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For the first two weeks after he’d received the bald “WP?” he’d enjoyed knowing that SL was waiting for something that he, Arnold Avery, wasn’t going to give him. That had been satisfying and empowering, and Avery had been energized by the experience.

The next two weeks had been more difficult. While his self-satisfaction continued to some degree, he also missed anticipating SL’s reply to any letter he might have sent. He had to keep reminding himself that he was doing the right thing. But his resolve was tested and he started to wonder if SL had given up. People had no staying power, he worried. Avery had staying power, but he was exceptional. SL had been impatient, so maybe he had also been angry or frustrated or just tired of the sport. The thought that SL might not realize that he was now required to make a concession to appease Avery scared him.

SL’s first communication had heralded the most interesting four months of Avery’s entire incarceration, and he was loath for it to end. Every missive had been a reminder of his heyday, and everyone likes to be reminded of their finest hour, he reasoned.

Week five of Avery’s unilateral moratorium brought despondency. SL was tough. Avery lay awake at nights and worried. He resented it bitterly; his nights had become oases of pleasure since SL’s first letter had allowed him to reexamine his memories in fresh detail in a way he’d thought was long gone. But now he lay awake, unable to recapture those baser feelings and fretting instead over practicalities like the unreliability of the postal system, or the thought that SL might have concocted the correspondence as a kind of sick hoax to bring about the very punishment he was now experiencing.

It was this last thought that finally raised the anger in Avery that kept him strong. Anger was an emotion he had rarely given in to since his arrest. Avery knew that anger was counterproductive to life inside, which required resignation above all else.

Resignation had been his constant companion for years, with his anger at Finlay or Leaver never being allowed to break the surface, although he could feel it boiling in his guts whenever he saw either of them.

Now, in the pitch-black cell which did not even shed the light of a half-full moon on his darkness, Avery mentally added SL to his short but heartfelt list of fury, and resolved that his erstwhile correspondent would get nothing from him—not a word, not a symbol, not a carefully folded piece of Avery’s shit-stained toilet paper—until he’d said sorry.

It was five weeks and four days since SL’s last letter before Avery received the next one.

There was no map, no initials, no question marks, just the single word:

Avery grinned. It had more grudge than grovel about it, but it would do. SL had learned the lesson and had realized that he was not in control in this game, and that Avery should therefore be accorded due deference. With that single word he had acknowledged Avery’s power.

Now Avery sat and wondered how best to wield it.

Chapter 18

IF ARNOLD AVERY HAD REALIZED HOW STEVEN HAD STRUGGLED to write that single word, he would have been more appreciative of it.

Once he’d recognized that he’d offended and needed to make peace, Steven had written a dozen letters and posted none. They ranged from a rambling litany of the reasons he was so desperate for knowledge, through a sycophantic plea for guidance, to an angry rant at the callousness of the distant prisoner.

So it had gone on. A roller coaster of emotions that lasted for weeks and left Steven’s mind sick with pleading and dizzy with anger. In short, he had found it a lot harder to swallow what little pride he had than he’d thought he would.

Finally—going with the brevity that had brought him the genius of “Sincerely”—he simply wrote “Sorry,” hoping that Avery would read into it whatever underlying motivation would best serve Steven’s purpose. He could do no less, but he was not prepared to do more.

Another week passed, during which Lewis claimed that Chantelle Cox had a crush on him.

It was not the first time Lewis had been convinced of the power of his own sexual attraction. Last summer Lewis had casually told him Melanie Spark had let him touch her tit. Steven had been stunned and it was only his careful and insistent probing that revealed that it had been through a cardigan and a blouse, and had really been more of a rib, and that fickle Melanie had immediately elbowed Lewis in the throat for it. When Steven hesitantly suggested that—just maybe—Melanie Spark hadn’t been an active participant in the tit-touching episode, Lewis had merely grinned at him pityingly and revealed that women always changed their minds about sex; that it was what they were known for.

But apparently Chantelle Cox had not changed her mind; at least Lewis had no fresh bruises to indicate that she might have.

“Lalo and me were the snipers and she ran round the back of the shed and I went after her—”

“Where was Lalo?”