Every day it is the same routine.

Get up at half past seven—I always woke up hours before that, and work starts an hour later. I have cleaning tasks, and then I work in the prison metal shop, making license plates.

Boring as hell, but it keeps my hands busy and my mind from going off the rails. Not that I get to choose what to do, anyway.

Then we collect lunch, some unidentifiable stew and pasta—thank fuck Connor trained me to eat whatever I’m given—and then we’re locked up in our cells until the staff have their own lunch. Then it’s back to work. Sometimes we’re allowed out in the walled yard.

Sometimes the inmates will corner me and steal the few cigarettes I manage to bum off a guard or other prisoner. Sometimes they rough me up just enough to remind me who’s in charge.

Just like Sebastian used to do.

I missed both funerals. His, and Mom’s. Didn’t get to say goodbye. The knowledge of that failure burns inside me, knots up my stomach so I can barely eat. My mind is hazy, my thoughts heavy.

The only thing that keeps me going is the phone calls I get with Gigi, and her weekly visit. If not for those things, I may have just given up. Gone off my fucking rocker. Sunk through the floor where it’s dark and quiet and nothing matters.

But she won’t let me. Keeps calling. Keeps visiting. She takes my hand and talks to me about her brother, her sister, her baby nephew, the garage and the house and her studies. About the world outside.

Reminding me there’s hope.

She burns in my mind like a flame, keeping me warm. Otherwise, I don’t feel much. My thoughts are slow. Way too slow, trying to figure out what happened, to tease apart what was real from what was a dream.

Did Mrs. Lowe love me as a son?

Maybe. As much as she could. She barely knew me before she started losing the memory of who I was.

Was Sebastian a good guy?

No, he was an asshole. Sure, he wasn’t all bad. Who is? But trying to save him was a futile exercise, one that almost got me killed, too.

Was Connor a good father to me, training me to throw punches and shoot a gun instead of opting for a conversation? Teaching me that family is always right, a blind faith instead of seeing things and people for what they are?

Though my part in all this is undeniable. No matter what Connor taught me, it was me who joined the gang, who chose not to see the truth.

And as for my real parents, for those old, golden memories… I should finally let go. I should stop chasing after that feeling. There is no safety, no fucking innocence anymore. I need to embrace my shadow, my past, and move on.

If I join another family, create my own family—with Gigi—then it has to be something new, something real. For me, and not to recapture some faded picture.

For me, and her.

For us.

* * *

The landscape streaks outside the car window. Green gardens, green fields, trees. Blue sky and white clouds.

“How you doing back there, buddy?” my dad asks, turning to grin at me.

The car swerves, throwing me sideways on the seat.

My head slams into the window.

There’s a crash, the impact throwing me forward, against the seat belt, cutting off my breath. Blood. Burnt. Blackness. Pain.

I can’t breathe.

I can’t breathe.

I can’t—

Fuck. I sit up, almost banging my head on the bunk above me. The air whistles in my lungs as I try to suck in oxygen.

I’m okay. I’m fine. Just a dream. Just a memory.

“Go back to sleep, Jarett,” my cell mate grumbles from the bunk above me. “Damn you and your damn nightmares.”

I drop back on my hard pillow, trying to swallow, my throat parched. “Yeah.”

“Think of something good,” he goes on. “Think, I dunno, about ice cream. And pies. And your girl. And let me go the hell back to sleep.”

Know what? He’s right.

In the stifling air of our cell, I close my eyes again and think of Gigi. She’s a candle I hold in the dark of my mind, its flame small but bright and sure, chasing away the shadows.

And I dream of her.

She’s laughing, lying in my bed, in my arms, her arms around my neck, her soft body pressed to mine. “Rett,” she whispers. “I’m here Rett. Waiting.”

Sleep closes over me like water, but I’m somehow smiling.