I rollover on my side, facing her, and watch her through the rectangle hole in the door usually used to deliver food through. She glances over her shoulder, her eyes landing on the officer too busy flirting with the CNA at the desk to worry about what we are doing right now. “Leila, what’s really going on? Who is doing this to you?”
“I really don’t remember what hurts me. I’m being honest, DJ,” I tell her the truth. I am happy to be able to tell her the truth but depending on who is responsible I might lie to her.
“Ok. I just wanted to ask you while no one was listening. Also, if you hear something against the wall around eleven o’clock, take cover under your bed. Watch the clock. If you don’t hear anything today, listen again tomorrow. Don’t forget.”
My mouth opens to ask her what in the hell she is talking about, but quickly shakes her head, and her eyes dart from me to the officer walking to meet her
“Sorry about that, Kacey had to ask me about something,” the rookie officer tells DJ.
“Not a problem at all. I was just getting ready to give Engelhardt her pills. No rush,” DJ informs him not missing a beat and her normal character returning as if she hadn’t been talking in some cryptic code moments before.
I mechanically nod in agreement, flipping my legs over the side of the bunk, and slip my feet into my uncomfortable shower slides. Trying to keep up appearances and not tip the officer off that anything is out of the norm, I shuffle to my sink, and fill my cup with water. I stick my hand out of the hole and DJ drops my pills into my palm. I swallow them with a couple sips of water and DJ smiles. “See you around, Engelhardt.”
“See you around, DJ,” I repeat the statement back to her while the officer lifts the metal rectangular door up, holding it with his hand as he inserts the key, locking the bean hole. DJ has never been anything but straightforward. She’s acting beyond strange. Am I dreaming again? I don’t think so. After setting my cup on the floor beside the bunk, I pinch my arm just in case. It hurts immediately and the skin blanches and then turns red. Nope. I am definitely not asleep. I walk over to the cell door, looking out the window and across the infirmary. I have been in the medical unit for random things here and there. I’ve even spent some time here in the infirmary, but never paid too much attention to the layout of the place. My eyes zero onto the clock across the way hung on the walk behind the U-shaped desk the officers and nurses share. It’s in the same place as it was the last time I was sent here, but I didn’t expect it to be moved. Not much changes as far as décor goes around here. If you are in good with the officers, they allow you to decorate your cell to make it a little more personal. Nothing huge, of course, but some people make flowers out of toilet paper and stick them to the ceiling and walls with a sticky substance. Since being incarcerated I’ve learned anything can be used for something else if you have enough imagination. Women use the colored portions of magazine pages to stain their eyelids and cheeks. Although I’m not sure how they transfer the color onto their skin. Others use pads for eye masks. I would have never dreamed of using something intended for a period on my eyes until coming here. But, when you have not slept for days, sticking a pad on a sock and then tying another to it and around your head is a small blessing.
DJ looks over her shoulder at me and then glances down to the watch on her wrist, tapping its face with her fingertip. I nod as if I understand what all of this means. I’ll keep an eye on the clock, but other than that I don’t have the slightest what she is expecting will happen. If I hear something on the wall…Could she have been more vague?
CHAPTER 11
North
“I’ll handle it,” Fallout assures us brothers, staring out the massive window of our clubhouse, his eyes fixating onto something in the distance.
“Are you sure, brother?” I ask him, knowing this goes against everything he stands for. Fallout isn’t a saint, none of us are, but he has rarely used his gifts since we were cast down to earth. He believes they are too powerful, and if I look at the whole picture, all of our abilities are. But the way I look at it is like this, if the higher powers that be didn’t want us using them, they should have stripped them from us, transforming us into humans the moment the sentenced us to live out our days on earth. They didn’t do that, though. They weakened them, so my outlook on that is why not use them when we need them. I agree with him to an extent about his, though, but not for the same reason. If I had his power and used it to bend every person to my will all the time, life down here would get boring real fast. So, yes, I agree what he is capable of is too much to be used daily, but fuck if I would not use it anytime someone, I cared about needed help. None of us have ever pressured him on the subject, surprisingly. We all tend to let each other make the call of when and where we use our gifts. So, parts of us, like that shared respect, has stayed with us throughout the years. I’m glad even though most of everything about our lives is everchanging, that we can still find bits and pieces of our old selves.
“I’m sure. The plan is already taking place as we speak.”
“it is?” Ohm scratches the side of his head with his fingers and his eyes scans around the room. His lips mush together as he gnaws on the inside of his cheek, looking to me for answers. I shrug in response. I am as clueless as he is. Nothing was supposed to happen until two hours from now. South and I were taking his truck and parking it three miles away from the prison, waiting for Fallout’s signal—a call from his burner phone. Three rings and we were to go ahead with the plan, driving to the gates, and wait for Delayni to come to us. One ring we were to hold our position until we heard from someone. Two Face was to get in and out before anyone noticed and Seven was going to be the distraction.
