16
Mila
It's weird being here. The white and gray walls are weathered by time and passing inmates. Really, the FUC prison isn't much different than any other prison. It's a line of jail cells with inmates in each. The difference is that the cells are fortified for shifters, and it's not always a human body that you'll see watching you through the bars.
There are lions, tigers, bears. You name it, they can be found here.
I make my way to the visitors' room. A metal table, on which a pair of shackles have been soldered, sits in the middle of the square space.
My mother is sitting in her prison orange, hands cuffed to the table in front of her. It's not necessary, in my opinion. She had the chance to hurt me, and she didn't. But it's policy, so there is nothing I can do. It also helps to know that she is back on the anti-shifter serum. She can’t shift out of her shackles or fly out of here. This prison is where she is to stay.
"Mila, you're back so soon to visit me."
Her smile seems genuine, and she looks a lot better now that she's being treated for the Foamies and she's stopped experimenting on herself. She's pale, just like me, but at least her skin has lost the sickly purple tinge to it.
Sitting there, she looks composed and sure of herself. This is the version of my mother I’ve always had to contend with when looking over her crimes. The side of her I couldn’t reconcile with the murderer. It’s hard to look at her right now and think that she has done such unspeakable things.
I suppose the one small comfort I can have is that she has some lines she won’t cross. Sure, that line is only me, but that means more than I could ever say out loud.
"Hey," I say, sitting in front of her.
"Does this mean that you have my answer? Can I have access to a lab?" She blinks at me pleadingly, like it was all up to me. "I know I'm close to a breakthrough. I could feel it."
"Do you really think that's a wise choice, Mom?"
"But..." I shoot her a look, and she stops herself.
“Let’s think back, shall we. You escaped with the man who was completely copycatting versions of your murders. Then you killed said accomplice.”
“To save you,” she interjects as if that could ever be enough to make up for all the bad she has done.
“There’s no way I can argue that for you. Not for a long while.” Not ever, but I don’t say that. I don’t really feel like getting into a fight about this particular topic.
"So why are you here, then?"
"I came to see how you were doing with the meds. It's just a nice visit, Mom."
She laughs. It's a dry, humorless thing. "A nice visit. Mila, you shouldn't be here." She sighs heavily. "I should not have allowed you to study forensic anthropology. I should have..."
"Wait, no. You didn't get a say in that choice. I had to do that. For me. So I could understand what became of my life when you were arrested. I would have gone down that path with or without your help. It sure made my master's thesis and my Ph.D. work more interesting."
"I didn't know that's why you were asking me all of those questions, you know. I thought that you were just visiting me. I didn't even think that I was becoming your subject. And I..." She looks down and swallows hard. "I didn't think about my actions and how they would completely affect you. But now that I know that you built your entire life around what I did... I feel terrible."
"You do realize that you should feel dreadful for all the people you killed, right? Not just for seriously messing up my life and Dad's life."
"Well, that's a lot to ask of me, Mila. I can't spend too much time thinking about it. It would make me crazy. Can I just apologize to you and have that be enough?"
"Not even remotely, Mom. Seriously. You've hurt so many people."
"What can I do? It's too late to make amends." Her shoulders slump, and I have to remember who she is and what she has done. I can't just look at her with my daughter eyes.
"If you mean that, then help me bring closure to the families you've hurt."
"How?" She furrows her brow in confusion.
"Give me a list of all your victims. Tell me where you hid all of the bodies. I know you. You must have a log of some kind."
She looks away, crossing her arms, the shackles clanking loudly against the metal table. "Mila."
That's it. That's all she says.
She rises and sighs. "Guard," she calls, avoiding my eyes. "I'm ready to go back to my cell."
Well. At least I tried. I should have known it would be asking too much of her. It's not because she didn't kill me that she would do this for me.
"I'll do it, Mila."
I jump up and rush to her.
"Say again, I don't think I heard you."
There's no way she just agreed to help me.
"You'll be doing it yourself. With my help or not. I want you to move on and have a life apart from the things I've done. If helping you is the only way to get you to stop being completely immersed in my..." She stumbles on the words and looks away. "My crimes. I'll do it."
Her motives are purely selfish.
She isn't helping me because she feels any sort of remorse for the things she has done. She's doing it because she doesn't want to feel guilty every time she thinks about me.
It's not much, but I'll take it.
I can't force her to feel guilty for the things she has done. You can't crawl into someone's mind and make them have the emotions that would be appropriate.
It's clear that Sveta Markov is a psychopath. But at least she'll
