First things first.
“Can I make a call?”
“It’s not my fucking decision,” Masterson grumbled as he led me out of the unit. “You can ask the warden.”
The unit supervisor let me call while my things were brought out of their storage area. The phone only rang twice before I heard a familiar voice on the other end.
“Mark Duncan.”
“Hello, it’s Evan Arden. I need a favor.”
“Of course, Evan—what do you need?”
“You remember the girl who came here?” I rolled my eyes at myself and shook my head. I was the deranged one; of course, he would remember. “I was just hoping you had her contact information. I don’t have my phone here.”
“Yes, of course.”
“Could you call her and ask her to come and get me?”
“Get you?” He paused before continuing. “Evan, where are you?”
I could practically see his face as he contemplated whether or not I had escaped and was now on the run. I wondered if he was picking up his landline to call the cops on his escaped patient.
“I’m still at the MCC,” I told him. “I’m being released.”
“Released?”
“Yeah.” I never understood people’s desire to repeat words like that, but I tried not to let it annoy me. It was probably the last thing he was expecting to hear from me. “Can you call her?”
“Yes, I can,” he said. “I just can’t believe no one contacted me. When was this?”
“Just a little while ago, special hearing or something. I don’t know. I just know I want out.”
“I can get you.”
“No, really—if you could call her and have her come, that would be great. I need to sleep, but I’ll come and see you soon.”
I wasn’t going to, but he’d figure that out soon enough.
With the phone handed back to some woman behind a desk, I was taken to a small room and left alone with a cardboard box containing everything I had on me when I was brought in. I reached in and pulled out the Marine-issue fatigues. I didn’t want to put them back on, but I couldn’t exactly go out still wearing prison orange, so I quickly removed the jumpsuit. I wasn’t about to put on the underwear I had been wearing at the time, so I left it in the box and pulled on the tan, camouflage-pattern pants commando-style. My watch was next, then a pale grey T-shirt followed by the socks. For some reason, the idea of dirty footwear didn’t seem as nasty to me as the boxers. My boots and hat were in the box as well, and when I pulled them out, something dropped to the floor with a metallic clang.
My dog tags.
I picked them up and ran my finger over the raised letters.
ARDEN
EVAN N. USMC
047289
A NEG
CATHOLIC
I took a deep breath and tried to push away the plethora of memories the cool metal tried to conjure. For the most part it worked—the tags only evoked pleasant memories. The only real regret I had was labeling myself as Catholic, though as a seventeen-year-old, the response to the question had been automatic.
If there was a God, He didn’t have any love for me, so fuck Him.