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If Connor Maguire wants revenge for his daughter, he’s gonna have to send a lot more men. With something better than razor blade toothbrushes.
They did manage to snap off a piece of that shank in my thigh. The prison doctor had to dig it out, and stitch up my back as well. As soon as he finished, the guards chucked me in “restricted housing.” That’s where I’ve been ever since, bored out of my skull.
Which is why I don’t argue when the guard tells me I’m up for a mandatory meeting with a shrink.
I have zero interest in therapy. But I wouldn’t mind seeing a new set of walls.
I let them cuff my hands and ankles, and I shuffle out of my elevator-sized cell, through the numerous checkpoints and locked doors that lead from Block 8 back toward the infirmary.
We take a hard right turn into a series of offices I’ve never visited before.
They set me down at a plain table on a wooden chair. Clip an anchored chain between my cuffs so I can only move my hands maybe a foot or so in any direction. Then I sit there and wait for exactly eight minutes.
Prison time is by the clock. 6:00 a.m. the lights snap on, jolting you out of sleep if you were asleep at all. 6:05 the guards come around to count the inmates. 7:00 a.m., breakfast time—hope you like oatmeal. Time allotted for meals, for showers, for exercise, for AA meetings… so on and so forth throughout the day, every minute accounted for, until it’s time to sleep and start all over again.
I’ve gotten pretty good at counting the minutes passing, whether I want to count them or not.
So I know exactly how long it’s been when the door cracks open and a woman walks in behind me.
I can smell her perfume before I can actually see her. Subtle and warm, hints of rose and anise.
It catches in my nose, dilates my pupils, gets my heart beating. After all, it’s been three months since I’ve even seen a woman, let alone smelled one.
The prison fucking stinks. It smells like industrial detergent, institutional food, mildewed cells, and dank bodies.
By contrast, the scent of this woman’s skin has my mouth watering before she’s a foot inside the door. It’s like an olfactory glimpse of paradise from the bowels of hell.
The sight of her is just as good.
She takes a wide berth, skirting the table, coming around to the other side to sit directly across from me.
She’s trim and petite—dark haired, dark eyed. She might be in her thirties, but she looks younger because of the smattering of brown freckles across her cheeks that remind me of a dappled fawn.
She’s trying for professionalism with her suit and dark-framed glasses, but she’s left her hair down. And she can’t hide the tension in her shoulders, or the slight tremor of her hands as she arranges her folder and pen in front of her.
“Good afternoon,” she says, politely. “My name is Clare Nightingale. I’m a correctional psychologist here. You’ve been assigned as my—as one of my patients.”
Her voice is lower than I expected—soft, but clear. As she rests one pale hand atop the folder, I see that she’s gone to the trouble of getting a manicure, only to paint the nails with clear polish. No ring on her left hand, and no mark of one recently removed.
She waits for me to respond.
I say nothing.
So she ventures a question she thinks I’ll surely answer. “Your name is Constantine Rogov, correct?”
I watch her in silence.
As I suspected, the longer the quiet drags on, the pinker her cheeks become. She shifts in her chair.
After almost a full minute, she says, “Do you not intend to speak to me? The guards said you consented to this meeting.”
I answer at last.
“What do you hope to accomplish, Ms. Nightingale?”
Even though she was trying to provoke me into answering, the roughness of my voice in this small space makes her jump. She’s angry with herself for startling, her cheeks flushing brighter than ever.
“I’m here to help in the process of rehabilitation,” she says. “By meeting with me regularly, I hope to help you pass your time here more effectively, and to prepare you for a successful return to normal life.”
