Skye finished up doing his laundry in the tiny sink in his cell and hung it up to dry. The Polunsky Unit was so hot that the laundry would be dry in about fifteen minutes.
Geri was coming today. Without their kids, though. But that was because this was a special day. The day she would tell him what their secret lawyer said. The kids would have fun at their friend’s house while Skye and Geri talked about the case.
The main thing in the case here was that Skye was innocent.
And this wasn’t a law-of-parties thing. Skye agreed that if you didn’t stop your friend from pulling the trigger, you as good as pulled the trigger yourself. But he had been the only one involved in this, besides the victim and his real killer… the guy that had knocked him out and run off, leaving the other guy dead and Skye unconscious next to him. The attacker had confessed to just wanting revenge from the other guy and not wanting revenge on Skye and just knocking Skye out so that he could get away. But since the guy, Bruce, was “mentally challenged” and Skye had been his friend, nobody believed him. Bruce, they reasoned, could never have killed anyone, and was just there in court protecting his friend because he was “so stupid he thought his friend was still his friend”.
Skye did not want Bruce on death row. But Skye had three children. He would fight to get Bruce off death row. But Bruce came second to Skye. Skye came first.
Until the International Incident Instigation Initiative showed up.
Their lawyer-- the Initiators’ lawyer-- his lawyer now-- had gotten his sentence commuted to life.
Now it was time to save Bruce. But did he have it in him to risk getting sent back to death row for starting trouble?
“You don’t have to do anything but walk out the door once you’re freed,” the lawyer told him, as though reading his mind.
“You think they’ll let me outa here?” Skye exclaimed.
“If we do our job right, they will.”
“Who ARE you people? And what’s your job?”
“We’re everywhere. We’re in politics and in education, in medicine and in law. We’re the mentally ill. We’re me and we’re you. And we’ve got to stick together.”
“I’m not mentally ill,” Skye said.
“Then why did the prison psychiatrist prescribe you antidepressants?”
“To help me cope with being in a cage 23/7 and waiting for my death!”
“Exactly. Being in a cage and waiting for your death would make anyone mentally ill.”
“But I have a REASON for my depression, so I’m not mentally ill.”
“Everyone has reason. Everyone has trauma. Do not dehumanize the mentally ill, Skye. Do not deny our potential and our humanity. Mental illness is a person doing the best with what they’ve been given when what they’re given isn’t good. We are perfectly capable beings, and we will get you out of here.”
“This is fucking creepy,” Skye muttered. “What do I have to do for you once I’m out; kill people? Rob people? Rape people? Scare people?”
“None of that. We will have what we need. We just need a success story, and we’ll have that.”
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