Free After by Amy Efaw Page A

any questions, just ask. I make cell checks every fifteen minutes, okay? That means me looking into your window to make sure everything’s all right. By lunchtime, you need to be ready for my test, okay?”
    Devon nods again. “Okay,” she whispers. She doesn’t want to tell Henrietta that she’d already received the booklet from the staff woman last night, that it’s stashed in the cubby under her bed. She’d fallen asleep memorizing it. That was before the doctor had shown up, waking her.
    “And you need to pass it, okay? So don’t blow it off.” Henrietta studies Devon for a moment. Devon averts her eyes to the floor, feeling miserably uncomfortable under the woman’s gaze, wishing that she would just move along and give her some privacy. And quit saying “okay?” every five seconds. How annoying. Devon shifts on her seat, her butt growing painfully numb.
    “After you eat, you’ll need to take a shower, okay?”
    “Oh.” That makes Devon feel better, something positive to look for. She glances up. “Okay. That would be . . . really great. Thank you.”
    “Thanking me makes no difference. It’s a hygiene issue with you, okay?” Her voice turns scolding now. “Let me tell you, I would have made sure you got one last night, even if I had to drag you out of your cell myself.” She clamps her mouth shut, says nothing further for a moment. “But we’ll wait—okay?—until the other girls start school for the day. That way we won’t be violating the twenty-four-hour rule of no contact with the other residents, okay? The shower is right across the common area. So it’s just better if no one’s around then, okay?”
    School ? They have school here ? Well, whatever. She won’t have to see the girls, at least not in the near future. And maybe not at all. She may be gone soon, hopefully before tomorrow ever comes. She’ll be back at Stadium High School, sitting in her own classes. Turning in her critical analysis on The Taming of the Shrew that’s due for Mr. Andrew at the end of the week. She’d already finished it two days after he’d assigned it.
    The woman steps toward Devon. Her face is intent, almost like a hawk’s on the hunt.
    Devon shrinks back, her spine touching the cool stainless steel behind her.
    The woman pulls a thick maxi pad out from somewhere and tosses it on Devon’s lap.
    Devon stares at it. She can feel heat crawling across her face.
    “You have a meeting with your lawyer at ten.”
    Her lawyer? Devon feels her heart pick up, beating fast. Maybe she is leaving here. Soon. No, today! Is that the reason for the shower? So she can leave all fresh and clean?
    Devon looks up, smiling slightly, her embarrassment momentarily forgotten. “Thank you.”
    But the door’s clanked shut. Henrietta is already gone.

chapter seven
    The first thing Henrietta says when Devon steps outside the shower room is, “Comb your hair.” She shoves a black plastic comb into Devon’s hand, then leads her to the door labeled CONFERENCE ROOM, two doors down from the shower and directly across the common area from Devon’s cell. “Let me tell you, first impressions are lasting impressions. You only get one, so make yours good.” She opens the door and moves aside. “Okay?”
    Devon takes a step inside and stops. Who she sees isn’t who she’d pictured. This person isn’t old and balding or wearing a shabby, dandruff-sprinkled suit or hunching over a stack of files, barely acknowledging her presence.
    Instead, this person is a woman. And young. In a dark, perfectly pressed suit, cream cuffs peeking out of her jacket sleeves. A tight, neat updo, almost like a beehive. Blonde hair, but not like her mom’s fake blonde straight out of a box. This woman’s hair is almost gold, with too many colors weaving through it and catching the light to be fake. Tiny, wire-framed glasses. And she’s looking right at Devon.
    Devon feels the teeth of the comb biting into the palm of her hand. She’s acutely