“Son, do you do everything you’re told?”
“I mean….” I trailed off, not knowing how to answer that. I was no angel, but I wouldn’t say I was a bad person. No matter the fact I was sitting in a South Carolina prison.
“Yeah, that’s what I thought.”
“Well, how can I meet people you know when we aren’t supposed to hang out and shit after we get out of here?” I stubbornly asked.
“You ain’t gonna be on parole forever. Besides, it’s not me that you’d be hanging out with. It would be my brother and his chapter.” He stubbed out the joint and waited for it to cool before tucking it in a tiny tear in his clothes.
“Okay?” I frowned in confusion.
“Call me Griz,” he said as he gripped my shoulder and looked me in the eye.
“Griz,” I repeated.
“Stick with me, kid. I’ll make sure those assholes know you’re with me, and if they fuck with you they’ll be dealing with every chapter of the Royal Bastards in the country.”
That was the first time I found out I had a gift. If you could call it that. I had no idea what the fuck it was or why it happened to me. It freaked me the fuck out.
Two days later, I was walking into the shop for work as part of the prison rehabilitation programs. One of the guards was reading the paper, and I happened to see the front-page headline when he set it down to watch me come in. It had me stopping in my tracks.
“Sir?”
The guard frowned. “What?”
“Would you mind?” I asked, gesturing to the paper, telling myself there was no way I’d seen what I thought. “I only wanted to get a better look at the article on the front page.”
“The murder? Sick fucker there. Whoever did it better hope they don’t end up here,” he said as he handed it over with a shake of his head. “Who kills an entire family like that? A teenage girl, to boot. Such a waste.”
Hands shaking, I scanned the printed words, and my heart stopped. Literally stopped beating for a good minute. I couldn’t breathe. My stomach revolted, and I rushed to the trash can and lost my breakfast.
“Damn, kid, you okay?” The guard was watching me with wide eyes. “Do you need to go to the infirmary?”
Shaking my head, I fought tears that would likely get my ass beat if it got out. My head hung. Then I croaked, “That was my girl.”
“Jesus, Stone. I’m sorry.”
Griz glanced at me as he passed but didn’t stop because it wouldn’t be tolerated for him to socialize when he was supposed to be working.
“You okay to work? I can take you to the infirmary if you need me to,” the guard said quietly.
Not wanting to get him in trouble when there wasn’t anything physically wrong with me, I shook my head. Then I shoved my grief down deep to deal with later.
All day I worked like a man possessed, not stopping for lunch. When it was quitting time, one of the guards took us to chow, which I didn’t eat. Then we were returned to our bay. No one spoke to me all day. It didn’t take long for word to travel in prison.
I didn’t give the guards any trouble. I did as I was told; I didn’t question; I didn’t fight. A few watched over me because they saw their own kids in me. I knew it, they knew it, but no one said anything aloud. Maybe that’s why even the usually dickish guards treated me like a human that day.
After lights out, as I lay in my bed staring at the bunk above me, silent tears slipped from the corners of my eyes. Though I wanted to scream, I didn’t dare.
“Kid? You all right?” Griz asked quietly from the top bunk.
“Yeah,” I choked out, wincing at the crack in my voice.
He sighed, and I knew he didn’t believe me but was granting me my privacy to grieve.
What felt like razor blades shredded my insides. Grief destroyed what heart I had left. The boy that was Lucian Donovan Stone died that day.
I’d made peace with the path my life had taken because I told myself Lila would live a good life full of happiness. Now? Nothing seemed to matter.
There would never be another woman for me as long as I lived. As I did each night, I hated that I couldn’t see the stars. Because that night, I knew they were all falling from the sky.
That night, I truly became a ghost.