by Mia Darien
Smiling weakly, Alex shook her head. “Don’t lie to me, Jesse...never works. Tell Linda I’m sorry we can’t go on that date. I really like her.” For the first time in as long as she could remember, there was silence in Alex’s mind. She looked at Jesse. “You and Jim should know...I love y’all like family.”
And the life went from Alex’s eyes.
Dedication
For my beautiful girls and boy who have passed on, Isis, Tauris, and Jackson – thank you for your love and loyalty. I really miss you. Beautiful baby boy, Jackson, thanks for reminding me that age doesn’t mean you stop getting excited over the little things. Now, for my new baby girl, Brianna, you are a mischievous whirlwind. So glad I found you. Thanks to my Mother and my supportive Sweetheart for being there, my fabulous friends and supporters, Romance Ravers, and of course, the fabulous ladies of O2O. Special thanks to my supportive readers and author friends. Dreamkeeper, you are a precious jewel.
***Special Note to Reader***
Part One ends in a cliffhanger; however, to receive your FREE copy of part two, just send an e-mail to the address provided at the end of the story.
Gasping for air, Jaci threw off the cover with her hands, kicking the rest loose with her legs. Her feet hit the hardwood floor and she ran for the bathroom, propelled by instinct. Fire rushed through her chest, a hand tightening around her heart. She flipped the toilet seat up and leaned over it, balancing herself with her hands, and retched, the acid from her stomach abrading her throat. Water. Nothing but water. Good thing I couldn’t eat last night.
She closed the lid, washed her hands in the sink next to it, and reluctantly looked at her image in the medicine cabinet mirror, noting the dark circles underneath her dark brown eyes and a slight redness surrounding her pupils. I am entirely too young to look so old. She rummaged through one of the caddys surrounding her sink and grabbed her toothbrush and toothpaste, then pulled her mouthwash from the linen closet behind her.
Frowning as she brushed her teeth and continued to look at herself in the mirror, she shoved her free hand into another caddy and felt for her facial cream, mentally sighing over her downward spiral in the housekeeping department. Jaci was so accustomed to the burning in her throat that she considered it commonplace. Always the same. Always the same nightmare.
“Well, one good thing about insomnia, the big boss loves me. I’m always early for work,” she said aloud, talking to her bedroom as she turned the light off in the bathroom.
She grabbed the remote from her chest-of-drawers and turned on the surround sound in her apartment to hear the early morning news while she got ready for work. Stooping over one of her moving boxes along the wall, Jaci removed a pile of mail and other random papers from the top of it, dropping the mess on the floor, and opened the box. The once heavy cardboard flap was so worn from being used as a permanent storage place, it felt soft and flimsy to her hands.
This was at least the fifth time she had moved in the last three years, and she’d barely bothered to unpack. Other than waving at her neighbors on the rare occasions they crossed paths, Jaci made no effort to be friendly or approachable. She never remained in the same place long enough for it to matter, and she could count the people on one hand who knew where she lived at any given time.
She reached into the closet and pulled out a pantsuit. Eenie meenie miney mo. Blue for Monday. It really didn’t matter which one. They were all the same, just different colors, all neutral, comfortable, and perfect for work. Best benefit of all, one less thing to have to think about.
After a quick shower, breakfast consisted of dark roasted espresso Romano, one of her few luxuries, and a slice of toast.
She shook her head from side to side to loosen her thick hair, then finger-combed the coils of her natural. She had spent hundreds of dollars trying a menagerie of “natural” hair products when she decided to return to her roots, but she had to admit that it paid off. In seconds, she was ready.
Jaci grabbed her briefcase from the bar, set the alarm, and checked the time on her car dashboard when she started the ignition. She had fought the incessant encroachment of electronic contact as long as she could, nearly ending up as one of the few people in the 21st Century without a cell phone, but duty called, and she eventually gave in. She still owned watches too, but somehow always managed to forget to wear any of them. Since the accident, time no longer seemed to matter, so she tried her best to forget about it.
