Page 154 of Wicked Games

I follow the group of people down the hall. I’m trembling down to my bones. But whether it’s from the cold or fear, I can’t tell.

This is my father’s home, in a way. Heliveshere, and has for the past seven years. Or, six, I guess? I don’t know where he was during the trial. I wonder if he sees it as home. If, after a certain point, he just gave up calling it anything other thanhis.

It’s how I was with my foster homes, after all. The foster parents were always Mr. and Mrs. This-or-That, the home was always their house, never mine. Because it wasn’t. It was temporary, just like prison.

I’m serving a sentence the same as my father, for things we both apparently did.

Our escort guard stops and presses a button. There’s another deep buzz, and the guard pulls the door open. “You can hug on initial greeting,” he says to us. “And goodbye. But no touching otherwise.”

I force myself to nod and stuff my hands in my pockets. I’m not sure I want to hug him.

There are round tables scattered in the center of the room with attached stools, the kind you’d see in an elementary school cafeteria. It keeps people from getting too close, I guess. By the windows are two-person tables, and I automatically drift in that direction.

Visiting families are already claiming tables. Some are eager, others bored. It makes me wonder who’s here on a regular occurrence.

He knows I’m here.

That thought alone has me weak in the knees.

I almost fall into a chair at a two-person table. I can’t stop the bouncing in my leg. It’s been seven years. Am I going to recognize him?

Is he going to recognizeme?

Oh my God. What if he walks right past me?

Another visitor shoots me a look. “You okay, honey? You’re not going to pass out?”

I take a deep breath. “I’ve never done this.”

“They’re the same guys we know,” she says, shrugging. “At least they start off that way. You visiting a boyfriend?”

“My dad,” I whisper.

She exhales. “Yeah, I’ve got a fucked-up dad, too. He finally stopped letting me come visit. Now I just see my brother once a month.”

“That’s…”

“Depressing as shit? Yeah.” She forces a laugh. “But he passes on news of my dad, and I’ll take it. We do what we have to. Remember that. To survive this place,theyhave to do what they have to, and so do we.”

“Yeah.”

Another buzz rings through the room, and I almost jump out of my skin.

“Inmates entering,” a guard calls.

A door in the center of one wall slowly slides open on its own, and a guard walks through. He stops just shy of the door and takes a step to his left, admitting the inmates. Prisoners.

Their uniforms are khaki, their last names stitched over a breast pocket. Some scary-looking dudes come through the door first, finding their visitors and making a beeline in their direction.

The room breaks out into a low ripple of chatter as greetings are made.

I stare at the door, gripping the table like it’ll save me from getting sucked underwater.

I’m convinced I’m meeting a stranger until he walks through the door.

He is exactly as I remember him. Sandy-brown hair trimmed too short, a straight nose and full lips. He has the barest hint of scruff on his face.

His eyes are dark, like mine, and they find me immediately. Like magnets.

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