Banner by: Steffi
Title: Prisoners of the Past
Author: ArchAngel1973
Disclaimer: Characters and plot lines that appeared in the series, the books, and the concept of Roswell are not mine. Belong to Melinda Metz, UPN, etc, etc...
Pairings: All (Centers around Max’s storyline)
Rating: Adult
Summary: Sometimes your back is against the wall and your only choice is to take the dangerous path and survive. Survival of the fittest, some would say. Surviving from one day to the next may save your life at that moment but the repercussions are felt far into the future. The choice to take the dangerous path may or may not be yours, but someone is always left as a prisoner of the past. The question is whether or not you can survive your past and break free of that prison.
Author’s Note 1: Based on a challenge by dreamon.
Author's Note 2: Thanks to my good buddy Steffi for the title!
Prologue
The air in the courtroom is oppressive, thick and hot, making the wait even more unbearable. I look up from my study of the scarred table and see my waste of space public defender reach up to fuss with his collar. He’s nervous and it’s evident in the way he fidgets, the way his eyes dart around the room, and the way he’s sweating through the pale yellow shirt he’s wearing. If anybody should be sweating, it’s me.
I’m the one whose life hangs in the balance. But I’m not sweating and I’m not letting any of them see just how worried I am that the jury has come back with a guilty verdict. Why? I already know I’m headed for serious time over my latest arrest. I’ve got a rap sheet as long as my right arm and lucky me, this last one caught me just after my 18th birthday. Sayonara juvenile detention.
My biggest concern isn’t doing the time. Hell, I’ve been in and out of jail too many times to count. I don’t actually enjoy being behind bars but its three squares and a roof over my head and that’s better than what I’ve had most of my life. My main concern is being fresh meat in a cell block full of guys who haven’t gotten laid in a while. I don’t necessarily want to add murder to my list of crimes, but if some guy thinks he’s getting a piece of my ass he won’t live to see the next sunrise.
The heavy door at the back of the courtroom opens and the judge returns to his seat on the bench as the jury silently files in. It strikes me as ironic that these people are supposed to be my peers. They couldn’t be more different from me if they tried. The jury foreman walks like he’s got a stick up his ass and I’d bet anything he’s military. There’s an older guy, comes in every morning looking all put-together, so he’s probably a businessman or something. Or worse, a lawyer. The woman at the end, she’s been staring at me like I did something to her personally since this whole thing started. Her disapproving gaze told me right off that it didn’t matter what was said during the trial because she’d already made her mind up I was guilty.
Innocent until proven guilty, huh? Yeah, sell that lie somewhere else. I know better. If my shitty lawyer had been able to get me off on my current charges it would’ve been a miracle. I was caught red-handed but I still pled not guilty. Oh, I got offered a deal. The District Attorney offered a reduced sentence if I rolled over on Damon Knight. I just laughed in her face and asked if I’d be getting conjugal visits.
You don’t roll on a guy like Damon. That’s how you end up in a back alley wearing a Colombian necktie. No thanks. My gaze moves over the people in the jury box and finds the woman near the middle in the back watching me with that sympathetic look on her face again. I’ve seen that look before. She wants to know how a guy like me ended up in my current situation. I’m 18 years old and facing prison time for drug possession, intent to sell, and illegal possession of an unlicensed and unregistered handgun. Too bad none of the other jurors look like they care how I ended up here.
My story could be a fuckin’ Lifetime movie, I think with an internal roll of my eyes. Of course there was no way to go over my 18 years and skip to the bullshit happily ever after ending in two hours. I can’t really say I expect a happy ending anyway. My life has been filled with one bad decision after another and I’m honest enough to admit a lot of that’s on me. My eyes follow the bailiff as he takes the little square of paper from the jury foreman and I already know it contains one word and not two. His steps are heavy as he walks over to hand it off to the judge, almost as if the weight of that one word rests on his shoulders.
I remember my mother looking burdened that way when I was little. She never missed an opportunity to tell me how I ruined her life. I remember being five years old and popping off after being told that for what felt like the millionth time. I just yelled at her and asked why she didn’t just give me away to someone who wanted me. She slapped me hard enough to knock me off my feet and told me no one would ever want me.
