“Stay away from that guy; he’s bad news,” she warns me.
I already got that message from my father and the overall uneasy feeling I had around him made me agree, but it’s clear that I can’t trust anything Trudy tells me.
“Why is he bad news? What has he done?”
She pushes herself up from the couch and lets out a stilted laugh. “He’s just not a good guy, okay? I don’t even know why your father lets him work here. I mean, he’s cute and all and nice to look at, but there’s something off with him. I don’t know him personally or anything, but it’s what I’ve heard. Stay away from him, okay?”
Trudy moves around my legs and heads for the stairs. “I have to get going; my mom wants to go shopping for college stuff.”
I quickly stand and follow her toward the stairs. “My mom was going to make us lunch. Don’t you want to stay?”
She thumps down the stairs at a hurried pace, and I follow behind her. I don’t really want to spend more time with her when she’s not going to honestly answer the questions I have for her, but she was here the night everything happened. She’s the key to unlocking my memories, and I have to do whatever I can to open that lock if I want to find out what happened.
I follow her down the hallway toward the front door.
“Tell your mom thanks. Maybe another time,” she says as she reaches for the handle of the door.
It suddenly opens before she can get to it, and I stop a few feet behind her as she jumps out of the way.
I watch as Nolan steps inside, a surprised look on his face as his glance shifts between Trudy and me before focusing on her.
“Nice to see you again, Trudy,” he tells her with a cocky smile.
Her face immediately reddens in embarrassment, and she gives him a wide berth as she quickly moves around him and out the front door. Nolan turns and watches her leave as she yells over her shoulder without turning around.
“I’ll give you a call later to see how you’re doing, Ravenna.”
She jogs down the stairs of the front porch and disappears from sight. When she’s gone, Nolan turns back around and stares at me silently. Trudy was right: he really is something nice to look at, even if being alone with him right now makes me nervous. His skin is tanned from working outside all day, and the finely toned muscles in his arms and under his t-shirt prove that he spends most of his time doing a lot of hard manual labor. He’s taller than me and obviously stronger.
Strong enough to hurt me if he wanted to.
Trudy told me he was bad news and at least that information feels right for some reason, but she also said she didn’t know him personally. Going by the familiar way Nolan looked at her and said her name, he knows her, and she definitely knows him.
“Tell your father I finished mowing around the lake, and I’m going to head home for the day,” he tells me gruffly.
Without waiting for a reply, he backs out of the door, and it slams closed behind him. My feet stay glued to their spot in the middle of the hallway as I stare at the large wooden door.
“My name is Ravenna Duskin. I’m eighteen years old, I live in a prison, and my best friend is lying to me.”
Chapter 4
I spend the next few days wandering around the inside of Gallow’s Hill, reciting facts about the prison to myself as I go, hoping the things I know will unlock some of the things I don’t, but nothing works. I feel like I do when I sometimes fill in for my father as tour guide, saying things I’ve memorized from a book instead of things I should inherently know after growing up here.
I’ve attempted to get some fresh air and walk the grounds outside a few times these last couple of days, but each time I’ve stepped out onto the porch, I’ve seen Nolan working around the yard. Even if his back is to me, he immediately stops what he’s doing as if he somehow senses I’m close. When he turns and looks at me and our eyes meet, I’m immediately filled with fear, and I rush back inside, pushing aside the need for fresh air and sunshine to run away from the man who looks at me with equal parts anger and curiosity.