Devious Things (The In-Between Trilogy Book One)

2.

Four years ago...

      I drag my plastic fork along the wall, scratching off the paint so that I can add another tally mark to the already long row of them that lines the wall. 

     It has been twenty-six days since they hauled me down to solitary confinement and every day has dragged by slower than the one before. 

       They are going to keep me here until I break; until my mind gives out and I beat my hands bloody against the walls begging to be let out. 

      They want me to be like the others down here, the ones that scream themselves to sleep each night. 

      The should know better by now; I am not the breakable kind. Being down here might be duller than hell but it is the closest thing to a vacation I am going to get. Once the warden realizes that that is the case he is going to throw me back into general population to see what happens when the others get their hands on me for hurting one of theirs. 

      That bitch had it coming. 

     Charyn spend weeks following me around like some kind of schoolyard bully, always trying to goad me into a fight. It didn't matter how many times she was warned to back off, she pushed until I had no choice but to snap. 

      She should feel lucky that all I did was break a few ribs; I could have shoved that mop handle through her thick skull. 

      The metal window on the door slides open and I throw myself into the closest corner, my eyes no longer used to the bright light. 

      I squint, finding Officer Wentz observing me through overly lined eyes. "Blythe, you have a visitor."

      "Is it the lawyer again? How man times do I have to tell him to shove his ridiculous excuse for an offer up his ass before he gets the point? I am not wasting anymore more of my time listening to him give me the same bullshit spiel he always does about moving me to a 'safer prison' if I agree to turn in Dave. It has been two years already; I can handle another year in this place."

     It isn't the lawyer. Put your hands on the wall so I can cuff you and bring you upstairs, you're going to want to talk to this one."

     I splay my palms against the wall as ordered, letting Wentz enter the room without issue. Were it any other guard, I might make them work a bit, but I like Wentz. Not only does she sneak me in magazines from the library when no one else is around but, if she is in a particularly good mood, will fill me in on whatever soap opera she has been binge-watching. 

      It has been two years since I was screwed over by Dave, the con-artist who took me off the street and preyed on my naivety. It has been two years since he 'gifted' me a car for my eighteenth birthday and convinced me to take it down the street to get it cleaned before we went out to celebrate. 

     What he never mentioned was that he had stolen the car from an impound lot less than two hours prior. 

       I was arrested a mile away from the building we had been holed up in for the past six months. 

       The state-appointed lawyers tried to convince me to admit on the record that it had been him who gifted me the car. They had their suspicions it was Dave but needed me to point the finger so that they could get the warrant to go after him. 

     I tried convincing them I stole the thing myself but they weren't buying it. They told me I was 'too sweet of a kid' to have done such a thing.

     That was one of the reasons why Dave had chosen me in the firsts place, I had the kind of innocent face that fooled others into thinking I wasn't capable of breaking the law.