* * *
Taking her usual route to work, the scenic one, she arrived exactly twenty minutes later. The interstate would have easily shaved fifteen minutes from her commute, but she hadn’t been able to handle going near the busy highways since her husband and two-year old daughter were killed.
Jaci parked her Nissan Rogue in her reserved spot, unlocked the steel door at the back of the three story building, turned off the alarm, and unlocked her mailbox in case the weekend skeleton crew had left something for her. Breathing in the elusive sound of complete silence, she took the stairs to the third floor and walked into her office at 5:43 a.m., nearly two hours early. As usual, the office was empty. No printers whirring, phones ringing, computers jingling, or whatever the many sounds computers made these days were called, and best of all, no people chattering or asking her inane questions. Just the way she liked it.
Despite wearing the title, Director of Social Services, Jaci had become quite antisocial over the past three years. Her office was directly next to the big boss, Director of Child and Family Services, or DCFS as most people called their little slice of state government.
She placed her three containers around her desk, “Urgent,” “Important – File,” and “Trash,” then thumbed through her mail, making the most of her quiet time until she got to a large brown envelope with the return address, “Federal Department of Corrections Outreach Initiative.”
A knee-jerk reaction took her by surprise. She leapt from her desk, covering her mouth with shaking hands. She had been waiting for a reply to her grant proposal for over six months, and the bureaucratic idiots had chosen to send it over the weekend.
It’s probably a rejection. “Shut up,” she told herself as she took a deep breath, reached for her chair, and sat down at the desk again. Placing her forearms squarely on the flat surface, she tried to compose herself. Until now, she hadn’t realized how desperately she wanted this. Despite a master’s degree in psychology and a doctorate in social work, she still wasn’t at all sure why, but she knew that if this was a rejection, she would plummet even deeper into the dark abyss she had just started to crawl out of.
“Okay, Jaci. Open the thing. Just open it.”
She took one more breath, pulled the small metal prongs apart, then removed her letter opener from her desk organizer, mumbling a series of nonsensical sounds under her breath the entire time she slid the letter opener under the top flap, breaking the seal. With the seal broken, she still had to sit a few moments longer before removing the contents of the envelope.
Dear Dr. Rothschild:
Your request for the Youthful Offender Parolee Outreach Program has been approved for a four-year term. Please review…
“Yesss!” Jaci pumped a fist straight into the air and ran around her desk doing a tribal-like happy dance, hopping and jumping with a sense of something she hadn’t known she was missing until that moment: hope.
Now, if only she had someone to share it with. Her parents were gone, murdered while she was away in college. Since their deaths, she’d made a point to avoid her extended family as much as possible – something about them had never seemed “right” to her, and the two people she called “friend” were both night owls.
Jaci chuckled to herself, thinking about Diana and Renee as she glanced at her wall clock. If she called and woke either of them before 6:30 a.m., they might not be friends anymore. She satisfied her need to celebrate by making a copy of the entire packet and tacking the award letter to the corkboard beside her desk.
Summer meant vacation ti
me for most of the DCFS employees, so as the official new project manager for the “Outreach” program, she would have to work fast to confirm sponsors for her new clients. She spent the next few minutes of quiet time pouring over the program specifics.
* * *
Andreus stepped into the prison yard and looked around, always aware of every sound, every smell, and every movement. He took a moment to enjoy the warmth of the sun and watch the birds flying overhead. He envied their freedom, but his desire for autonomy warred with his fear of the unknown.
Despite not being allowed to set foot outside the prison during the fifteen years, nine months, and five days he’d been incarcerated, he noted the sounds of more cars passing since the opening of the casinos in the small town of Atmore and wondered how he would cope with other changes facing him once he was released on parole in seven days.
Well aware of the other men watching his every move, Andreus strode to the far end of the yard and sat on one of the corner benches, giving him a perfect vantage point. The others shot hoops and hung together in small groups, but even here, in this social castaway zone, he did not fit.