I was born on a cold, rainy March day and she swore she should’ve seen it for the omen it was. My father took off before I could walk and she got rid of every picture she had of him. I have no memory of what he looks like. I could be standing next to him and I’d never know it. On the rare occasions when I dream I catch glimpses of a little girl. Blonde hair, brown eyes, and a smile that’s so open and trusting I just want to tell her to watch her back, people can’t be trusted. But she’s gone before I can get the warning out. I have no idea who she is even though I feel like I should.
I watch the judge lean forward and wonder how much that monumental move will exert his fat ass. He reminds me of one of the foster parents I had and for that I hated this judge on sight. Yeah, I said foster parents. Most kids get birthday presents and cake for their birthday. Me? Nope. I don’t want anyone’s pity, that’s just the way it was. Growing up I didn’t know any different so birthdays were just like any other day. That is until my sixth birthday. My mother woke me up to tell me to stay in the apartment while she went to pick up something special for my birthday. I didn’t understand what was so special about that one. Turns out, the gift was for her. The gift of freedom.
She never came back. No, she didn’t die in some freak accident or get hit and end up in a coma in the hospital as a Jane Doe. She just left and never came back. Yeah, it hurt for a while. Hell, I was only six. No one even knew I was on my own for nine days. And then only because the landlord came around looking for his money and found me instead. By the time he showed up it had been three days since I’d eaten. There was some food in the apartment but I couldn’t open the cans since I couldn’t find the can opener and I sure as hell couldn’t cook. I had been surviving on dry cereal and bologna and cheese sandwiches until that stuff ran out.
The landlord reported my situation and before long the filthy little apartment was crawling with cops and the lady from Social Services. I hated the pitying looks but she was nice to me. She made sure I was fed, bathed, dressed in clean clothes, and put in a comfortable bed. Unfortunately staying with her wasn’t an option and I felt like I was being abandoned again when she presented me with a pair of foster parents.
I was in and out of the foster care system multiple times over the next seven years and most of the families were good to me. But I wasn’t able to adjust and I fucked up every opportunity I had, trying to prove that what my mother had said wasn’t true. That one of the families would find some reason to love me and want to keep me around. It almost happened once, but my foster dad in that situation had a massive stroke and the couple couldn’t continue fostering troubled kids no one else wanted. I hated them for a long time, blamed everything on them because once again I felt like I’d been abandoned.
The next foster home hadn’t been one of the nice ones and I really wonder how they managed to get approved. Mr. and Mrs. Shumaker. I didn’t trust anyone by that point, and as soon as I was placed with them I knew I was in trouble. There were two other kids in the house, Ava and Trevor. Both were foster kids and both of them were scared of their own shadows. Just my luck it was summer, which meant I couldn’t even get out of the house for school.
Trevor was eight years old, four years younger than me, but we shared a room. The kid was a habitual bed-wetter and it pissed me off that I had gotten stuck with him. Guess what they say’s true though: It’s better to be pissed off than pissed on. I finally got wise to the program one night when old man Shumaker came into the room well after lights out. Trevor had figured out that if he pissed himself that old pervert wouldn’t touch him. In his shoes, I would’ve pissed myself too.
The guy obviously wasn’t into older boys because he left me alone. Until one night when he’d had too much to drink and he came after me. I’d taken to sleeping with an old knife I’d found in a tackle box when I was supposed to be cleaning out the garage one Saturday, and I cut the hell out of him. I got out of the house and ran for the nearest payphone and I called the cops. I would’ve kept running right then but I genuinely cared for quiet Ava and annoying Trevor. They were survivors, afraid to buck the system, and doing whatever they had to do to make it through another day.
Ava has never said if that motherfucker ever touched her but I suspect he tried if nothing else. Yeah, me and Ava, we still hang. We’re tight and we’ve got each other’s back. We were removed from the Shumaker’s home before they could inflict more damage and I’ll give my case worker credit. She really tried to place us as close together as possible but she just couldn’t work it out.
By 13 I was sick of being passed around. It was the eighth foster home I’d been stuck in and I just didn’t care anymore. The family was nice and normal but I knew it was only a matter of time before I’d be moved again so what was the point? Ava and I stayed in contact and we knew where each other was living so when I shoved my things in the backpack I’d been carrying around for the past couple of years and snuck out of the house late one night, I went straight to her.
