All Chapters of I Never Hated You : Chapter 121 - Chapter 130

Writer’s POVLucas Cain could still remember the sound of the heavy door closing behind him when he’d arrived at this place. Back then, the noise had meant the end of freedom—the beginning of a whole new kind of terror. Now, with Lucas on the other side of the door and moving in the opposite direction, the clang sounded just as threatening, and somehow seemed to mean the exact same thing.“Lukey!” he heard, first from one familiar voice, and then from others.“Luke!”“Captain Cain!”And from one unfortunate, quickly hushed voice, “Killer!”They were all there, waiting for him at the prison’s outer doors like a family welcoming one of their own at the airport. Well, Luke had never been in an airport and he’d never had much of a family, but he’d seen it on TV, and this was as close as he was ever likely to get to the original.So he forced a smile and hoped it didn’t look as fake as it felt. “Hey, guys,” he said, and let himself be pulled into their rough embraces. Mikey was there, tall

“You know God loves you, Alex.” Mark Webber waited patiently for a response, and was finally rewarded with a tentative nod. “Maybe you aren’t all that sure,” Mark said. “But I’m sure. And God is sure.” He wanted to reach out his hand to the boy in front of him, but he kept himself still. He knew his intentions were pure, but that didn’t matter—not to the world around him and not, even more importantly, to this confused teenager. So he couldn’t offer physical comfort and would have to do what he could with words.“You feel alone. And I can tell you as many times as I want to that you’re never truly alone, but that doesn’t change the way you feel, does it?”“No,” the boy said in a small voice that was cracking with the always volatile mix of emotions and puberty.“You know there are other kids going through a similar struggle. I know that you don’t want to meet with them, but I don’t quite understand why. Can you explain it to me?” And now it was time for more patience. Mark wanted to t

“I have to go,” Lucas said, not for the first time. Sean was right beside him, as he’d been all night, but apparently he couldn’t hear Lucas talking.Shit. He wasn’t going to get busted on his first night out. And it wasn’t like he was actually having any fun. His terms of release included a ban on consuming alcohol, but even without that, there was no way Lucas would have touched the stuff.He looked down at the mug in his hand. De-alcoholized beer was disgusting, but it gave him something to toast with. He glanced at the woman nestled in under his left arm. Mandi Carter, someone he’d barely known in high school, had apparently decided she was his girlfriend. Shewas about as appetizing as the fake beer, but served a similar purpose. Not that he was toasting with her, but she helped make it seem like he was having a good time. But he wasn’t, and he needed to get the hell out of there.So he stood and pulled his jacket off the back of the chair. The party had ostensibly been in his ho

“Blood alcohol was barely above zero,” Constable Singh said. “I’m sorry, Mark, but he could have gotten that way from eating his grandma’s rum balls. No evidence of DUI, and no breach of his parole.”“I saw him with a drink in his hand,” Mark said stubbornly.“Might have stayed in his hand and not gone in his mouth. I don’t know. But we couldn’t hold him for anything.”“What about the riot? I read that in the paper this morning.”“He didn’t do anything to incite it. The citizen videos make that clear. As far as I’ve seen so far, he was the one to calm it down. I might have been able to lay charges against his friend if the patrol officer hadn’t assaulted him, but as it is, the department is facing an internal affairs investigation into the officer’s behavior and is worried about a possible lawsuit.”Mark knew Singh from a variety of community outreach programs. They weren’t friends, exactly, but they were certainly allies. He didn’t want to push, but it was hard to let go of his plan.

“I thought your leg was sore.” Lucas kept his towel wrapped around his waist while he pulled boxer briefs on beneath it. He’d shared a room with Sean, off and on, since before they’d hit puberty, and there had been a time when they had been casual about their nakedness. But that had all changed even before the night things went so wrong in the bar.Sean grinned and massaged his bruised thigh. “It was sore, but now it’s feeling a lot better.”“It was too sore to go to work, but you think you might be able to make it out for a few drinks,” Lucas clarified.“Yeah, that sounds about right. I mean, working is a lot of climbing and stretching, and it wouldn’t be safe for me up on a roof, not if I’m not totally steady on my feet. The bar?” Another grin. “I’m going to be falling on my ass for a whole other reason after a couple hours at the bar. Besides, I can sue for lost wages. No need to work for money if I’m going to get it anyway.” He pulled his T-shirt up over his face, sniffed it, and