Own Me (The Wolf Hotel, #5)

So, no makeup, no styled hair—I didn’t even brush it today—and minimal eye contact.

Except this sweet-looking grandmother who sits at the cafeteria-style table across from me has caught my gaze and now I can’t help but occupy my mind with questions about her while I wait. Namely, how many Saturdays has she spent sitting at Fulcort waiting for a loved one, and what will I look like when I’m sitting in this chair twenty-two years from now?

A soft buzz sounds on my left, pulling my attention away from her and toward the door where prisoners have been filtering in and out.

An ache swells in my chest as I watch my father shuffle through. It’s only been two weeks and yet his face looks gaunt, the orange jumpsuit loose on his tall, lanky frame.

He pauses as the guard refers to a clipboard, his gaze frantically scanning the faces at each table.

I dare a small wave to grab his attention.

The second his green eyes meet mine, his face splits with a smile. He rushes for me.

“Walk!” a guard barks from somewhere.

I stand to meet him.

“Oh God, are you a sight for sore eyes!” He ropes his arms around my neck and pulls me tight into his body.

“I missed you so much!” I return the embrace, sinking into my father’s chest as tears spill down my cheeks despite my best efforts to keep them at bay. “They made me wait for hours. I wasn’t sure if I’d make it in today—”

“That’s enough!” That same guard who just yelled at my father to walk moves in swiftly to stand beside us, his hard face offering not a shred of sympathy. “Unless you wanna lose visitation privileges, inmate!”

Dad pulls back with a solemn nod, his hands in the air in a sign of surrender. “Sorry.” He gestures to the table. “Come on, Mercy. Sit. Let me look at you.”

We settle into our seats across from each other, my father folding his hands tidily in front of him atop the table. A model of best behavior. The guard shoots him another warning look before continuing on.

“So?” I swallow against the lump in my throat, brushing my tears away. I’ve done so well, hiding tears from him up until now. “How are you doing?”

He shrugs. “You know. Fine, I guess.” He quickly surveys the occupants of the tables around us.

That’s when I notice that his jaw is tinged with a greenish-yellow bruise. “Dad! What happened to your face?” I reach for him on instinct.

He pulls back just as the tips of my fingernails graze his cheek. “It’s nothing.”

“Bullshit! Did someone hit you?”

His wary eyes dart to the nearby inmates again. “Don’t worry about it, Mercy. It’s just the way things are inside. Someone thinks you looked at them funny.... Pecking order, that sort of thing. It’s not hard to make enemies in a prison without trying. Anyway, it’s almost healed.”

My eyes begin to sting again. This is my fault. I should never have told him about what Fleet did that night. It’s not like the dirty pig succeeded in his mission; a swift kick to his balls gave me the break I needed to run inside and call the police. Now, had the police done their goddamn job, Fleet never would have strolled into work the next morning with a smug smile on his face and a vivid description of how firm my ass is, and my normally mild-mannered father wouldn’t have lost his temper.

Two weeks in and he’s already been attacked? My father is one of the most easygoing guys I’ve ever met. The fact that he went after Fleet the way he did in the garage was a surprise to everyone, including Fleet, according to what witnesses said.

“Hey, hey, hey.... Come on. I can’t handle watching you cry,” my dad croons in a soothing voice. “And we don’t have time for that. Tell me what’s going on with you. How’s school? Work?”

I grit my jaw to keep my emotions in check. We’re supposed to have an hour, but the guard already warned me that Saturdays are busy and this visit will most likely get cut short. So much for prisoner rights. “Work is work. Same old.” I’ve been an administrative assistant at a drug and alcohol addiction center called Mary’s Way in downtown Phoenix for six years now. The center is geared toward women and children, and there never seems to be a shortage of them passing through our doors, hooked on vodka or heroin or crack. Some come by choice, others are mandated by the court.

Too many suddenly stop coming. Too many times I feel like we’re of no help at all.

Dad nods like he knows.

Because he does know, thanks to my mother and her own addiction to a slew of deadly drugs. Heroin is the one that finally claimed her life when I was ten.

“And school? You’re keeping up with that, right?”

I hesitate.

“Mercy—”

“Yes, I’m still going.” Only because it was too late to drop out of my courses without receiving a failing grade. Though, given my scores on my recent midterms, I may earn a failing grade anyway.

He taps the table with his fingertip. “You need to keep up with that, Mercy. Don’t let my mess derail your future. You’ve worked too hard for this, and you’re so close to getting that degree.”

I’ve been working toward my bachelor’s degree part-time since I was eighteen, squeezing in classes at night and wherever I could find the time and money. At twenty-five, I’m two passing grades away from achieving it. Up until now my intention has always been to become a substance abuse counselor, to help other families avoid the same anguish and loss that my father and I live with. That’s why I took the job at Mary’s to begin with.

But shit happened, and now I have another focus, and it is laser-specific.

I swallow. “I’m looking at taking the LSAT.”

“LSAT?” My dad frowns. “That have something to do with being a counselor?” My father isn’t a highly educated man. He spent his teenage years working on cars and skipping class to get high. At some point he decided school wasn’t for him, so he wrote his GED and then got a job in a mechanic shop. It took years, but he finally got licensed.

“No. It’s for getting into law school.” I level him with a serious gaze. “If you’d had a better lawyer than that shyster, you would have gotten involuntary manslaughter at most. Your sentence would have been a sliver of what you’re facing now—”

“No, wait.” He pinches the bridge of his nose. “What are you saying, Mercy? That you’re going to give up on your plans and go to law school just so you can try and get me out of here? I mean, do you even wanna be a lawyer? I thought you hated lawyers.” He chuckles as if the idea is amusing.

Nothing is amusing about this. “I want to be able to hug you without some guard breathing down our necks.” My voice has turned hoarse. “I want my kids to be able to play and laugh with their grandfather.” It’s going to be years before there are actually tiny feet running about. But will my fifty-year-old father even live long enough to see the outside again?