Page 101 of Forgotten Prejudice

“Fine. Do what you gotta do.”

“Thank you.” He kissed my cheek before letting go of me and going back to his chair. “Besides, it’s only going to be one meeting, and that’s it. Not like I plan on taking him home with me.” He chuckled.

If only we knew.

Ash

“My name is Ash Sage. I’m twenty-six, and I’ll be your group consultant for the next few weeks.” Three out of the twelve guys I was assigned to had left the room before I ever got a chance to introduce myself. “The purpose of these meetings is communication,” I explained to the bored teens, who looked at me as if I had just landed from Mars. “I hope we’ll be able to form some sort of a dialogue between us today,” I told them, or at least those who weren’t sleeping. Although, the snores of the kid beside me were much better than facing the judgment in the others’ faces. And while the situation was uncomfortable at best, I knew I had to fake it because if I backed out now, I wouldn’t get another chance to meet Camilo.

The boy I came here for.

Calling him a boy felt wrong because the kid sitting across from me didn’t look like a kid but a man—a young man who’d already been through so much in his life. I wondered if Soren thought the same thing when he first met those dark eyes. Did he also feel threatened by Camilo’s presence? Or maybe he thought it was nothing more than a tough act to present to the world.

Forcefully removing my eyes from Camilo, I looked at the rest of the small group, reminding myself I was here to play a role.

“I was thinking we could do a small exercise to get to know each other better. How about each one of you tell me your names along with what you’re afraid of?” If there were crickets here, you would have heard them in the silence following my question. They all just kept staring at me before three more guys got up and walked away. It wasn’t a mandatory activity, so no guard forced them to stick around.

My palms turned sweaty, and my stomach flopped. Perhaps Kai was right about this being a bad idea. After all, what did I expect would happen? I wasn’t a real consultant, just a guy with a useless degree. I bet those kids saw right through me—

“I can go first,” someone said.

Ashamed of myself for how excited I got over some kid acknowledging me, I turned to see it was the one sitting next to Camilo. He looked way too young to be in here, with big green eyes and brownish hair that fell over his messy brows. Honestly, if I’d met him outside, I would have mistaken him to be one of the guards’ sons. He looked like such a good kid who couldn’t hurt a fly, so I wondered what he did to end up in this place.

“Please, go ahead.” I smiled at him.

“My name is Andrei. Andrei Bespalov. And my biggest fear is to waste my life.”

Even though Andrei’s answer caused an eruption of laughter from the others, I found it simply beautiful. And not just beautiful but enlightening. Without so much as even trying, a thirteen-year-old kid doing time in juvie for whatever crime he’d committed put a mirror in my face because, currently, that was precisely what I was doing with my life—letting it go in vain.

“Wow, that’s fucking deep, bro.” A tall guy with bleached hair gaped at Andrei. Unlike the others who laughed, this tall, bubbly boy sounded like he meant it. “To think all I came up with were pickles,” he said and immediately chuckled; his rolling laugh was so full of life, adding light to this gray room.

“Calm down, Jessie. You’re grabbing people’s attention,” a smaller kid muttered from beside him, a deep frown on his anxious face.

“So your name is Jessie?” I asked the taller one, who answered back with an enthusiastic nod.

“Yep.” He popped the p. “And this is Levi. He’s afraid of many things. Bees, bears, sun, hand cream—”

Some other kid made a dirty joke about using hand cream for… Anyway, the one to shut him up was Andrei, and somehow, they all got talking with one another. They were an amusing group, and as much as I enjoyed hearing them all banter, I needed to lead the session.

“Okay, okay.” I chuckled, feeling a bit more confident. “I’m happy we’re already communicating with one another, but we still need to go over all the names.” I locked eyes with Andrei. “So, you’re Andrei, and you’re—”

“Jessie!”

“Great. And from what Jessie said, your name is Levi?”

Levi nodded, his ears immediately turning red. I could definitely relate to that. He was a shy kid, and I liked it.

Feeling like it was going well, I moved on to the rest of the group. Surprisingly, those who weren’t asleep participated until we were down to the last guy, Camilo.

All eyes were on him, yet he remained unfazed. Leaning back in his chair, with arms crossed over his chest and legs spread, Camilo looked like he owned the place.

“You’re the last one,” I said, excited to finally speak to him. “So, mind telling us what scares you?”

Camilo slowly lifted his bored gaze from the floor before looking at me with murderous eyes.

I was struck with an unbearable amount of nerves.

“I ain’t scared of shit,” he rasped, flicking the toothpick he was chewing on from one side of his mouth to the other. “But how about I tell you what pisses me off?”