He slid his tongue across his pointed incisors. While the world changed outside, he had undergone a secret metamorphosis inside these walls, and searching for answers about who and what he was had turned up absolutely nothing.
Whatever the explanation, the sense of something lying in wait was always with him, ever present, and it had been a part of him as far back as he could remember. Everyone around him felt it, their fear of him instinctual. The reaction he received from most people reminded him of deer sensing the presence of a lion, but Helen, his adoptive mother, had been different. She had accepted him, even when she saw his skin instantly knit together seconds after being wounded.
Andreus closed the door on his memory of her again, putting it away safely until later when he needed her image to help him get some much needed sleep. Playbacks from his nightmares haunted his days as well, hounding him with swords clashing, molten rocks exploding, deep chasms filled with fire splitting the Earth, multi-timbre voices of war, and huge wings rushing toward him, claiming him. Even now, Helen’s image held the power to offer him a measure of peace. She was the only one who had ever cared for him.
He walked over to one of the exercise bars on the prison yard, set his playlist to a classical mix of Chopin, Rachmaninoff, and Debussy, and inserted his earbuds. When he looked up, the group of inmates who’d been hanging around the bars just seconds ago had sauntered off, giving him a wide berth. He had no interest in getting to know them or sharing their company for that matter, but being left alone within these four walls with nothing but his own disturbing thoughts made the maintenance of sanity a challenge.
Like most of his possessions, he had purchased the electronic device with “gift” money he’d earned for keeping another inmate safe. Easy money. All Andreus had done was to allow the bullied prisoner to sit with him in the mess hall and hang with him in the yard for a few days. He maintained a calm demeanor, never advertising his services, but business always came his way, particularly since the casinos had opened.
Andreus heard footsteps approaching from behind as he contracted his muscles and continued his daily exercise routine. He already knew exactly who approached before turning around, so he didn’t bother to stop what he was doing.
“Shannon, you too. The warden and the social worker want to see you.”
As if he hadn’t heard the guard, Andreus took his time finishing his last set of pull-ups, then leapt down from the bar. He snatched his t-shirt from the concrete bench and pulled it over his head. The moment he turned to face the guard and four other inmates, he saw and smelled their fear.
The putrid stench infiltrated his nostrils, and no matter how hard they tried to keep their expressions neutral—tough, even—he couldn’t miss the signs. They blinked frequently, their eyes like cut glass, and he saw tiny beads of sweat over their lips and on their foreheads.
“Let’s go.” Four more guards joined the original one and led the prisoners back inside and down the hallway to the warden’s office. With the exception of one of the guards, Andreus walked behind the others, who kept glancing back at him every minute or so until they reached their destination.
Once they arrived at his office, the warden led them to one of the classrooms and told them to be seated. He addressed them first, then turned the meeting over to the social worker, Gavin Sumner.
Gavin was a heavyset man, and stood almost as tall as Andreus. Despite his name, he was Italian through and through, often throwing in a word here and there when he really got into what he was doing. Wearing a plaid polo shirt and stonewashed jeans, his presence was a staunch contrast to the other prison officials in the room. He also taught anger management and facilitated the AA groups. Andreus had never needed either of the classes, but they were required for every inmate convicted of involuntary or voluntary manslaughter, and that included him.
The social worker sat on the desk at the front of the classroom and removed papers from a large envelope before he started talking to the five of them.
“Good afternoon.” He waited for their response, as social skills were a large part of their rehabilitation.
“Good afternoon,” they chimed in unison.
“As all of you know, you will be leaving here over the next few days and reintroduced to society at large. Several months ago, each of you signed up for this partnership program between the State Department of Corrections and the Department of Child and Family services.”
After pausing for effect, he continued. “Now you know I’m not usually so formal, but this is a big deal, and you are our first guinea pigs. You need to make this work. It’ll help you and a lot of men after you. Capire?”
