The Lies He Spoke

TWENTY FOUR

ELIJAH 

The night after Logan and Olivia left, Elijah cried.

He'd been so desperate to help his siblings when Logan had come begging him to give him any answer at all that he'd given him the most he could - the address of a bar that he knew the Sons of Solomon frequented and had met with him at a few times.

But that had been just another huge mistake.

He had put them in danger, the thing he had tried to protect them from their entire lives. And because of his own actions, he had almost erased all of that hard work he'd done for years in a matter of hours.

The next morning, with puffy eyelids and deep, dark circles, he sat for breakfast in the cafeteria, picking at his food, when Ellsworth poked him with the end of his spoon.

"What's the matter with you?" he asked. "You look to be dozing off right into your bowl."

"That only ever happens in movies."

"Don't give me that lip, boy. You were about to be face first in your oatmeal."

Elijah rubbed his eyebrows and realized that his nose was, indeed, very close to his bowl. "Things are just not going the way I thought they would."

Ellsworth scoffed. "Who told you they would? Your mama?"

Elijah put his chin in his hands. He didn't think much about his biological mother anymore. She'd run out on them shortly after Blake was born. He used to think it was one of the reasons why his dad had turned so bitter and angry. Maria Jones was the mother he remembered fondly, regardless of the fact that she had been his stepmother and that she had left them with Olivia when her husband became violent.

"No," he said. "She knew things didn't always turn out well."

Ellsworth sighed. "Yours and mine, both, buddy. But what are you goin' to do about it? There's nothing. Eat, or I will."

"Do you think you can do something for me?"

"I'll trade you for it."

"What do you want?"

"Depends on what you want."

Elijah pulled a small piece of paper from his pocket. "Can you get this to Jimmy Peters?"

Ellsworth rolled his eyes. "That fucker again? You do remember you were almost killed last time, right?"

"Yes, the stitches are still in my arm."

"Then what you want with him?"

"I need to talk to him."

"You're not just crazy, you're stupid as all hell too," Ellsworth said, but he pocketed the paper. In return, he passed a small clear plastic bag to Elijah. "This is what I'll trade you for."

"What's this?"

Ellsworth sighed, like Elijah should've known this already. "You piss in it."

Elijah instinctively shoved the bag back at Ellsworth. "What the hell?"

"I need to be clean for the drug test they're doing today. So piss in it for me so I can be clean."

"You do know they check the temperature of urine when they take it?"

"Boy, I ain't born yesterday."

"Then what are you going to do?"

"I have my ways."

Elijah gingerly took the plastic bag from Ellsworth and tried not to think about whether it was being reused from a different inmate who had used it for the same purpose. "This is the most insane thing I've ever heard."