Prologue
Maddy
6 years, 3 months, and 8 days ago
The sulfuric smell of gunpowder permeated the room.
Is he dead?
"Holy shit! I think you killed him!"
I sucked in air with a trembling gasp. I didn't realize I had asked the question out loud; it's hard to speak when you can't even breathe. For a brief moment, time felt like it had stopped, and I'd forgotten she was still here. I looked over my shoulder into wide, dark pools of caramel, lined with fudge. Charly's eyes always reminded me of the pictures of Bambi in my childhood collection of Little Golden Books, still one of my favorite items on the shelves in my bedroom.
I stumbled in her direction to help her up. Ever since I could remember, I'd wanted her approval and love, but it had been harder to find in recent years. Even now as I reached a hand toward her, she ignored me and just stared at the body. My eyes followed the path of hers. Like a child who tries to hide their head under the covers to avoid something scary, I squeezed my eyes shut and threw my forearms upward over my face as if that could make it go away. But it was a real life nightmare instead of the kind between twisted, sweat-soaked sheets in the darkest part of the night. There would be no waking up from this heart-pounding dream; no loving arms to draw me close and hold me until I felt better. Not that it was a feeling I was familiar with.
The adrenaline rush that held me together so far receded. My teeth chattered; their shakes making their way south until my knees were too weak to hold me upright, and I collapsed to the floor. Stars dotted the back of my closed eyelids as the enormity of what I'd done sunk in. This man was supposed to have been my key to a ticket out of here. And now I'd taken his life as if it were no more important than a disgusting cockroach that crossed my path. He deserved to be squashed, but not in this manner - and certainly not by me.
I rocked back and forth on my knees and wrapped my arms around myself in an irrational attempt to hold myself together until a rustling noise drew my attention. Warily, I opened one eye to see Charly rummaging through his pockets.
"Wh...what are you doing?"
After a brief hesitation, she grunted, "Gonna need money. Need to get out of here."
Somehow, she was able to ignore what I couldn't - dark blue eyes open wide with surprise and a taunting smirk still curved upon his mouth. One set of his manicured fingers fell from his blood-soaked chest as she jostled him. His legs curved awkwardly underneath him, the front of his Ralph Lauren gray pants darkening as his muscles relaxed one final time. His always perfectly combed blond hair stuck out at odd angles from his head. He no longer looked like the handsome prince I thought had ridden in to town to save me. If I believed in ghosts, I suspect he'd be hovering there, worried more about his appearance than by his prior actions.
Charly's face paled further as sirens wailed in the distance. Of course, the neighbors heard the shot; it was hard not to hear someone sneeze next door with these paper thin walls we called a home.
"Fuck! What the hell do we do now?" she whispered hoarsely as she crawled to sit beside me. I took small comfort that I was not alone in this nightmare.
I should have known better.
She stood suddenly and took a few steps away from me, which in this small space was almost to the front door. She paused and turned toward me. "Are you coming?"
I shook my head. "We...you can't--"
"Like hell I can't." Seconds later the rasp of the front door as it was dragged opened along the floor filled the room, followed by a bang as it bounced against the frame before it clicked shut, much like the door to my future just slammed closed in my face.
A tear rolled down my face. Another life ended because of me. I guess the DNA that made up every cell in my body was too powerful to overcome after all.
1
Maddy
Present day
"Sign here."
I fought to control the trembling in my fingers as I signed my name next to the 'X' on the official-looking form and slid the paper back to the officer processing my release.
Sweet freedom.
The day I longed for, and wondered if it would ever arrive, was finally here.
"Here you go." The bored tone in the guard's gravelly voice, probably from too many smokes a day, suggested my big day was just another in a long string for him.
He slid a white envelope acr
oss the scratched wood counter. "That came for you a short while ago."
I studied the front. "For Madelyn Stone" was typed on the outside.
It must be from Mr. McCloskey, my new attorney and now my new boss. I slid my finger under the flap and pulled out a single sheet of notebook paper. Immediately, I scrolled to the bottom of the page, but I didn't need to see the signature to know who wrote it; I recognized the handwriting immediately – Charly’s. I shoved it back at him as if it might be toxic. "I don't want it."
"Not my problem." He stamped the papers in front of him and shoved one of them along with the unwanted envelope at me. "Officer Warren will be here momentarily to escort you to the front. You can wait over there." He gestured with a careless flick of his hand toward a row of faded orange plastic chairs that looked like they were at least as old as I was.
