Prisoner Read online

  I adjust my glasses, defining the boundary between us, trying to get some control back, because this is all wrong. “You want to have a piece in The Kingman Journal?”

  He shrugs, but it’s too late because I know he does.

  I hit him in the one spot where he’s vulnerable. “Then you’ll write the truth about when you were a little kid. The truth.”

  Chapter Nine

  ~Grayson~

  The next time in class, Ms. Winslow rearranges the seating to be in alphabetical order, starting in back. She acts like she’s doing it to split up a few of the guys who’ve been talking, but we both know that’s not why. She wants me out of her desk, out of her space. Being that my last name is Kane, that puts me in the middle back. Zieman gets her desk.

  I’m good with the new arrangement. More than good, because my job here is to get a piece into the journal, get my message to Stone and the rest of my guys. As long as they see it, they’ll come through. I can trust them like that, and they trust me enough to know that if I have a plan, it’s solid.

  You’re either weak or strong, and I’m stronger than whatever is between me and Ms. Winslow. I have to be if I want to get out of this place.

  So I sit in class and listen hard without making eye contact. I absorb her lessons without thinking about how her voice sounds. I try to use the shit she suggests, and I block out everything else, like the way her hands felt on me. The feeling of taking her glasses. The way she looked up at me. The way she felt like mine.

  Ignoring her just makes it worse. I see her even when I don’t look at her. I feel her move around class, feel her moods. Back in Franklin City, near our hideout, there are these signs that say: DANGER: BURIED ELECTRICAL LINES. That’s how I feel in class. Buried electrical lines running between us, way the hell deep down.

  Chapter Ten

  ~Abigail~

  They say there are two types of fear—the kind that has you running far, far away, and the kind that shakes you so deeply that you can’t look away.

  For me, Grayson is the second kind of fear. I rearrange the seating to get some distance from him, because what happened in the back office was so, so wrong.

  But sometimes at night I think about it with this horror and fascination swirling in the pit of my belly. The memory of it is a contraband jewel I absolutely shouldn’t possess, but I can’t help taking it out and looking at it.

  The new seating seems to work; in fact, Grayson seems to want to ignore me as badly as I want to ignore him. No more knowing glances, no more wicked smiles. He applies himself to the work like it’s a matter of life or death.

  So I give my lessons from one week to another. I walk up and down the side of the room while they write.

  If somebody were observing the class, they might think I was the most aloof and professional teacher ever, and that Grayson is just a number to me.

  They’d be wrong.

  Grayson touches me deeply, over and over, kills me, really. Not with his hands or eyes, but with his words. His vignette is shocking. Raw. Heartbreaking. It’s about a boy being held prisoner in a basement, though on the face of it, it’s the story of a boy’s pet rat, Manuel. Only this rat doesn’t have a cage or a little water bottle or a wheel to run on. This rat lives in the walls. It’s a rodent, the kind that should be killed with a trap, but it means everything to the boy. He coaxes it out and feeds it. There are other boys here. These boys seem to be trapped with no TV, no games. I don’t understand what’s going on or who is holding him. He doesn’t have enough food to eat, but he breaks off little bits of pizza crust so that Manuel will come back.

  The vignette runs back and forth between the rat and the boy and the time the rat doesn’t come back for days. The boy marks the days on the wall with a nail, staking out the southeast corner where the rat comes and goes. His precise focus on dates and hours suggests that he has nothing else but that rat.

  The boy doesn’t get to go outside. That fact is never stated, but it’s painfully clear.

  The piece is subtle but powerful, and his honesty and bravery blows me away, because he dug into the darkest part of his life with quiet acceptance and a total lack of self-pity. My childhood had darkness too, but I am honest enough to admit there’s self-pity. And not much acceptance, really.

  There are no adults in this story. Only the boy, the rat, Manuel, and some of his friends who ooh and aah over the rat. Grayson describes the rat vividly, the gray fur and twitching nose, the crooked spot in his tail where it must’ve been broken once.

