There were exactly twenty tables, arranged in neat rows of five. Across the room was the second elevator, the one that went down to the cell blocks. A green light above its closed door indicated that it remained operational. I took my seat—fourth row from the elevator, furthest to the left, if you care—and placed my hands on the table as the warden had instructed. The people who’d been at the table before me had clearly done the same; there were sweaty prints on the cold metal surface.
Two guards, one on each side of the room, waved to their respective security cameras, giving the all-clear before pivoting to face the cell block elevator with the rest of us. There were no numbers above the doors like you see sometimes in vids, nothing at all to indicate that the elevator was moving at all. As the minutes crept by, I could feel as much as hear both the guards and other visitors shifting restlessly.
Fifteen minutes later, the doors slid open. A line of inmates in orange jumpsuits, arms and legs shackled in front of them, shuffled into the meeting room, escorted by even more guards.
The lead prisoner was fucking enormous, a big black guy whose beard put my former roommate’s to shame. His faded jumpsuit strained across broad, muscular shoulders, and he was a head taller than anyone else in the room.
Titan, I decided, before my mind conjured up images of Alan Jackson and Stonewall. Or Shifter.
Three tables away, the tired-eyed woman who’d brought pictures of her twins managed to stop coughing long enough to flash a brilliant smile at the big man. His answering smile was almost lost in the darkness of his tangled beard.
“You see where to go, Jaws,” the lead escort rumbled. “No funny business or this visit ends early.”
After Jaws, there came a succession of inmates, some of them almost as imposing, many of them… not. Bushy Eyebrows Guy’s son was the spitting image of his old man, if taller and in considerably better shape. At the other end of the spectrum was Firewall, the aforementioned Technomancer, whose hairline had receded well past his ears, and who looked like a stiff wind would blow him over.
He wasn’t the most pathetic of the inmates though. Nor was it the trembling, shivering kid with the enormous nose and prominent Adam’s apple who the guards named Pusher—a Telekinetic, I assumed. Instead, that honor went to the last inmate off the elevator. He didn’t have a Black Hat name because he’d been caught after his very first murder. Almost fourteen years later, he was a misshapen bundle of skin and bones, with wide, staring eyes, and the same beak of a nose I saw whenever I looked in the mirror.
David-fucking-Jameson.
Crow. Murderer. Father.
•—•—•
My father tripped twice on the way over to my table, and each time, he had to be reoriented after getting back to his feet. When he arrived, he stood there staring blankly at the wall behind me. Finally, the nearest guard pushed him into his chair.
Dad had never been a great looking guy, even in Mom’s one memory, but now he looked like someone you’d find sleeping by a dumpster. His dark hair stuck up in every direction and his long, crooked nose dripped rivers of snot right past the corners of his half-open mouth. All the fat had been boiled away from his features, leaving too-prominent cheekbones and weathered pale skin.
We both had grey eyes, but mine were the color of old concrete, while his were paler. I’d have called them silver before I met Olympia and learned what real silver eyes looked like. I watched those eyes wander haphazardly around the room, like they were following a mosquito in flight. It was ten long seconds before he even noticed me. When he did, his eyes widened.
“Damian?”
I’d rehearsed what I was going to say. I’d even practiced my speech, just so I could maximize whatever time I got, but now that the moment had arrived, I couldn’t say a word. All I could see was his face as it had been, years earlier—to me as a five year old coming home to his mom’s murder, and to Mom when she’d fought to save my life—overlaid atop the desiccated figure sitting in front of me.
My plans went right out the window, taking those carefully rehearsed words with them. I was sliding one hand to the edge of the table, preparing to reach for Her Majesty’s gun, and questions and interrogation tactics be damned, when my father did something wholly unexpected.
He smiled.
The one thing I didn’t have was his smile. Sofia said I didn’t have a smile at all—just a threat of impending violence, dressed up in exposed ivory—but even as a child, my smile had been quieter, more private. My mom’s smile.
My dad’s smile was wide and jolly and heartfelt and he had no business making it, sitting across from the son he’d tried to kill, the son he had orphaned.
“Damian!” He blinked away tears, and beamed even more brightly. “Look at you, all grown up big and strong! Your mother must be so proud!” He looked around the room. “Where is she?”
And that’s when I realized my father didn’t know.
•—•—•
I sat there for a moment in stunned silence as my father’s voice rose to a whine.
“Where is she? Elora? Elora?!?!” He pulled his hands from the table and started to rise, but a guard was there in an instant, pushing him back down into his seat. The disgust on that guard’s face turned to pity as he looked my way.
He wasn’t the only one looking. Half the visitors were watching us, and at least as many of the inmates, although Jaws was focused on the two photos his