The couple in the new foster home kept money in a cabinet in the office for emergencies and since running away was an emergency in my book, I took it and shoved it in my pockets before I left. I still feel bad for that one. I was tall for my age and I had enough street smarts to play it off when I got on the subway late that night. I made it over to the neighborhood where Social Services had dumped Ava and she was pissed when I told her I was taking off.
Ava is about five months younger than me and at 13 years old we already knew more about life than anyone that age should ever know. She shoved a few things in my pack and we took off. We didn’t talk about it. She just said she was going wherever I was going. And she did. She still does. She’s done time in juvenile detention, done time in jail, she’s experienced the uglier side of life, but she still holds onto the belief that somewhere out there a better life’s waiting for us. I know better, but hey, it gets her through the night so I leave it alone.
I glance over my shoulder and give her a cocky grin and she shakes her head at me. I can see the worry in her eyes and I wish she’d stayed away like I told her to. We lived on the streets of New York City for three years and it’s changed us. We’re harder, edgier than your average 18-year-olds. We wear most of our scars on the inside but there are a few that have marked our skin for life. Ava likes to say each one is a badge of honor, that they’re just further proof we’re survivors. I don’t give them that much thought.
At 16 years old I got my first real job and we could go into a store and actually buy food instead of lifting it. After three years on the streets we got pretty good at stealing and old habits are hard to break so there were plenty of times we took shit without paying for it. I’ve never really felt bad about it. I mean, you’ve gotta survive, right? Ava, it bothered her later when we actually had money and I’d lift things.
Once I started working for Damon I pushed her to come with me. It was the one time she hesitated to follow my lead. She didn’t want to sell her soul and I backed off for a while. She tried to find a job, but with no high school diploma, her age working against her, and no experience she wasn’t having much luck. Damon didn’t give a shit about a diploma or age. All he cared about was whether or not I could be trusted to run his drugs. I’m smart enough to know better than to cross a guy like Damon. I saw him put a guy down because he shaved a gram of coke on a run. I was 16 at the time and I puked all over my new shoes.
By 17 I had discovered cocaine as more than just a product I was moving for Damon. It wasn’t something I did all the time, but yeah, I started to do it on occasion. Ava recognized the changes and she begged me to get out, but for the first time we were making it on our own and I wasn’t willing to give that up. Later we had a huge blowout when she discovered I was carrying a gun. She hates guns. All hell broke loose the night she found it under my pillow and she refused to come to bed until I got rid of it. We ended up compromising because I wouldn’t give the gun up and she wouldn’t come to bed. Now it stays in the nightstand drawer when we’re in bed. Or at least it did until that damn narc busted me and screwed everything up.
No, we’re not a couple and we’re not in a relationship. We started sleeping next to each other for warmth when we hit the streets and it became a habit. We’ve had sex. Hell, we were hormonal and curious like any other teenagers. Neither of us trusts anyone but each other and at least with each other we know we’re safe. We don’t have any expectations where sex is concerned but sometimes you’ve just gotta scratch that itch. We never talk about it afterwards and it’s not something that happens very often; just once in a while when one of us needs it.
Sometimes she talks about finding a decent guy that’ll treat her right and I know that doesn’t have anything to do with us. She just wants a normal guy and a normal life. Most girls talk about getting their claws into some rich guy, but not Ava. She’s been kicked around by life and other than me there’s no one who cares about her. She wants that and she wouldn’t care if the guy was dirt poor. Hell, she’d probably prefer that because she’d know how to act.
Neither of us would have a clue how to act in a social situation. We grew up on the streets and neither of us has much of an education. We never went back to school after we ran away and employers don’t seem to be all that impressed when your education stops after you just barely started the seventh grade. We’re street smart but when it comes to anything else we’re not exactly the brightest crayons in the box. We know enough to get by and most days that’s good enough.
These days we’re doing okay. We’ve got a place to stay and food to eat on a regular basis. We’ve got a bed to sleep in and we don’t have to worry about being cold at night. We’re not loaded or anything but we do okay. Ava has made the occasional run for Damon and she hates it. I’ve argued that these people are gonna get their drugs one way or the other so it shouldn’t matter if they get them from us. She disagrees but running drugs puts food on the table and the other options weren’t much better.