  Kind of like the boy’s arm got broken. That’s how Grayson puts it in the story—his arm got broken. The passive language and the absence of explanation imply someone broke it on purpose. Who? The vignette doesn’t tell.

  There was this shock before the pain set in, he wrote. That was the good part, because once the pain started, it never went away. Grayson’s writing voice is both insightful and matter-of-fact.

  Who was keeping Grayson in that basement? What horrible things happened to him there, where a dirty, skittish rat was the best part of his day? It’s moving in the way that it skirts the edges of the reality of it, implying it but never quite naming it.

  I think about intrepid little Manuel, twitching his whiskers, looking for his pizza crusts. When he’s missing for a few days, I know he’s left for good. Sometimes I dream up this whole life for him playing outside, and it makes it easier.

  I give him suggestions on cleaning up the language, but the piece is solid, and it has the ring of truth, though I’ll admit to having my moments of doubting him after the baseball story.

  One night I Google him, just because I have to know for sure that it’s real—because I want to believe him. I’ve refrained from Googling the men in my class—it feels like an invasion of their privacy, and it still does as the page loads with hits for Grayson Kane.

  Search listings promise sordid tales of a trial, but something darker draws my attention—a row of images.

  There he is. Grayson. Not Grayson like I know him now, tall and wide and intimidating as heck. This Grayson is a little boy. I recognize his features in the young, solemn face.

  On a milk carton.

  He stares into the camera without a smile. His hair has been cut straight across his forehead, a bowl cut. His eyes are dark and solemn.

  I click.

  MISSING, it says on the milk carton above the image. It gives his height and date of birth and his weight. Seventy-five pounds. A little boy. Last seen near a white and blue ice cream truck.

  If you have any information regarding this missing youth, please contact your local county sheriff’s department.

  A lot of missing child cases are custody disputes, but the ice cream truck suggests he was taken. Kept. In a basement.

  How long was he held before they found him? A day? Two days?

  Long enough to make friends with a rat. Two weeks?

  My stomach churns—but not with doubt like before. Now it’s filled with anguish for the little boy I never knew. For the little boy I read about in a short memoir piece. There are so many gaps between the scared boy he was then and the scary man he is now.

  I close the page. I’ve seen enough.

  At some point Grayson was taken. Held. Those were his brown eyes staring out at me from the back of a milk carton.

  * * *

  I’m excited and relieved when the box of professionally printed journals arrives at my dorm room. It’s just two days before the launch party, and I was worrying the copies wouldn’t come in time.

  I pull one out and run my finger over the header. I stayed up so many nights getting it just right. The program grant even paid for a graphic designer to do the cover, and it’s gorgeous. This project seems to mean something to the guys, and it means something to me now too.

  I recall Esther’s words about giving the men space to tell their stories as I turn to Grayson’s page. I wanted honesty from him. The kind of depth I knew he was capable of.

  I got so much more.


  It makes a brilliant centerpiece for the first issue. It almost hurts to publish it, putting out words so incredibly raw.

  The Kingman Journal is already up online and the pageviews are rising. People are drawn to the realness of the pieces as much as I am. There are ten pieces in all, unless you want to count mine—part of the project was that the teacher participate and write a vignette of her own, so that the stories appear alongside each other. I just put in something old I already had—a piece about my first day at college. It’s a sort of stupid piece, but the journal is for the guys, not for me.

  Chapter Eleven

  ~Abigail~

  The classroom is the same stark room it’s always been, but it strikes me now¸ on the last day, that I’ll miss it. We did something meaningful here, and I’m glad I didn’t quit. A sort of wistfulness overtakes me as I stand in front and wait for the men to enter.

  I curse myself for having worn my blue cashmere sweater—I know better than to wear something so formfitting, considering the way the men look at me. I don’t know what got into me.

  No. Actually I do. Grayson. Will this be the last time I see him? Of course it will.

