Page 21 of X's and O's

I gave Lynx a halfhearted wave, miserably sure I was going to be back here tonight.

I’d done this walk too many times. Once a year, for the past six. It was hard to still have hope.

But the sun was bright outside the prison doors, and though I was still surrounded by barbed wire and fences, I sucked in the fresh air.

Then I got in the van, surrounded by a handful of other prisoners who were all headed to the same place.

Pritchard closed the doors behind me and moved around to the driver’s seat, sectioned off by a wire cage so me and the other thugs back here couldn’t interfere with the guards up front.

But I highly doubted anyone from this group was about to try to stage a jailbreak. Not when we were this close to being legally released. Nobody would have dared.

The drive home might be different though. Especially if these guys had been denied release as many times as I had.

The prisoner next to me mumbled prayers, his hands clutched together. The man opposite me stared at a spot on the roof of the van, his gaze unwavering.

My leg bounced uncontrollably. Each of us dealing with our nerves in our own way.

We pulled up outside the basement entrance to the Providence courthouse with no fanfare. We weren’t high-profile cases, where there would be reporters hanging around, desperate for a sneaky photo.

We were just a bunch of low-level thugs nobody cared about, who were minimum risk and nothing special.

Pritchard and the guard with him, McCaffery, both appeared about as bored as guards got with their low-excitement posting for the day. The other guys and I all followed them like little ducklings, none of us making a peep, all of us too fucking scared to utter a word.

McCaffery pushed open the doors to the same room my parole had been denied in multiple other times. I knew where to sit. Every other time I’d been here, I’d headed straight for the benches the prisoners sat at until it was their turn to be brought forward to the board.

I’d never bothered paying much attention to the room much before. I knew some of the guys from my club turned up every year. Fang. War. Hawk.

But I never glanced in their direction. Deliberately made a point not to. I didn’t want anything to do with any of them.

But today I found my gaze skipping around the room. The three of them all sat in the back row, smart enough at least to not wear their fucking club jackets. Fang tried catching my eye, but I turned away quickly. He’d been my best friend once upon a time, and I missed him. But I’d denied every single one of his attempts to visit me on the inside, as well as all of War’s and Hawk’s, though their attempts had been less frequent.

I was out of the club. Done. And I didn’t want my record showing visitation from anyone affiliated with the Slayers.

When I got up in front of the parole board and told them I was out, I wanted to mean it with every syllable.

But my gaze skipped around the room today for a whole different reason.

Even though I’d told her not to come, I was looking for Violet.

I studied each person in the room, mentally assessingwhether any of them could be the woman I’d spent the past year pouring my heart out to via letters.

But each candidate was quickly dismissed. Even though I’d never seen a photo of her, something in my gut promised I’d know her at first sight. That was how fucking connected I felt to her. It was insane, I knew that, but I wasn’t fucking around when I’d said I was coming for her.

I was.

I felt nothing for any of the women in the courtroom. Not a thing. She wasn’t here.

I didn’t know whether I should be disappointed or not. I’d told her not to come and I’d had good reasons for it. But a tiny part of me had hoped she might ignore my request, even though I logically knew she wouldn’t.

Because she was sweet and kind and good, and she’d respected my wishes. I’d never had to reject her attempts at visiting, the way I had with the guys from my club. I’d asked her not to come, so she hadn’t.

I sat down hard on the bench and forced my mind to go blank until I was called up in front of the board.

“Griffin.” Pritchard tapped me on the shoulder. “Your turn.”

I jerked my head up and stood, trying to keep the shake out of my fingers and the hope out of my head. It was better to expect nothing. Harder to be disappointed that way.

I stepped forward and took the single seat, facing the firing squad, otherwise known as the parole board. It felt much the same, even though they weren’t holding guns. Either way, they held the rest of my life in their hands.