Ramasuri (complete)
Update chapter 12
Wrapped in the warmth of you Loving every breath of you Still my heart this moment Or it might burst Could we stay right here Until the end of time until the earth stops turning Wanna love you until the seas run dry I've found the one I've waited for (Gorecki - Lamb)
Although itâs probably not the worst out there, Arkadia County Jail is not a nice place. Itâs a relatively new facility, but itâs the first prison Clarke has ever been to and she doesnât really care about her lack of comparable experience. Itâs such a strong, physical feeling of relief to step outside again and feel the sun on her face, and she stops as soon as the gates close behind them to draw in a few large gulps of fresh air. Madi, although seemingly unfazed by it all, grabs her hand, pulling her towards the car faster than Clarke would normally walk.
âI wanna go home.â
âMe too, sweetie, but please donât tear my arm off. Thank you.â
Depressing is what the place is. Itâs probably supposed to be bleak, dreary and dejecting, but sheâs visiting with a child and she feels it all the more. Clarke shudders as she unlocks the car and opens a back door for Madi to climb in. The bars on all windows, the heavy doors, bulky, armed guards with scrunched up, serious faces, their scrutinizing looks while they wait for people to fill in the forms, the body searches, bag searches, scans, noises, the cameras everywhere, and then youâre herded into a visiting room with a bunch of other people to find men in there that all wear the same clothes and all look alike. Even Finn, the pretty boy, conformed, hair shaved off mostly, wearing a stubby beard now. She hardly recognized him.
It was only their second visit and Clarke already dreads the next.
This time, Madi spent most of the visiting time at the kidâs table in the visiting room right away, coloring books for 3-year-olds, eyeing her dad from a distance. Heâd tried to hug her but sheâd quickly slipped from his arms and stood next to Clarke, holding on to her bag.Â
Though Finn was actually okay today. He didnât complain like the first time, didnât try to tell her he wasnât a bad guy, didnât look for sympathy. Clarke wasnât sure why heâd thought sheâd have pity on him, but he had. Until sheâd told him otherwise: that he deserved every single day in jail for what he did. Today, he hadnât told her that when he got out, heâd be a better man. Her message during her first visit had been very clear anyway. She wanted him out of their lives, didnât care where he went or what he did after serving his sentence - and sheâd told him that. Heâd looked at her quietly for a moment but hadnât said another word about it.
This time, he was unusually quiet from the start, eyes glued to the table, his tone hushed as he talked about having so much time to think. Almost as if he was beginning to feel remorse, and maybe beginning to accept his guilt.
It would have been easy to feel sorry for him, his sad eyes flickering under her gaze as he scratched his beard, ran a hand over the stubble on his head. Sheâd searched in her heart as she looked at him squirming, but there was no sympathy. No words of comfort for him. She was only there because of Madi, not because she cared about Finn in any way.
Between visits, he wrote a letter to Lexa, asking his lawyer to hand it to her. Lexa had just crumbled it up and thrown it away.
On their first visit, Madi had asked Finn, of course, what heâd done and Clarke had almost torn off a piece of her seat, clamping her fingers into it. But Finn had stuck to the story as sheâd asked him to. Heâd hurt some people and hadnât tried to help them. So Madi had told him - like sheâd said she would - that he had done a very bad thing. That he should have apologized and should have done everything to make it better again. Quite possibly, that had been the moment Finn started to think. Being told by his 7-year-old daughter that he wasnât a good person, even if she never said it out loud - perhaps that had been what it had taken to get through to him. It could have been the reason he started thinking, and the reason he was so different today.
Finally slipping into the driverâs seat of Lexaâs fancy car, Clarke lets out a relieved sigh.
âWhat do you think about ice cream?â she asks Madi, already sure of the answer. As expected, her daughter squeals happily. âWeâre going to pick up Lexa, alright? Sheâs at home waiting for us.â
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Ramasuri is part 3 of Precious (series)