  I feel it when he enters—it’s as if the atmosphere brightens and intensifies, and there’s a lightness to his step that’s new. Dixon walks beside him, talking to him in low tones, maybe scolding him, but Grayson doesn’t seem affected. He smiles, and a miniscule indent appears on his cheekbone; most people would see it as a dimple, but I was up close with him that day in the library, and I know that corner of his cheekbone is where that tiny, ancient scar is. It’s his skin pulling around it. A genuine smile—not mocking. He seems…happy.

  Is it because of his memoir and The Kingman Journal? I think about what Esther said, how some people need to tell their stories to be healed, to be whole. It feels almost too prideful to think I might have played a role in that new happiness, the new hope.

  From his chair, he catches my eye and nods. I flash on the milk carton, that boy looking out with his big brown eyes. But this isn’t a day for sadness. He would never want my pity. I nod back.

  I look at each of my students, nodding in turn. I know them now. Deep inside where it hurts the most, I know them. But even so, the sea of orange is intimidating. It always has been. Even with Dixon standing against the wall, like always.

  Dixon, who looks strangely watchful. There’s a sheen of sweat over his forehead. As if he’s nervous. Why would he be nervous?

  My stomach turns over. This feels wrong. But maybe I’m only upset because it’s my last day. I don’t know why it should upset me this much, unless Esther was right. I got too close to them. To Grayson, to all of them.

  “Let’s start,” I whisper even though no one can hear me. Some of the men are going to be reading from their pieces today. I clear my throat and try again, but nothing comes out. My throat is swollen.

  The room feels wavy with discontent, like a dark forest before a storm.

  That’s when the fight starts. Two guys have an exchange that ends with them yelling in each other’s faces. I don’t even have time to process what this means. The guard is going to fix it, right? Dixon will fix it.

  But he doesn’t. Something’s wrong, very wrong.

  Dixon moves closer to me as the two begin fighting with fists. Smack. Flesh against flesh. Dixon is standing in front of me, blocking me. I peer over his shoulder, and in a flash four more guys are up fighting too. Then the room erupts.

  Suddenly Dixon’s pulling me away, fast enough that everything turns into a blur. A gunshot rings out. Are they shooting the prisoners? I search for Grayson, but I don’t see him.

  “Come on!” Dixon says, pushing me between him and a door in the corner that I hadn’t noticed before. He must have grabbed my bag from the desk before we left, because he shoves it in my arms now.

  Panic beats in my chest. “What’s going on? What are you doing?”

  He’s typing something into a little keypad. “Getting you out of here.”

  An alarm sounds—not the bell kind, but a low, ominous staccato. Another shot. It sounds like a bomb. The place is like a volcano bleeding orange.

  Grayson’s in there. Is he okay?

  There’s smoke coming from somewhere. The door opens, and Dixon pulls me through into a large concrete passageway lined with pipes and panels.

  We rush down the hall. Clomping footsteps ahead, like a herd of elephants. Dixon pulls me against the wall as a dozen men in riot gear pass.

  “Where you going, Manny?” one of them shouts to Dixon in a deep baritone.

  “She doesn’t belong here,” he yells in answer.

  Dixon propels me, practically shoving me along. Buzzers sound as we go through one door and then another. Why did the guys start fighting? Are they safe? Is Grayson? We end up at the front office, which is buzzing with activity. Two minutes later I have my purse and I’m out in the crisp, cool day.

  Alarms blare, even outside. “Where’s your car?” Dixon asks.

  I point.

  He jogs me down the long row of cars and over to where I parked. “You need to get off the grounds as quickly as possible. This is a very dangerous place right now. Someone’ll call you later to take your statement.”

  “Wait. What did that guy call you? Manny?” I don’t know why I’m fixating on this, but it feels important. Like life or death. “Is that your name?”

  “Yeah. It’s a nickname.”

  “What’s your real name?”

  “Manuel,” he finally says. “But no one ever calls me that.”

