I’m finally free.
That hasn’t sunk in until this very moment, I guess because I still saw this place as a punishment and a way of keeping me in my chains without actually keeping me locked up. But, I guess I was wrong. It’s clear now that if I let myself, this place could be somewhere I enjoy. Still, the idea of being here for six weeks is a bit overwhelming, especially when I want to just get the hell out.
I want my answers.
I want her to answer for what she did to me.
For why she left me to rot in prison without ever coming forward.
“You know it’s nearly winter, we shouldn’t be in this water for too long.”
I glance over at Lake, who is watching me, the moonlight reflecting off his perfect face. “Do you want to know why I went to prison?”
He studies me. “Not goin’ to lie and say I don’t, because I am curious why a girl that looks like you got put away.”
“Looks like me?”
“You’re fuckin’ gorgeous, almost innocent in your appearance. It’s hard to believe you’d do something bad enough to get you locked up.”
“Looks don’t mean that someone isn’t capable of doing bad,” I point out.
“I agree, but it still doesn’t fit the bill.”
It’s not the first time I’ve heard that statement.
“I didn’t do anything,” I say, shrugging. “Well, I did. I did do something. I was there. I was there, and I shouldn’t have been there, but I didn’t intend for anything to go wrong. I wanted to back out, wanted to let it be, but ...”
“You’ve got my attention, tell me what happened, but let’s do it out of this water ...”
I have to agree there.
We shuffle out of the water, and I’m shivering by the time we reach our clothes. “Hang on,” Lake tells me and jogs up toward the building.
I stand, teeth clattering, waiting for him. He finally returns with a few towels, and I gratefully accept, wrapping one around me and holding it as tight as I can before I pass out from the intense cold.
“There is a fire up in the restaurant, we’ll go up there.”
Sounds good to me.
Anything to get me warm right now.
Hell, I’ll even take Lake, if he’s offering.
“ARMED ROBBERY,” LAKE says, staring at me, his eyes a mixture of impressed and confused. “That’s a pretty big deal. Why did you consider doin’ something so dangerous?”
“We were hungry, broke and, I don’t know, desperate. We talked about it, and I guess even right up to the moment we were outside that station, I still thought maybe it wasn’t real. When Davina made it clear we were actually doing it, I freaked out. I tried to convince her there were other ways, but there was this look in her eyes ...”
“She wasn’t goin’ to back down,” Lake finishes for me.
I shake my head. “Nope, and when I saw how scared that girl behind the counter is, I knew I had to stop her. I should have called the police before we even walked in, but ... I thought I could get the situation under control. I pleaded with her to leave, and then things just got out of control and the gun fired.”
Lake’s eyes get big. “The girl was shot.”
I nod. “Yeah, she was. Davina bolted, but I couldn’t. I could hear the sirens, and yet I couldn’t leave the girl on the ground. I stayed with her, I tried to keep her calm, and when the police arrived, she told them I was helping her, that I had tried to stop it, but when questioned further, she had to admit I was there to rob that gas station. The only thing that saved me was that she stood up for me and explained to the police that I had tried to stop it all and I stuck around to help her. My sentence was a lot less than it could have been if she hadn’t had my back.”
“That’s fuckin’ rough,” Lake murmurs. “How long did you get?”
I cross my legs, leaning closer to the fire. “Five years, but I got out after four. It wasn’t easy, I was seventeen at the time, which saved me in a sense because I probably would have gone away for a lot longer if I were older.”
“You’re twenty-one?”
I roll my eyes. “Surely you didn’t pick me as older?”
“I thought you were younger, actually.”
I grunt. “Well, I’ll have you know I’m twenty-two in four days, actually.”
“I’ll remember that.”
“It still feels like so much of my life was swallowed up. I’m young, I’ve got so much ahead of me, but it changed something in me, being locked away at such a young age.”
“Your friend never got caught?”
I glance down at my hands. “I never gave them her name. She bailed on me, but I wasn’t going to be as heartless as her. They tried, believe me, but I was never going to share her name. I told them I knew her, but not well and she had given me a fake name. In the end, they had me, and I think they had better things to worry about.”