“King!” I shouted, but he looked at me in a warning that said to keep my mouth shut. I broke free from Bethany’s grip and ran forward. Bear hopped to the right, dodging the officers long enough to spin back around to me. I launched myself up at him wrapping my arms around his neck and my legs around his waist and I kissed him furiously until one of the officers pried me away, our lips the last of our connection to be severed.
“You don’t have to do this. Please. Please don’t do this,” I begged him, still not fully understanding what exactly was going on. Tears streaming down my face as the officers placed me in front of King who wrapped his arms around my shoulders and whose stone like grip didn’t allow for even an inch of movement toward Bear. Ray came to stand next to me, and Bethany next to her.
The officers forcefully pushed Bear forward, smashing the side of his face against the police cruiser where they patted him down. Before throwing him into the back of the car he looked back at me.
“I love you,” he mouthed and with the echo of the slam of the door shutting Bear off from me, from my life, I swear I also heard the sound of my heart shattering.
CHAPTER THIRTY
Bear
I reined down punches on Corp’s face until it was a mangled mess of skin and blood and my orange jumpsuit was splattered with red. Serves the motherfucker right for coming at me with a fucking shank.
As soon as I knew Corps was in county I knew he’d be coming for me. Too bad they sent a * to do a man’s job.
Two weeks I’d been waiting and watching until he finally made his move, but I was ready.
Judging from the wreckage that used to be his face I can honestly say that he wasn’t.
“McAdams, you have a visitor,” snapped the guard. Corps moaned and I delivered one last punch to the side of his jaw, knocking him out cold. I stood up as the guard slid open my cell.
“I see your visit went well,” said the disinterested guard who tapped away on his phone as he led me to the visitor waiting area. He was the prick who put him in there to begin with, fully understanding what it was that Corps planned on doing.
“It did. He’s shit for company though. Doesn’t say much. Moans and groans a lot. I think he might be ill. Splitting headache,” I joked as the guard looked up from his phone long enough to roll his eyes and open the door separating the cell block from the hallway that led to the visitation area. “My lawyer came earlier. Who’s here?” I asked.
“Some chick,” the guard said, pushing open another door. I stopped.
“Take me back,” I said. I told King not to let Ti come. As much as I wanted to see her I didn’t want her to see me in here and her coming for a visit wouldn’t work with the confession I’d signed.
“Can’t, you got a visitor. She showed ID. She signed in. You go in. You got five minutes,” the officer said, opening the little room that looked like a cafeteria. I scanned the tables, which were mostly empty. It only took me seconds to realize that Ti wasn’t among the visitors. There was only one table where a lone woman sat waiting, looking down at her hands.
“Her?” I asked the guard.
“Yep,” he said, shutting the door behind me.
I made my way over to her and was about to tell her that she signed in to see the wrong prisoner, but when she looked up at me all the air in my lungs left in a swoosh.
“Abel?” she asked, looking up from behind silver streaked dark brown bangs.
My head spun and I blinked to make sure what I was seeing wasn’t a hallucination.
“Mom?”
EXCERPT FROM SOULLESS
COMING SPRING 2016
Thia
Handcuffs bit into my wrists. My arms strained above my head as I hung from a pipe that ran across the ceiling. When I could no longer hold myself up and my muscles gave out with a POP as my joints painfully dislocated. My chest fell to my chin. Wide tape covered my mouth, wrapped around the back of my head, pulling on my hair every time I turned my head. With one nostril stuffed up I felt dizzy, barely able to get enough oxygen through the other.
My vision blurred as I tried to focus on my surroundings. Grey. Concrete. An open ceiling with pipes and wires. Nothing on the bare walls. A metal cage in the far corner. In the center of the small room was a blue tarp. Next to the tarp was a red toolbox with a yellow electric drill set on top. It was all so clean.
Sterile.
That’s when the panic set in and my eyes opened wide as the realization of Gus’s plan for me. I pulled on the cuffs above my head with a newfound strength I didn’t have seconds earlier. My legs flailed around uselessly in mid air as I struggled against my restraints.
The door opened and Gus entered the room. When I first met him in the park he’d protected Bear and myself. I’d even thought he was cute in a best friend chubby cheeked kind of way.