  I point to my car. “Here I am,” I say, pulling out my keys.

  “Go.” He turns and runs back toward the foreboding gray building.

  I stand there, shaking even more now than when I was inside. What the hell just happened?

  Manuel. His name is Manuel. A common enough name, but a strange coincidence. Grayson’s rat was named Manuel.

  And something else was strange about Dixon. He didn’t bother to break up the fight; instead he got me out of harm’s way. I want to be grateful for that, but all I keep thinking is how he didn’t stop the fight. He didn’t even seem surprised, and then there’s the way he was nervous when class started.

  As if he knew this would happen.

  I’m in the visitor’s lot, near my car. I look around at the cars still in the lot and there, up in the next row, is a beat-up green car. There’s someone getting in. A big guy. Dark hair. He’s standing next to the car, ignoring the alarm. But it’s taking too long to get the key in…

  He doesn’t have a key. He’s breaking into a car. The realization hits me and in the next second I think of why a prison alarm would go off. If an inmate escaped.

  Was this part of a prison escape? Was this man a prisoner?

  Of course!

  And Dixon just helped them. It makes sense now, his actions. Did they threaten him? Is that how they got him to help? Then the man in the car turns to glance back at the prison, just for a second… and I recognize him. It’s Grayson. Oh God, it’s Grayson.

  I whirl around and unlock my door, pulse racing, and slip in, closing the door quietly so he won’t see me.

  What are the odds he forces his way into my memoir class only to escape on the last day of class? It can’t be a coincidence. I think about the way he wanted to get in my class, even after it started. The way he was desperate to have his piece in the journal. What if he’d sent a message with it?

  My face heats with shame and anger as I think about how Grayson’s vignette ripped out my heart.

  Was it all made up? The whole boyhood captivity story? Manuel the Rat? I felt so sick about that little boy, scared and alone. And it was all a coded message. Now I know that Dixon’s name is Manuel. That means something.

  I was shaking with fear before, but now I’m shaking with anger as I imagine his smile. Like a fool, I thought I’d helped him. I thought I’d made a difference. I guess I did make a difference—just not one I would’ve wanted.r />
  He used me. Played me.

  I memorize the license plate and pull out my phone. I need to call somebody. No one knows why the riot broke out. No one knows that Grayson is about to escape in that specific car except for me.

  I slide down low in my seat. Do I dial 9-1-1? The prison front office? I have to tell someone—Grayson could be dangerous. No, he is dangerous. He could be a rapist, a murderer. I really wish I’d seen his file like the other guys. What did he do to get locked up?

  I scan the parking lot, wondering if I should run back to the office and tell them, wondering if there’s still time.

  I look over and we lock eyes.

  He’s spotted me.

  Get out! Start up the car and go! I’m still holding my cellphone in one hand so I can call 9-1-1, but that isn’t going to help me now. I hunt for my keys—where are they? Did I drop them on the way to my car? No! I unlocked my door. Did I stick them back in my bag? I do that when I’m distracted. I dig through my bag with shaking hands. Where are they?

  When I look back up, he’s standing there. Watching me with cold eyes.

  Shit shit shit.

  Frantically I return to my bag, throwing out receipts and fluffed-out, unused tampons. This whole thing’s unreal, like I’ve stepped into a Salvador Dali portrait of a prison break.

  I find my keys and shove them into the ignition.

  Glass crashes in my ear. I swing my gaze around to a gun, held by a bloody fist stuck into my passenger window.

  Grayson.

  He reaches in and opens the door. “Drop the phone. Now.”

  I drop it in my lap as he slides in, right over the glass, and shuts the door.

  He grabs my phone from my lap and examines it.

  “No calls went through.” My voice only shook a little.

  “Good girl.” He sets the phone against the dashboard and smashes it with the butt of the gun—three hard, violent whacks and the thing is in pieces. He tosses most of it out, and casual as can be, he buckles up. “Drive.”