Page 59 of One Step Sideways

“The teenager in for shoplifting,” I said. “He hasn’t demonstrated anything, which means he could either have something so remote he doesn’t know what it is, or it’s something powerful enough he’s scared of it and hiding it. I only have three months to find out what it is. He could have an incredibly powerful gift just going to waste.”

“He has a so-called photographic memory. He doesn’t know we are aware of that.”

“Interesting,” I said. “But he may have other cognitive abilities we aren’t aware of. The enhanced rarely just have one ability unless it’s immensely powerful.”

“You’ve done your homework,” he acknowledged. “Very well,” Connaught said, and rose. “I will inform the C.O.s.” He hesitated. “Need I remind you that this conversation stays between us?” He didn’t seem to need an answer, and he nodded and left.

I hoped like hell I’d done the right thing.

The C.O.s and other staff had their own room where they ate, but at all different times. I walked in and came face to face with Gary O’Connell. He grunted a greeting. “Just got informed you’re allowed on the pods.” He almost sneered the words, and I itched to find out where this hatred had come from. Admittedly, he could be just a douche, but it seemed almost personal with him, and the background check I’d done hadn’t yielded any clues.

Gary O’Connell was forty-six. He’d been a beat cop for thirteen years, then changed jobs and become a corrections officer. It had been a little more money, but I itched to find out why the change in career. No wife, partner, or significant other. No kids. He had elderly parents he visited infrequently and two younger brothers. One was a cop three states away and they seemed to have minimal interaction, and one had died tragically in a school shooting when he was eight. I’d looked and read the reports, but apart from the tragic loss of five kids and one teacher, nothing had stood out.

Sickened thinking about that, I suddenly wasn’t very hungry. Was it really the case now that school shootings were so frequent that in my mind theydidn’t stand out?

Realizing O’Connell seemed to be waiting for a reply, I shrugged. “It’s a job. Anything that helps.”

He scoffed, so I decided to go on the offensive. “Well, isn’t it? Whyare you here?”

He paled a little and clammed up, which was satisfying but the opposite of what I wanted. I sighed a little dramatically. “Sorry, the boss has just grilled me. Little intimidating.” I grinned and he relaxed.

Really, I should be on fucking Broadway. I took a half-hearted attempt at my sandwich and my chest tightened when I realized I’d saidfuckingand who it reminded me of. I’d known Kane had been trying at Mom and Dad’s, and for a moment I really wished he had said it and been treated to a wooden spoon on the knuckles like we had growing up, and imagined his face. It hadn’t even been Mom though, but Grandma. And not that it had ever been a hard rap, but we soon got the idea.

And it wasn’t the spoon itself. It was Grandma. She’d been fierce in all things. Yeah, we would be in trouble for any form of disrespect, but God help anyone who thought to attack her babies. She was our last defense. In our corner. I remembered a teacher sending Emily to the principal because Emily had pointed out she was wrong. I can’t even remember what the teacher had gotten wrong, but because Emily was thirteen and the teacher was embarrassed, instead of the teacher admitting he was human, which his students would have appreciated, he’d made it a whole thing and insisted on a detention.

Emily had never misbehaved in her entire life, and because Mom and Dad were at work when it happened, Grandma went to school.

And eviscerated them.

And despite his cursing, she’d have loved Kane, and I ached in that moment to give him a family. Last weekend had been the start, and I knew Kane had gotten on particularly well with my dad. I wanted that for him.

“The warden told me a few of you work both sides,” I lied, taking another bite but then wrapping it back up.

O’Connell huffed again. “Lemme guess, you were in a war, any war.” I hesitated, but he mumbled. “Like the war on the streets isn’t counted.”

“We both had tough jobs,” I acknowledged.

“Yeah, I just went from locking up scum to babysitting them.” I tilted my head a little.

“What made you take this job, then?” I didn’t know if the scum he referred to were all prisoners or just the enhanced ones, but his next comment made it clear.

“Should be put down at birth.”

“Bit difficult when there’s no way to tell at birth.”

He grunted. I didn’t understand why he was here at all. Where had this hatred come from?

“They’ve even made some of them into feds now.”

My eyebrows shot up. “Really?

He eyed me. “Don’t you watch TV?”

I shrugged. “No, to be honest. A couple of shows sometimes, but I can’t stand all the political crap, and I haven’t been out of the service long.”

He leaned forward. “Assholes in Florida are actual agents. Getting TV attention. It ain’t right when people with experience are passed over in favor of someone just cause they can do party-tricks.”

And a glimmer of awareness trickled through me. “Ever thought of doing something like that yourself?”

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