Fracture (Blood & Roses #3-4) - Callie Hart Page 0,26

green food coloring into the rest of her cereal as she eats. “All of the charms, they’re supposed to be good for something if you eat enough of them,” she continues. She leans across the breakfast bar between us and scoops one of the moons out of my bowl and pops it into her mouth. This feels like a breakthrough of sorts. I grin at her.

“Okay, Lacey, you’re gonna have to fill me in. What do they all mean?”

Her lips form a nervous, drawn smile. She doesn’t make eye contact; she looks at the table between us. “Clovers are the one everyone knows. They give you luck, but it’s smart because you never know what kind of luck you’re going to get. Good or bad, so…” She shrugs. “And then horseshoes, the power to speed things up. Shooting stars give you the power to fly. Hourglass to control time, rainbows to zip from place to place.” She presses her index fingers together, and then jumps them apart. “Balloons mean you can make things float. Hearts, you can bring things back from the dead.”

I look down and I see all of the charms she mentioned sitting on the edge of her bowl, uneaten. She ate the crescent shaped charm from my bowl, the only one she hasn’t explained. And from the looks of things, that’s the only one she’s eaten from her bowl, too.

“And what about the moon charm? What does that one do?” I instantly regret asking. Her face falls, shoulders curving in to form a barrier between the two of us.

“I’m not sure, actually. I forgot.” She takes a deep breath, pushing away from the counter. “You mind if I use your shower? I feel pretty gross.”

“Of course. No problem. Like I said, make yourself at home.”

She avoids making eye contact with me as she quickly washes her bowl and hurries from the kitchen. Once she’s gone, I can’t help myself; I look it up on my phone:

Blue Moons—the power of invisibility.

Dr. Walcott, Yankees baseball fan, profuse creator of perspiration, giver of diazepam and other wonderful drugs, has a nervous disorder. I’m pretty fucking sure he does, anyway. Every meeting we have, he chews his way through at least three pens. Three pens in the space of an hour. That’s gotta be costing the state at least a couple of hundred bucks a year, I figure, considering I’m hardly the scariest bastard in here—he must go through at least five with those guys. He plays the part of looking relaxed, but I know if I move too sharp he’ll shit his pants and call for the guards. Pathetic, really. I mean why work in a prison if you’re this terrified of your patients.

Except we’re not called patients in here. We’re called inmates. If we were on the outside and sitting in an office with good ol’ Walcott, drinking our coffee, he might actually be a good doctor. But with mandatory treatment like this, people tend to be a little reticent. Obstructive. Unwilling to cooperate, if you will. I usually fall into the latter category, but today I’m being forced to sing a different song.

“So the appeals board has reviewed your case, as you’re aware.” Walcott flips over some paper inside my file, eyes nimbly scanning its contents while somehow still managing to keep one of them trained on me. “You’ve been advised that they originally rejected your lawyer’s request for early release right out of hand?”

“Yeah.” Charlie’s lawyer, the slick city boy with the immaculate hair, immaculate suit and immaculate shoes did tell me that. Not like I’d even hoped the appeal would go through, anyway. To be honest, I was surprised the judge had only given me ten years in the first place.

“Given the violent nature of your crime and your apparent lack of any remorse, they didn’t feel it appropriate that you be released until you serve at least half your sentence. Where are you at with that right now?”

“Two years served.”

“Well, you’ve got a long way to go then, Mayfair. At least another three years before any chance of parole unless we do this thing right.”

“Three years isn’t so bad,” I tell him, smirking. But of course it’s bad. Three years might as well be thirty in here. Anyone tells you they kicked back and did an easy stint in Chino, they’re a fucking liar. This place is hell on earth.

“But what if I were to say you could walk out of here in six months,