Looking a lot like Ohm, my eyes dart around the room in confusion. None of us are in position, except Fallout, and he can do what he needs to do from anywhere in the world.
“Indeed, Prez. You all need to get to where you need to be and watch your back. I’m holding off the agents in the unmarked vehicle parked four blocks away from our clubhouse and doing what needs to be done in the penitentiary to spring Delayni. I can’t keep doing both of them for long but should give you enough time to get her before the agents realize what’s happening.”
“Agents?” I will be damned if Cece didn’t know what she was talking about. The FEDs are a different story, though. None of us had anything to do with the dead women. Okay. Let me rephrase that, some of us did, but we didn’t kill them. They were all alive and well the last time any brother saw them. Even though this could all blow up in our faces by doing so, we have to put that problem on the back burner and hope Fallout is strong enough to hold them off until we have Delayni. I don’t kill for sport but have no problem slitting every throat from here to Shady Holler if it means bringing her home and away from that awful place.
South and I pull into our spot, and I can’t remember how to breathe properly. I’m worried for my brother’s safety and for Delayni’s, too. One wrong move from any of us and we could all go down. Unfortunately, we all know that all too well. When Delayni and I met, I lost all control, and my moral compass seemed to forget it was supposed to guide me in the right direction. South tried to stop me from pursing her. Fallout plead with me to stay away from her. Ohm on the other hand came to earth to cheer me on, that guy was always cut out for a rougher life than we were born to. Not that our lives were easy, because they were not. It was torment watching as those who we protected got hurt time and time again, without helping them. We suffered right beside them; they were never alone with the pain they thought only lived in their heart. It didn’t. Those were our scars to bare just as much as they were theirs. But none of it was as painful as knowing I’m the reason Delayni is where she is today. She hadn’t done anything exceptionally wrong in her life before I came into it. The only wrong thing she ever done is love me back.
Knowing I am the reason the person I love suffers isn’t a small ache that lingers just under the surface. It is a wound that never fully healed. What happened to us isn’t really something anyone can come back from. All of my brothers now carry the label outcast and will be punished for my inability to not fall for Delayni. For years we wondered aimlessly, without a real place to call home while trying to uphold some semblance of the standards we were taught. That was the majority of our first lives on this planet. After that, we rolled with the punches, because we realized life is filled with agony and violence. It’s not as easy as it looks from the outsider perspective we had. We did carry the scars with those we protected, and we thought we felt as much pain as them, but we could not have been further from the truth.
Once it all sunk in, we all were left with a hard decision. Each of us choose to survive by consuming the hate because if we hadn’t it would have eaten us alive from the inside out. South and I swallowed our dose of savagery like the mother fuckers we are and have been dealing with the side effects of our self-inflicted chaos ever since. He’s just as fucked up as I am, which is one of the reasons we get along so well. If one of us goes nuclear the other is there to meticulously detonate the other. We have always been there for the other and always will be. Nothing will ever come between us. “Thank you, South. I don’t know if I can ever say it enough, brother,” I admit to him and mean it. He has made tough decisions more times than I can count, and he’s been selfless with his outcomes.
“Yeah. Yeah. They’ll come a time when you have to repay me,” he states, squeezing his fists and then unclenching them, only to squeeze them tighter than before. His veins pop out of his skin more than usual and I can almost count the beats as his pulse thunders through them.
My head twitches toward him as a dark smirk pulls at my lips, and the venomous hate I have for them digs its claws a little deeper into my soul. “You’re mad. I get it. We all are. But don’t let it make you lose sight of what we’re doing. Why we’re doing it. Take your hate for them and put it to good use.”
“What do you think we’re doing here? It’s a double-whammy,” he points out like I would understand what he’s talking about.
I arch an eyebrow in his direction before checking the phone screen to make sure we hadn’t missed Fallout’s call. No new notifications, so I think we’re good. Hopefully, everything is going smoothly for everyone. I hate sitting around, knowing that the people I care about the most could be in danger, and I am doing nothing but sitting on the flat of my ass.
“Every time we step a little further into the darker parts of life, it’s like giving the middle finger to the ones who banished us. We’re doing what we want, when we want. We do not live by anyone else’s rules anymore. Our hate is being put to damn good use.” He smiles smacking his hand off the steering wheel as he looks at me.
“Damn right it is, brother,” I agree, thinking over what he’s said. “Wait. How is that a double-whammy?”
“Oh, shit a brick, I forgot the last part. We’re doing all this, living by our own rules now because we found our true family, and not just each other. It’s our club. Our brothers. I know it sounds cheesy, especially coming from me, but it’s the truth.”
“No, you’re right, it is. If my life ends before yours this go around, find me and make sure I’m a King in the next lifetime?”
“You got it and you do the same for me.”
