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“I’ll be right here,” David says, “if you need me. ”
Victoria nods and twists the silver door handle with her free hand. The room beyond is tiny, barely enough space for the three folding chairs inside, only one of which is occupied. The one bolted to the floor.
I couldn’t have said exactly what I expected to find, some evil creature from a storybook in human form, maybe, but the boy in the chair doesn’t look much older than me. I would guess he’s younger than Bishop, in fact, but I glance at the file over Victoria’s shoulder and see he’s twenty-two.
He smiles at us and waves with his free hand, the other handcuffed to the side of the chair. “Hi. I was starting to think you’d forgotten about me. ” He has sandy blond hair and round blue eyes. His cheeks are smooth with bright pink patches on the apples. He reminds me of the baby dolls my sister and I played with as children. I imagine a different type of girl might find him attractive.
Victoria takes a seat across from him, and I slide into the empty chair beside her. Mark’s eyes follow the line of my bare leg peeking out from my skirt as I sit, but when he raises his gaze to mine, his look is carefully polite.
“Mark,” Victoria says, capturing his attention. “You know why you’re here, I assume. ”
“You need to get everything finalized before you put me out. ”
“Yes. ” Victoria draws a sheaf of papers from his file and uncaps a pen. As she goes over his address and next of kin, I take the chance to study him. He is answering her easily enough, but his foot jumps against the floor and he’s swallowing too fast, like he has to keep wetting his mouth or the words will dry up.
“Will I…will I have a chance to say good-bye to my family?” he asks.
“You will,” Victoria says. “We’ll be notifying them of a day and time when they are allowed to visit. ”
Mark nods, his head bobbing on his neck like a spring. “I wish there was someone I could talk to,” he says. “Someone in charge. I’m sure if I just explained—”
“You had a trial, Mr. Laird,” Victoria says. “And the judge found you guilty. There’s nothing left to discuss. ”
“But you can’t just put me out!” he says, voice rising. His handcuffs rattle against the chair. My whole body tenses, but Victoria remains unfazed. She probably hears these pleas, and ignores them, every time she enters this room. The thought of it makes me want to vomit.
“If you’ll calm down,” she says, “I’ll go over the procedure for your release with you. ”
“My release?” Mark’s voice breaks and he chokes out a high, hysterical laugh. “It’s not a release. It’s a death sentence. Why don’t you call it what it is?”
“Well,” Victoria says, shutting the folder with a snap. “If you’re not going to be reasonable, it looks like we’re done here. We can try again tomorrow. ”
She moves toward the door. I stand to follow her, and Mark leans forward, his body stretching out of his chair, and snags my wrist. “Please,” he says. “Please help me. ”
I twist out of his grasp, the tiny hairs on my arm standing at attention. I know I should be reacting to the pain in his voice, but there’s something swimming in the depths of his eyes—a calculating slyness at odds with his boyish face—that makes my skin crawl.
Victoria holds the door open and I go out, breathing fast.
“Everything okay?” David asks.
“He grabbed her,” Victoria says. “But no harm done, right?”
I nod, crossing my arms across my chest and holding my elbows to still my shaking fingers. David goes into the room with Mark, and Victoria starts down the hall away from me. “Let’s take a quick break before the next one,” she says as she walks.
“He was right, you know,” I call after her. She turns and looks at me over her shoulder. “You were playing word games with him. It is a death sentence. ”
Victoria stares at me, runs her tongue over her front teeth. Her footsteps are fast and loud as she walks back to where I stand. “No, I wasn’t,” she says. “He’ll be alive when we release him. And if he’s half as smart as he thinks he is, he can figure out how to stay that way. ”
I shake my head. “You know that’s not true. He’ll die out there. No one deserves—”
“Do you know what he did?” Victoria asks me. Her voice is quiet but deadly sharp and accurate, each word like an arrow pointed home. “He raped a nine-year-old girl. Carved his name into her belly so she’d have a souvenir for the rest of her life. ”
My stomach flips, bile rising up in my throat. I turn my face away from her, toward the wall, remembering the look in his eyes when he touched my arm. I want to scrub my skin with hot water, rid myself of him so there’s no evidence left behind. I don’t let myself think of the little girl who will never be able to do the same.
Victoria leans closer. “What do you suggest we do with him, Ivy? Should we let him loose? Keep him here forever, feeding him during winters we can barely feed ourselves? Give him medicine that could go to innocent children instead?” She shoves Mark Laird’s folder against my chest. I take it with numb fingers. “Personally, I think he deserves worse. ”
I don’t look up, even after the door at the end of the hall swings shut behind her.
I walk home angry and don’t even know why. It’s not as if my father didn’t admit that a lot of the people put outside the fence have done horrible things. And Victoria’s right, maybe Mark does deserve worse than he’s getting. But I still feel lied to, like all the speeches my father gave me were supposed to end in easy answers, not more questions. It means sometimes things aren’t as simple as our fathers want us to believe. I hear Bishop’s words in my head and have to resist punching at nothing, screaming at the humid air pressing against the back of my neck. My throat feels raw and tight and I stalk along the deserted sidewalk with my fingernails biting into my palms, leaving the sounds of downtown behind me in the distance.
