Ar'Tok - Alana Khan Page 0,27

room when we checked in. If you want me to go there after I tell you my shame, I’ll understand.”

My stomach clenches in fear. How bad is this going to be? Shame. That’s a harsh word.

“I just got out of prison,” he launches, “a few lunars before we met.” He analyzes my reaction. I give him none.

“How long had you been in prison?” I ask, since it seems he’s waiting for a question. I decide the answer to how long will be easier to tolerate than if I ask why he was there.

“Twenty-five years.”

I pegged him to be in his twenties. Maybe he’s one of those races, like Primians, that live to two hundred.

“How old are you?”

“Twenty-five.”

My head shakes, almost imperceptibly, like a robot in a vid when something doesn’t compute.

“You’ll have to explain.”

“I was born in prison,” he announces that as if it’s an answer. It just brings up more questions.

“Can you explain? This isn’t making sense.”

“My mother was a prostitute, which is a crime on Simka. It didn’t matter that she was pregnant with me—she was given a twenty-five-year sentence.”

I’m glad he’s talking slowly because my mind is having trouble grasping this. Pictures of a baby Ar’Tok, and Ar’Tok as a lad are flying through my mind so swiftly it’s hard to follow anything other than the internal screen I’m watching. A young male wandering the halls of a women’s prison? It’s so foreign my mind can’t fathom it.

“You had no family who could take you?”

“I was sentenced, too.”

My head whips toward him. I have to examine his face to discover if he’s telling the truth. How could this be?

“What . . . were you sentenced for?” He was in her uterus at the time. What crime could he possibly have committed?

“Simkin scriptures state, ‘the iniquity of the parents is visited upon their children and their children’s children.”

His face is calm and serious; he’s no longer avoiding my gaze.

Heat flares through my body. His words evoke a visceral reaction as my muscles tighten, my eyes widen, and nausea circles the pit of my stomach.

“So you were punished for your mother’s actions?”

“Yes.” He nods. As if he just made a sane remark.

I know this is difficult for him, and I don’t want to make it any harder by showing how distressing this is for me. I school my features and try to react as if what he just told me is rational.

“So you grew up in prison. Tell me what that was like.” Please Ar’Tok, tell me it was a nice facility with playgrounds and schoolyards and friends. Please tell me you had enough to eat and the staff were friendly and loving.

“Mother and I shared a cell. It was ten-by-ten. The outer wall was made of square beige bricks that were crumbling because they were so old. We shared a bunk when I was little, but I slept on the floor since I turned six.”

This explains the pallet on the floor.

Please don’t tell me any more. I can’t bear it. I’m trying so desperately to hold back my tears that my face is quivering, but despite my best efforts, I feel hot liquid spilling down my cheeks and falling to the mattress.

“I knew this would be hard on you,” he says. “I should have told you earlier. I’m too defective, too full of shame to be worthy of your attention much less your acceptance.”

He pulls away, as if he’s going to bound off the bed. Star, if there’s one thing you need to do in this lifetime, you’ve got to get a hold of yourself, pull your shit together, and listen to his story.

“I can’t hide my feelings, Ar’Tok. I also can’t explain them right now. But I will. I’ll tell you every thought and emotion in my head when you’re done talking.”

I dash my tears with my knuckle and order myself to calm down—to make this easier on him.

“I seldom left the cell.”

I fade out for a moment. Seldom. Left. The. Cell. Could I have possibly heard him correctly?

“Mother died when I was nine. After that it was lonely. The guards never spoke to us inmates. So after she died, I seldom spoke with anyone.

“A few lunars after her death, a male came to my cell. He was huge and imposing, wearing fine clothes the likes of which I’d never seen.

“We used to have bugs that flew through the bars in the open window, especially when the weather turned cool. They were big and black and wore