Page 38 of Claim

“I know men like you.”

He kept me walking.

The wing gave way to corridors smelling differently. Cleaner. Sharper. Fewer bodies, more bleach. Doors buzzed open and slammed shut behind us, each one sealing me further away from where I’d been. I wasn’t going back to my cell. That much was clear.

Segregation, then.

Just me. A concrete box. Time to let my head eat itself. I wasn’t sure which scared me more. Ghost, or what I became when there was nothing left but me and my thoughts.

“You sure you don’t want me to let your sister in?” Dent said.

“No.”

He stopped suddenly, twisted me round to face him. “Stubborn shit.”

“I prefer survivor.”

“You won’t survive to trial if you don’t cling to what’s outside.”

I huffed. “What trial?”

Dent unlocked the cuffs and tipped his head towards the door beside us. “In there.”

I followed his gaze.

The conference room.

Not seg. Not medical. The usual legal room with the beige door, narrow window, and paint scuffed where fists and foreheads had met it over the years. The place where men in suits sat across from me and decided whether I was worth the time to say my name. Where I’d been told, more than once, that I wasn’t.

Dent stepped back. “Go on.”

Better than a box.

Or so I thought.

I opened the door.

Two men were in there. The one nearest stood immediately. Mid-forties. Neat. Neutral. A folder lay open on the table in front of him. He looked like every man who’d ever delivered bad news in a careful voice.

“Mr Slade.” The bloke held out a hand. “I’m Andrew Mercer. Criminal defence solicitor.”

I took the handshake on instinct, knuckles still swollen, skin split, a massive contrast to this man’s smooth fingers. Then, as he leant forward, his shoulder shifted, bringing into view the man behind him.

My world punched sideways. As if Ghost had had another go at me.

Tristan.

My fucking Tricky.

For a second, I genuinely thought I’d imagined him. That the crack to my skull when I’d butted Ghost had knocked something loose. That this was some sick hallucination I’d conjured through pain and lack of sleep.

Except I hadn’t, had I?

He was there. Right fucking there.

Maybe not the wild, frantic man drenched in sweat and heat, begging me to let him lose control. The one I replayed in my head at night, trying not to wake hard on a bunk inches from another man’s. Nor even the one who swam in glistening lakes. Or who’d curled up beside me on a sun lounger. No, that Tristan lived in memory only. This one in front of me right then was polished. Out of reach.

In a suit I recognised, though.