Damon’s got his hand in a lot of stuff. He has night clubs, he runs drugs, he’s into prostitution and gambling, he’s a loan shark, and he doesn’t care who gets hurt as long as he makes a profit. I’ve been sent out to collect from people who owe him. They always have a reason for not having his money and I’ve watched them beg for just a few more days to get it together. I look down at my hands, my eyes tracing over the scars on my knuckles. They get their extension but it comes with added interest and a beating that leaves them barely conscious.
I’m not a saint but I’m not the devil either. Maybe I’ve made all the wrong choices, but I’ve survived. Ava has survived. We had to get off the streets and it’s hard to do when you’re 16 because if they find out you’re homeless your ass is gonna land right back where you started. A lot of kids on the streets sell themselves just to put food in their stomachs or to get in out of the cold for an hour or two. We made a pact that we’d never do that but there came a time when it looked like we were both out of ideas and options. And that’s when Damon Knight entered the picture.
There are guys in his organization who make a lot more than we do but I’m not complaining. We’re off the streets and that’s all I really care about. I look up when my lawyer pokes me and I realize the judge is waiting for me to stand. I get to my feet, not out of respect or because I give a fuck about his expectations, but because I don’t need him to charge me with contempt and tack more time onto my sentence. I already know from the way this guy’s been watching me that when I come back for sentencing he’s gonna hit me with the maximum sentence just because he doesn’t like me.
The court clerk reads out the guilty verdict and my lawyer adjusts his tie again, shooting a nervous glance at me. If the judge wasn’t watching me so closely I’d stomp my foot just to make this guy jump. He acts like I’m gonna do something to him and it makes me want to laugh. I have no reason to bust knuckles up against his head but he obviously doesn’t know that. I turn to look at Ava when one of the officers comes over to slap the cuffs on me. She’ll visit me as soon as I can have visitors and I mouth the words, ‘It’ll be okay’ to her as they haul me off to transport me back to county lockup.
*****
The judge finally gets around to having me brought back to the courthouse for my sentencing. It’s a waste of time in my opinion. I was already in jail, so why haul me all the way down here to tell me what I already know? Its ironic how they want you in court at a certain time but the judge always seems to be running behind schedule. Probably had to stop for a cupcake on the way, I think.
I glance over my right shoulder when a hand settles on my arm and I find myself staring into Ava’s blue eyes. She’s worried about how long they’re gonna lock me up even though she won’t say it out loud. She’s got this superstition about saying negative thoughts out loud, like it’ll make them come true or something.
“Hey, piece of cake. My lawyer says I’m not lookin’ at more than 36 months and maybe not even that.” What he actually said was I should consider myself very lucky that I hadn’t been carrying more weight when I got busted but she doesn’t need to know that.
“That’s a long time,” she says quietly.
I raise my handcuffed hands to cover hers. I’ve had time to think while sitting in my cell since the verdict came in and I’ve started to do a little worrying of my own. She’ll be alone while I’m locked up and there won’t be anyone to watch her back. “Take our stash and get outta here, Ava.” I recognize the stubborn look on her face. “I’m serious. You don’t know enough about the organization for Damon to fuck with you if you get out now.”
“I’ll just keep my head down and keep doing what I’ve been doing.”
“I can’t hear this,” my lawyer says, his nervous gaze flicking between us.
“Then stop listening,” I snap at him. I turn my attention back to Ava. We hide all of our money behind a loose brick in the bathroom wall and while it isn’t a phenomenal amount of money it is enough to get her out of the city.
“I’ve got your back.” She shakes her head, refusing to elaborate or give in to my demand that she leave the city.
“But I can’t have your back from prison.”
She covers my mouth with her hand and shakes her head again. “I’m tougher than I look.”
And she is. I know that. But Damon has little use for women outside of what they can do with his dick. I don’t know if it was my argument that convinced him that Ava would be useful as a runner or if he was simply humoring me while I was learning the ropes, but he’s never messed with her.
She’s watching me again and after a moment she gives me a smile. “I may not like guns but I know how to use a knife.”
I can’t stop the grin that surfaces at her confident statement. She damn well knows how to use a knife. You learn some interesting and useful things on the streets and if you’re gonna survive you have no choice but to learn to protect yourself.