They nodded.
“I’m gonna hand you the paperwork you filled out for the “Outreach” program and I want you to look it over so you know what information we already sent your sponsors about you.”
After handing the paperwork to the other men, Gavin placed his hand on Andreus’ shoulder. “Shannon, come with me for a minute.”
Gavin led Andreus to a corner of the room away from the guards and the other inmates. “Hey, man. Just want to let you know the reason you’ll be the last one released is because it might take more time to find a good sponsor for you. There’s an addendum included with your bio with the complete account of what happened that night based on your adoptive mother’s testimony, but the way you killed him will probably still make some people shy away. We’ve talked about why your case is different before, but I’ll be here the rest of the week if you need to talk about it some more. Okay?”
Andreus stared into the social worker’s eyes to ascertain whether or not the man was telling him everything. When Gavin looked away, Andreus blinked and attempted a more relaxed stance.
“Is that it?”
The social worker cleared his throat before responding to Andreus’ question. “Yes. That’s it. Un-unless you, uh, need to—”
“There’s no hold-up with me getting out of here, is there?”
Gavin shook his head. “No. Absolutely not.”
“Thank you.” It wasn’t his intention to intimidate the man. Gavin had been good to all of them. Andreus just needed to be sure he wasn’t lying.
Andreus returned to the desk to review the information the facility had sent to the “Outreach” program coordinator. He completely understood why he would be the last prisoner to leave. The problem was that despite remembering every minute detail of Karl’s abusive behavior toward Helen, his memory remained sketchy about what happened afterward. He only recalled scattered pieces of what took place after he walked in on Karl kicking her.
Whether he recalled doing it or not, Helen had recounted the details in court, making sure everyone knew that she was certain Andreus had saved her life from the abusive monster. The bruises from Karl’s beatings could be seen on every part of her body visible to the naked eye, but Andreus saw e
ven deeper, his stomach boiling with the need to avenge the broken woman inside, the woman who had taken him in when he had no one. Even Karl’s death did not ease his rage.
The judge called Karl’s abuse of Helen a mitigating circumstance, reducing Andreus’ sentence from twenty years to fifteen. The bottom line was that Karl had ended up mutilated and very much dead, and Andreus had spent almost half of his life in a cage. One thing he remembered saying at his own trial was that faced with the same circumstances, he would do it again. He still felt the same.
* * *
“See ya tomorrow, Frank.” Jaci stuck her head in her supervisor’s office.
Frank Avinger looked up from his computer. Most of the other employees were either on vacation or they were just there to catch up on some last minute business before the weekend.
“You leaving me too, Jaci?” He looked at the time on his computer screen. “It’s not even eleven yet.”
“Yeah, I wasn’t able to find anybody else brave enough to sponsor one of the “Outreach” clients, so I’m going to pick him up now. He’s getting out at noon. Oh, and he and I have the same birthday. Same date and year. What are the chances of that?”
“That is interesting. Was he born here too?”
“No, it didn’t say where he was born. Just said he committed the crime here in Alabama.”
Frank narrowed his eyes, and she knew he was about to say something she didn’t want to hear.
“You sure you’re up to managing the project and being one of the sponsors too?”
“Well, I don’t have much choice. The Department of Corrections was so late sending me the award letter that all of the participants were about to be released when I got it.”
“Thought you already had all the sponsors lined up.”
“I did, but the last couple backed out when I sent them the bio and they saw how the victim was killed–not that I’d really call him a victim from what I read. Doesn’t matter how somebody like that was killed as far as I’m concerned. It just means the child, and he was only a child at the time, was strong. Plus, he did it to protect someone he loved, and unlike some of the others, he has no priors. I think he deserves credit for that. The bastard he killed beat the woman with a blunt object, then knocked her down and started kicking her, all because she cooked something he didn’t like. Honestly, I think his killer deserves a medal.”