Page 7

Jonah

The water in the showers never got warmer than room temperature, to say nothing of what happened during the colder months. Jonah braced himself for the sting but still flinched at the first spray against his chest.

The house didn’t have private bathrooms. Instead, there were six shower stalls and three toilets in a single room on the second floor. Privacy, in general, was a forbidden luxury for most of the residents. Too risky, given their histories.

On the day Jonah moved in, Ross Shepard had explained the rules in black and white: No locked doors, no broken curfews, you fulfill your community shifts, you do as you’re told, and your papers get signed. You break the rules, you get a one-way ticket to a cell. It was a privilege to be trusted with a second chance, and the residents of Shepard’s Fold were expected to act accordingly.

This wasn’t freedom, he had drilled into their heads from day one. It was the chance to prove you’ve earned it .

Most of the residents were recent parolees, juvenile age-outs, and guys with minor drug charges. No violent offenders permitted. A select few, like Jonah, were here as a court-mandated alternative to serving time. They took a community-service-based approach to rehabilitation, requiring all residents to complete daily shifts at the local soup kitchen, hand out coats in the winter, clean up litter from highway roadsides. Their goal wasn't to punish, but to reform.

Ross Shepard was the house supervisor. He had the posture of a military commander and wore the silver tags around his neck to match, he smelled perpetually of cigarette smoke and stale coffee, and he had taken an interest in Jonah right away.

For a while, he had kept a close eye. Jonah watched him watching him, but he credited the attention to his newcomer status. It made sense, he supposed, that he would want to know if the new kid was going to be a problem. Jonah had no intention of being one. His plan was to lay low and avoid interactions of any kind, which was made all the simpler by having his own room. It was secluded from the rest, situated in the downstairs hallway, the only resident dorm on the ground floor. He had thought that was a good thing, once. Then he’d learned that the isolation was an intentional move.

Jonah had only been in the house for a week when Shepard came into his room with a threat disguised as an offer. He must have possessed the predator instinct for scoping out the perfect opportunity, catching Jonah at his lowest and weakest. Never before had he found himself in such a perilous position, desperate and terrified, with no one in his corner. Ross Shepard had known that. He smelled blood in the water, and he struck.

By the time Jonah had realized just how far beneath the surface he’d been pulled, he was too deep to swim out of it. It had only been a steady sink from there.

Jonah was accustomed to the lack of privacy, but he still stiffened at the sound of the bathroom door opening and closing behind him. The rest of the guys were out on a highway cleanup assignment—one that Jonah was conveniently excused from, for a meeting with a caseworker who didn’t actually exist. It was in these windows of time where Shepard found ways to slip, undetected, into Jonah’s space.

He tensed but refused to turn around. Feigning ignorance would only delay the inevitable, but if that was all Jonah had, he would cling to those few seconds.

Shepard came to a stop just outside his stall. Jonah felt his gaze on his back like jagged fingernails, scraping down, drawing blood.

“Another overnight request.” His voice made Jonah jump despite himself. “Seems like someone has a happy customer.”

Jonah pushed his face under the cold spray, hoping for the sharp bite to ground him, but his skin was nearly numb to it by then. All he got was a dull ache.

“Think it will be a regular thing? ”

“I don’t know,” Jonah said honestly.

Shepard clicked his tongue. “Not very confident, are we?”

Jonah cut off the spray, dropping them into an echoey silence. When he reached for the towel hanging on the hook, Shepard snatched it away, holding it just out of reach. Jonah bit down on his cheek until he tasted blood.

“Come and get it,” Shepard whispered.

Shivering and exposed, Jonah stood with his arms wrapped around him for a few endless moments, his eyes fixed on the grimy tile beneath his feet. As he forced himself to take a step forward, the bathroom door opened again. Both heads turned in the direction of the noise to find Shepard’s hired muscle peeking in.

“What?” Shepard snapped.

“Traffic’s backed up on 90,” Marcus said. “We need to head out early.”

“Right now?”

Marcus checked his watch. “ETA is already pushed twenty minutes.”

Jonah curled his body toward the wall for some semblance of coverage. He expected Marcus to close the door and leave them to it, but he stood there long enough for Shepard to give in and take a step back.

“You heard the man.” He threw the towel at Jonah, who scrambled to catch it before it hit the wet floor. “ Get dressed.”

He left, brushing past Marcus, who stood there a few seconds longer. He kept his eyes averted when he said, “I’ll be in the car.”