We’re interrupted when the judge finally decides to haul his fat ass into the courtroom and the bailiff calls the court to order. I listen to the judge drone on about all the thought he’s put into his decision as I stand there waiting for him to spit my punishment out. I hear Ava gasp when he sentences me to a minimum of four years and a maximum of nearly seven years.
“You said I was lookin’ at three years at the most.” I look at my useless lawyer who’s already packing his shit up to make his escape. “There’s a big fuckin’ difference between three years and four to seven years!” I’m beyond pissed. I can’t leave Ava alone for four, maybe seven years. Three was bad enough, but four to seven? Who will we be in seven years? What if something happens to her because I’m not there to protect her?
“Can’t you object or somethin’?” Ava asks. She’s watching the officers coming over to escort me out of the courtroom.
“The judge has made his ruling.” He looks at me as he snaps his shiny black briefcase closed. “Use this time wisely. You’ve got an opportunity here. You can turn your life around and come out of this a better person.”
“You get that out of a fortune cookie? Why don’t you go find another client to screw over,” I snap at him.
The officers are almost on top of me and Ava leans in close to throw her arms around my neck. “I’ll come see you as soon as I can,” she promises thickly.
“Don’t waste the money,” I tell her. The prison I’ve been sentenced to is nearly a hundred miles away and the bus fare would be too much money. We don’t own a car and neither of us has ever learned to drive anyway. “If things work out I might be able to get transferred closer.”
She hugs me tighter when the officers grab my arms roughly. “I’ll see you soon.” She gives me that stubborn look that tells me it’d be a waste of time to argue with her and I grab her hand as they pull me away.
“Watch your back,” I tell her and she nods in response. There are tears in her blue eyes but she won’t let them fall. She won’t expose that vulnerability in front of anyone she doesn’t trust. I can count the number of times she’s cried in front of me and I wouldn’t even use all the fingers on one hand. I’m forced to let her go as the officers pull me away for transport to my new home and I wonder who I’ll be when I’m finally released.
*****
I stand outside of the prison walls, staring up at the intimidating structure as I draw in deep lungfuls of fresh air. Enjoying the smell of freedom. Five years, two months, one week, and five days. I got time off for good behavior so I didn’t have to serve the full sentence on the inside. Even with the immense relief at finally being on the outside there’s a feeling of sadness that overshadows it.
Ava isn’t here. She stopped coming to visit me two months ago and I haven’t had any contact with her since then. I knew something was going on but she couldn’t tell me what it was and I don’t know why. I wonder if she finally just had enough of Damon and his organization and she ran. That doesn’t sound like her but she might not have had much of a choice. She tried to get out a couple years back but by that point she was in too deep and walking away wasn’t an option.
Damon found out that she was planning to leave and he sent a couple of his lackeys to remind her that it wasn’t her choice to make. I saw the healing cuts and bruises when she came to visit and she finally told me what happened. Amidst the anger was this rush of relief that they hadn’t hurt her worse and forced themselves on her.
Before I got busted I always made sure she didn’t see the worst of what Damon was capable of and without me there she had no one to protect her. She’s not stupid and as much as she likes to see the good in everything around her she’s not naïve. I’ve watched her change, pull into herself for protection, and I wonder how differently our lives would’ve turned out if I hadn’t run away and taken her with me. I don’t regret the decision so much for myself, but what it’s done to her… I don’t know how much damage that decision did to her.
I start to walk to the waiting bus that will take me into the city, carrying everything I own in a brown paper sack. I’ve gotta check in with my parole officer and then I’ll be staying in a halfway house because I don’t have anywhere else to go. I saw what can happen to guys who get out and continue to live the way they were living before going to prison and most of them ended up behind bars again before long. I have no interest or intention of ending up back in prison. I didn’t enjoy it the first time around.
I swore when I got out I was going straight and that’s what I’m gonna do. I spent my time behind bars wisely for the most part. I got into some trouble at the beginning but then I started to wise up. I don’t wanna be a career criminal. I completed a substance abuse program that I only took at first to make points but during the course I realized that what I thought was just recreational use really was a problem. I got my GED and I even took a few courses to get me ready to take some college classes. I inhale deeply and mentally go over my plan as I board the bus and take a seat. I’ve spent my whole life doing what I had to do to survive.
My name is Max Evans and from now on I’m concentrating on living.
