26
Filthy prison ink
He jerked awake, and for a moment, he couldn’t tell if the pounding he heard was real, or maybe the figment of a forgotten dream. Then it came again —pounding on his bedroom door.
And he heard his father’s deep rumble, his mother’s anxious cries. He swung his legs over the edge of the bed, feet hitting the cold floor, every nerve in his body suddenly on high alert as he raced across the floor. He flung the door open. “What’s wrong?”
Aidan faced him, Ma — still dressed in her nightclothes — grabbing his arm, crying out, “This isn’t necessary.”
Rafferty gripped the door jamb when he noticed the little plastic jar in his brother’s hand. “Now?” he bit out, his eyes slashing up to meet his brother’s thunderous stare.
“You were at a known drug hangout last night, so yes, now. ”
“Spying on me, brother?”
“Is it true, Rafferty? Were you there?” his father asked, rolling closer from the opposite direction.
He turned to face his father. “It’s true I rode out to the compound.” His mother’s gasp from behind tore him to shreds. “But I didn’t go in.” He whipped to face her. “I am an addict, Mom. And I wanted to go in. Desperately. But I didn’t.”
He held out his arm to his brother, moving his fingers in a gimme sign. Aidan dropped the jar in his open palm. Rafferty was surprised to see the flash of regret before his brother’s expression hardened again.
“It’s not necessary,” their mother wailed. “You heard Rafferty, he didn’t go in.”
“Mom, let him do what makes him sleep better at night.” He shifted his gaze back to his brother, stepping aside. “Wanna come watch me take a piss? In case I’d set aside a sample for you last night before I went out?”
“Son.” The weariness in his father’s tone was almost as disturbing as his mother’s gasp from earlier.
But Aidan followed him.
And Rafferty made sure to fill the jar to the brim, even taking delight in the drops he spilled on the side. “Shut the door on your way out,” he yelled after Aidan.
The slam of wood against wood resounded through his bedroom.
Bracing his arms on the vanity, Rafferty stared at his image in the mirror.
What’s it like to fuck a woman pining for your look-a-like?
Fuck, fuck. Fuck!
Did Brandy-Lyn see Sullivan when she looked at him? There were surprisingly no scars on his face. No marks distinguishing him from his twin.
Except for the stain of filthy prison ink covering his skin.
It had cemented his cover in prison.
Made him one of them .
The scum.
Humans preying on other humans.
But his hair had grown, concealing his dirty stain, allowing him to forget.
No more.
He crouched and opened the vanity door and hauled out his shaving kit.
A painstaking twenty minutes later, he viewed the bloodred rose nestling within the scorpion’s sting covering his scalp. It was an indelible reminder that his choices destroyed lives. This way he would not forget.
With a vile curse, he stepped under the hot spray, scrubbing away the clinging remnants of shorn hair from his skin.
Pity the stain of his choices couldn’t be washed off as easily.