Page 27 of Jackson

So why was Jackson leaning into it?

I wasn’t going to complain about spending more time with him, though, and maybe our situation from last night and into this morning had left more of a lasting impression on him than I thought.

All of this was fun and games, though. It wasn’t serious—it couldn’t be. Not with me being actual government property.

“How’s it looking, Doc?” I rolled my foot in his hold. “You think I need to take it easy for the rest of the day?”

He chuckled and patted my leg before pulling the cuff of my pant leg down again. “I think you’ll live. Just barely, though.”

After getting my shoe back on and laced up, he grabbed me by the arm and hoisted me up off the rock. Without even having toask, he slipped my bag over his shoulder and nodded for me to follow him.

Thankfully, by now, my body had calmed down somewhat, though I was still buzzing from our close proximity.

We walked at a slow pace; much slower than what we had been when we were with the rest of the group. I didn’t mind, though. Not if it meant stealing a little time with Jackson without the watchful eyes of my COs around.

Roxy fell in line next to me, keeping up pace with me easily.

“I’m surprised she likes you so much,” Jackson said after minute

“Does she usually get scared of inmates?”

He hummed thoughtfully before answering. “Not exactly. She typically keeps her distance but that’s not due to any kind of past experiences or anything.”

“Oh.”

For some reason, that made me feel special. Like I’d been chosen out of the however many dozens of inmates who had come through this program before me.

None had been trusted before this, so what made me so different?

Almost as if reading my mind, Jackson spoke again. “I think it’s your soft nature.”

My face flushed.

Soft.

If only he knew what I’d been sentenced for—I doubt he’d think of me as ‘soft’ then.

Holding that gun in my hand, though, the one my ex-husband had bought only a few months prior as a tool to intimidate me with, and pointing it at him, had felt powerful then—holding a tool that could take a life with the simple pull of a trigger was both exhilarating as it was terrifying.

I knew it made me a fucked up monster to think that way, but it was the truth.

That had been the only time in my life that I had ever felt in control of anything.

In prison, I’d been mandated to take a bunch of psych evals and see a counselor regularly to work through and process what had happened. And while I’d told them over and over again that I was sorry and that I regretted my choices, deep down I wasn’t.

I never would be.

Perhaps that feeling would go away in time when I got out and started to live my life the wayIwanted to, but who knew.

Not many people could come back from attempting to kill someone. It fundamentally changes you as a person, no matter what the intentions were behind the action. Deciding to take a life was a crossroads that very few chose to take, and the suffering that followed, those haunting dreams that still kept me up sometimes, were my cross to bear.

“Hey…” A hand on my arm stopped me from walking. “Where did you go?”

“Huh?” I glanced up at Jackson, confused.

He was frowning down at me. “You disappeared... You did that yesterday, too.”

Disappeared?

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