that curled around his ears and azure blue eyes.
He sat there, forearms resting on the table and fingers interlocked, dressed in a khaki button-down with a white T-shirt underneath. He probably had on matching pants, too, but I didn’t care enough to check.
I couldn’t tear my eyes away from his face. Nothing had changed. Other than being clean shaven now and his skin tone a little healthier—from not being on drugs, I would assume—he looked the same. There was still a little gray in his hair, and his once average build was now on the lighter side. I doubted inmates got the chance to get fat in prison.
But the part that got my palms sweaty was the way he looked at me. Unfortunately, that hadn’t changed, either. His eyes were cold and distant, with a hint of something else, too. Amusement, maybe?
It was like he knew something he wasn’t supposed to know.
He knew everything, I reminded myself.
And all of a sudden I was back in his kitchen again, my wrists burning from the rope and paralyzed from despair.
I reached into my pocket and pulled out the one thing I knew I would need. Tate’s fossil necklace.
I balled it up in my fist, already feeling a little stronger.
It was technically her mother’s, but I’d taken it when she left it on her grave one day. At first, I told myself that I was keeping it safe. Making sure it survived. Then it turned into another piece of her that I could claim.
Now, it was like a talisman. And I was no longer keeping it safe, but it was keeping me from harm.
Narrowing my eyes for good measure, I stalked over to him, not slow enough to look timid and not fast enough to appear obedient. On my own time, because he didn’t call the shots anymore.
“So what did you do?” he asked before I even sat down, and I hesitated for a moment before parking my ass in the seat.
Oh, yeah. He was going to talk to me. I’d forgotten about that part.
It didn’t mean I had to talk back, though.
I hadn’t decided how I was going to handle these visits, but he could go to hell. Fifty-two little get-togethers in the next year, and I may decide to speak to him at some point, but I wasn’t starting until I was goddamn good and ready.
“Come on,” he taunted. “May as well pass the time.”
A little part of me thought that, without drugs and alcohol, my father would—oh, I don’t know—behave like he had a heart. But he was still a dick.
“Did you steal?” he asked, but then continued as if talking to himself and tapping his fingers on the steel table. “No, you’re not greedy. Assault, maybe?” He shook his head at me. “But you never liked to pick battles that you could lose. With someone weaker, perhaps. You were always a little coward that way.”
I balled my other hand into a fist and concentrated on breathing.
Sitting there, forced to listen to his internal musings that he was so gracious to let me hear, I wondered if he just pulled this shit out of his ass or if he really was that perceptive.
Was I greedy? No, I didn’t think so. Did I pick battles with weaker opponents? It took me a minute to consider, but yes, I did.
But that was only because everyone was weaker than me.
Everyone.
“So it must be drugs, then.” He slapped his hand down on the table, startling me, and I looked down, away from his eyes, out of reflex. “I’d believe that. With your mother and me, it’s in the blood.”
Everyone. I reminded myself.
“You don’t know me,” I said, my voice low and even.
“Yeah, keep telling yourself that.”
No. He left me—and thank God for that—when I was two. He spent a few weeks with me one summer.
He did not know me.
Clenching Tate’s necklace, I stared at him hard. It was time to shut him up.
“How long are you in for? Six more years?” I asked. “What does it feel like to know that you’ll have gray hair before you get laid again? Or drive a car? Or get to stay up past eleven on a school night?” I raised my eyebrows, hoping my condescending questions would push him back in place. “You don’t know me, and you never did.”
He blinked, and I held his gaze, daring him to come at me again. It looked like he was studying me, and I felt like I had a sniper scope on me, zoning in.
“What is that?” He gestured to the necklace in my hand.
I looked down, not realizing that I had threaded my fingers through the light green ribbon. It was obvious I had something in my fist, and all of a sudden my heart started thundering away.
I wanted to leave.
Thinking about Tate and my father in the same thought, and having my father see something of hers, disgusted me.
You know the flowers a magician pulls out of their hand? At that moment, I wanted to be the flowers and go back into hiding. I just wanted to sink into the chair and be out from under his dirty eyes, taking the necklace with me where it would be safe.
“What’s her name?” His voice was low, almost a whisper, and I cringed despite myself.
Raising my eyes again, I saw him smile like he knew everything.
Like he had me under his thumb again.
“Six years, huh?” He licked his lips. “She’ll be in her twenties by then.” He nodded, and I saw flames, not missing his meaning by a long shot.
Mother. F**ker.
Slamming my hand down on the table, I heard gasps from those around us as I shoved my chair back and stood up to glare at him.
Whatever I was shooting from my eyes burned like hell.
I wanted him dead. And I wanted it to be painful.
Hot air rushed in and out of my nose, sounding like a distant waterfall.
“What’s wrong inside of you?” I growled. “Is it broken, dead, or just numb?”
My father looked up at me, not scared—I wasn’t a threat to him after all—and answered with the most sincerity I had ever seen from him. “Don’t you know, Jared?” he asked. “You have it, too. And so will your useless kids. No one wants us. I knew I didn’t want you.”
My face didn’t relax. It just fell, and I didn’t know why.
“I have a birthday present for you.” Tate’s dad appeared in my driveway, hands in his pockets, as I got out of my car.
I shook my head, feeling the f**king weight of the visit with my father crawling all over my skin. I’d just sped all the way home from the prison, and I needed a distraction.
“Not now,” I bit out.
“Yes, now,” he shot back, turning to walk back to his house, assuming I’d follow.
Which I did. If only to get him to stop busting my balls.
Traipsing behind him into his open two-car garage, I immediately halted with the disaster in front of me.
“What the hell happened?” I burst out, shocked.
The fully restored Chevy Nova that had sat in this garage for as long as Tate and Mr. Brandt had lived here was completely totaled. Well, not completely. But it was a f**king wreck. It looked like it’d been used in a baseball game between King Kong and Godzilla. Windows were shattered, tires slashed, and that was the easy stuff. Dents the size of basketballs covered the door panels and hood, and the leather seats were cut up.
“Happy Birthday.”
I jerked my head over at him and pinched my eyebrows together in confusion. “Happy Birthday? Are you crazy? This car was in great shape yesterday. Now you’ve turned it into a piece of junk, and I can have it?”
Not that I needed a car. Jax would get mine as soon as he turned sixteen and got a license, and I’d be buying another car any day now with the money from my grandfather’s house.
“No, you can’t have it. You can fix it.”
Gee, thanks.
“I figured you might need a little automotive therapy after today, so I decided to break out the sledgehammer and invent a project for you.”
Were all of the adults in my life on f**king crack?
James walked towards me, to the front of the car. “All that shit you feel, Jared…the frustration, the anger, the loss, whatever it is…” he trailed off and then continued, “it’s going to find a way out eventually, and you’re going to have to deal with it someday. But for now, just keep busy. It won’t cure anything, but it will help you calm down.”
Slowly walking around the car, taking in the damage and already compiling the materials I would need in my head, I figured it made sense. I still didn’t feel any better than I had a month ago, and I had no idea what to think of the things my father had said today. If anything, I felt worse now, but I just didn’t want to think about anything anymore.