I inwardly rolled my eyes, but always the model prisoner, I held my tongue and gathered up the paperwork and the unwanted envelope and sat and waited.
Funny how in my childhood I never realized just how many freedoms I enjoyed until every moment of my day became dictated to me: what I wore, when I ate, when I exercised, what time lights were turned off. All small things that you don't appreciate until they’re gone.
Sweet freedom.
Growing up, it was understood that most of us wouldn't stray too far from where we were born. Nice homes, new school clothes every year, college dreams - those were for the kids on the other side of the tracks. Literally. The white-collar side of our community held the monopoly on lucky breaks. They were the kids who could get out of small town living if they chose. My side sported saw mills and pawn shops and a healthy dose of ‘don’t fix what ain’t broke.’ Bars and sagging porches were the place of choice to remember how good it used to be, but not to make changes or upset the balance of the way things were.
I tried to be polite and respectful of everyone around me, but my family name seemed to mark me. At a young age, I recognized the snotty tone and arrogant lift of eyebrow that accompanied comments whenever I walked down the sidewalk and passed a group of busybodies congregated for whatever reason. The more sympathetic observers whispered behind their hands, but I could still overhear what they were saying. 'Poor child. It's such a shame about her situation.' 'I guess she can't help her circumstances.' 'Thank goodness her mother isn't here to see them.'
Others were less kind, maliciously sharing gossip and judgments as if they were popping them from a Pez dispenser. 'Did you hear the latest about her father?' 'It won't be long before she'll be just like her sister.' 'I guess that's what comes from her kind of people.'
My kind of people? Until that comment, I had always thought everyone was one kind of people. We all came in a variety of shapes, sizes, and colors, but I thought that made us a beautiful bouquet, like those I'd seen in one of the store windows downtown. But that day I came to realize there were weeds hidden in the flowers, and if you didn't know what to look for it was easy to be deceived by their appearance. Some blooms even looked and smelled nice, but deep down they were still parasites, feeding off of and trying to choke out other smaller flowers. I knew my family was far from perfect, but why did I always have to be compared to them and their poor choices?
Whenever life got to be too much, I'd steal across the railroad tracks to a vacant field that had probably been the pride and joy of a farmer decades ago. I'd lose myself in the tall grasses and find solace in the shade of the pine trees. I'd pick and gather handfuls of wildflowers and imagined I was a princess rescuing their beauty from their ugly fate of living among rusty cans and abandoned cars and farm equipment. I'd lovingly arrange them in an old Mason jar and put them on the windowsill to enjoy on the days I couldn't escape.
But one day I observed something new about those flowers. The plants I left behind would continue to grow and blossom in their natural habitat. But the ones in my bedroom window wilted. Cut from their roots, their heads drooped, and their petals shriveled a little more each day, until I finally had to throw them out.
Maybe if I hadn't been so focused on separating from my own roots, I'd have noticed more lessons by Mother Nature. Maybe I'd have remembered that snakes hid in the weeds. But I ignored her lessons and got bit in the ass, poisoning six years of my life. And the one person who could have delivered the anti-venom hadn't. I got out of my town all right, but not in the way I dreamed about - a Murder Two conviction with the minimum eight-year sentence in a correctional facility a couple hours away.
It would have been more, but here I was being released almost two years early, thanks in part to Virginia's clause that allowed some prisoners to have their sentence reduced for 'good behavior' after serving eighty percent of their sentence.
A door buzzed, echoing through the almost empty room and broke me from my trance. An officer I'd never seen before stepped into the room and glanced around before his eyes landed on me. He grabbed some paperwork off the counter and moved to stand in front of me. The nameplate on his uniform indicated he was the 'Warren' I'd been waiting for.
"Madelyn Stone?" His expression held all the excitement of dirty dishwater.
I confirmed with a nod.
He checked his paperwork against mine. "This way."
Every nerve in my body buzzed until I was certain anyone looking at me would see me vibrating. This was finally it. I breathed a little faster as we stepped through the door through which he'd just entered and walked down a maze of hallways until we reached another nondescript door. Officer Warren punched in a code and after a loud whir and click, he turned the handle. Several people in the adjoining room looked up anxiously as we stepped through. Their mouths twisted in disappointment and resignation when they saw I wasn't the one they were hoping for.