I feel an odd sensation so I turn to the man who knows me best, and bring my hands to press into the depths of his heart. It’s a little frightening when I feel it beat so fast under my fingertips.
‘Be careful, Shepherd, or your heart might pop.’
‘I know,’ he says. ‘I don’t want it to stop.’
The world can say what it wants, believe what it believes, but I know what I know. And what I know is that Shepherd, with all his darkness, with all his ghosts, loves me completely. Because when I feel alone, like nobody cares, and tears fall freely from my face, and my throat begins to ache . . . I feel it. Deep inside me. Like he will always love me, and I don't have to be afraid of the dark. Not anymore. Because it doesn't just feel unconditional — it is unconditional. Forever. And always. It's not something I learnt. It's not even describable by saying it is something I feel.
It's just — just some thing I know.
EPILOGUE III
ME
A year later . . .
HM Prison and Young Offenders Institution, Nazareth
Looking up at the red-brick walls that once caged me, I’m a tight ball of tension. The last time I left this place, I swore I’d never come back. But here I am. Every cell in my body is screaming at me to turn the fuck around and get the hell outta dodge while I still can.
The hell am I doing here? Why would I put myself into the grinder? They’re gonna rip me apart.
Fab5 puts his hand on my shoulder. ‘You alright, Shepherd?’
I nod but I can’t find the words.
‘We need to get inside,’ he says.
Inside. Again. But this time I’m walking into a different entrance. I was a teenager back then. Now I’m a grown man with a smashing family. My life is better than I ever dreamed it could be. Everything is different now.
I live in a luxury house, sat right by a stunning fjord, with my tribe. I’ve got the perfect supportive wife in Amy. Max is like a son to me, and Baby Viola is my whole fucking world.
I’m a self-made billionaire. My future is secure. Yet the thought of going back into this birdcage scares me in a way I never expected.
The guards barely look at me when they take my ID at the security check. If they recognise my face or my name, they don’t show it.
‘You know where you’re going?’ one of them asks us.
‘Wren,’ Fab5 says.
A pretty name for an ugly place.
All the wings at Nazareth are named after birds. Birds that don’t normally end up in cages. There’s Lapwing, the induction unit, where new inmates spend their first night inside getting used to how the institution works. Then there’s Quail, for those convicted of the most violent crimes. Wren, where we’re going today, is the healthcare wing where inmates with substance abuse problems and addictions are taken care of. Wren. A tiny bird with a hopeful little tail. Setting for the worst days of my life.
And I’m going back in there.
I follow Fab5 down the corridor. I lag behind. It’s like my body is resisting this return to the scene of the crime. I remember this corridor only too well. The alternating panels of bars and blank brick walls. The blast of cold air as we walk through the open barred parts. I breathe it in.
It’s better than the smell inside. Old dinners, body odour, desperation. It takes me right back and not in a good way.
Fab5 is walking fast now. We’re running late and nothing runs late in a place like this without consequences. But I want this moment in the corridor to last longer. I need more time to get myself sorted. Get ready to make my entrance. Fab5 doesn’t get how important that is. In those first few seconds, everything’s gonna be decided.
‘This is going to be good,’ Fab5 assures me. ‘Can’t think of anyone better suited to talking to this lot than you are.’
I wanna believe him but then I catch a glimpse of myself in a toughened glass panel, and I know exactly how they’re gonna see me.
Who’s that prick in the designer jeans? What’s his hair like? Who does he think he is?
Pretty little white boy.
I hear the hiss of angry voices I thought I’d long forgotten.
You gonna die, pretty boy. You gonna die.
The guard who lets us onto Wren raises his eyebrows when he sees me. He remembers me and he nods his approval, but he stops short of shaking my hand. I don’t have time to remind myself if he was one of the good ones. There were some good ones, a couple who actually seemed to care. And then there were the rotten ones.
Fab5 is rushing me on.
Then it happens.
As I tread into the wing, I look right. I can’t help it. It’s automatic. And the cell I see there makes me catch my breath. The door is open like a hungry mouth and suddenly I’m falling back through time. I can hear the alarm and the shouting and feel the panic as clearly as if the past seven years haven’t happened. I can feel the shaking and the shivering. My skin is crawling again. The voices won’t stop goddamn talking. They’re talking to me now.
You’re a piece of shit. Nobody here cares what happens to you. Why are you even alive, orphan boy?
Fab5 notices I’m distracted and yanks me back into the present.
‘Shepherd. They’re waiting for us. Come on.’
He pulls me along with him.
Sixteen inmates are sitting in the middle of the wing on a circle of grey plastic chairs. There’re two empty seats. One for
