Anyone in their right mind would have left me to rot a long time ago.
And Casey Uhlig had been an awful blast from the past. When we were younger, he was so fucking cocky, and even though he was just as bad as I was, or I’d imagined that to be the case, he had those two friends who were always with him—Merit and Creed. They kept him safe, and he made sure no one fucked with them.
I’d been so goddamned resentful of all three of them.
I wiped at my face and was ashamed when hot tears smeared onto my hand.
Well, Uhlig had my boy now, and I had no one. That was fair.
Everyone had to pay their bill eventually, and my tab was high. I didn’t need anyone to tell me I’d asked too much of my son, and now he didn’t have to answer to me for anything. I’d had him too young and fucked his life all up, and now Ididn’thave him.
My mood swung wildly worse, and I hated the sadness that washed through me at the thought of not seeing him again.It’s for the best.
“I’m going to roll you,” the doc said. I nodded and gasped out in pain as he put me on my back again. He tried to take the pillow from my arms, and I shook my head at him, feeling weak and exposed and somehow hidden by the cotton and stuffing. I buried my face against it.
“We can set you up with PT. You’ll come here to the medical wing. I can’t do any high-powered meds for your back unless you try everything else to feel better first, no matter what I think about it. You came in here under a detox listing.”
I nodded and didn’t look at him. The blackness behind my eyelids was more interesting. “You can do the physical therapy here? I was supposed to do that a while ago and didn’t.”
The doctor hummed out a positive sound. “We have a lot more elderly in the prison than people think. The therapists come every Friday.”
“I’m not fucking elderly,” I growled out.
He said nothing, so I cracked an eye to glare in his direction.
Fucking physical therapy. Working to get well.What’s the point?I’d always said no in the past because being fit would mean being one step closer to having to deal with the mess of my life, but stuck in here? To survive I needed to get mobile. A scared thrill buzzed through me.
My life had been the same fucked-up, sad shit for so long. Drinking. Eating pain pills. Every now and then hiring someone to come in and fuck me. That had always been humiliating, too, because I had to explain all the things I couldn’t do anymore while they tried to smile at me, but it hadn’t motivated me to change. To work for something better than a clinical fuck that took every last dime—and made Angel ask where all my money went.
Do I want to die here?
“Okay. I’ll do it,” I grumbled.
“Good.” The doctor smiled down at me and patted my arm. “I’ll get it set up.”
He was on his way out when the guard who had found me, Greene, headed in, and he was carrying a folding chair on his strong boulder of a shoulder. Embarrassment had me looking at the floor, but his black boots came into view. He’d seen me at my worst twice now. What could be running through his head? He snapped the chair open and sank down in it directly beside me. I fought back a flinch as he slid himself close to the bed.
“How do you know Brian Himes and Karl Geiger?”
Brian dropped to his knees beside me, and I could barely move. I scratched my fingernails over the bloody cement, and sunlight sliced across my eyes so that I could barely open them. Karl stood in front of me with his arms crossed over his stomach. My back was a nightmare of pain.
“Where am I?”
“The dugout at your school, man. Can you move?” Brian grabbed my arm and jerked on it, and I cried out. He laughed at me.
Karl seemed bored, and his sneer made his chin even pointier.
“No. No, I can’t move.”
Brian sighed. “We gotta go. Tatum wants to see you tonight. We’re supposed to bring you to him.”
I shook the old memories out of my head.
“I don’t know them.”
Greene slapped down a piece of paper on the bed beside me. I didn’t need to look down to know it would be photos of Brian and Karl, a lot older and full of scars and crags that hadn’t existed on them the last time I’d known them. Greene’s warm brown eyes stared into my soul and beyond, giving me the chills. He had curvy lips that seemed like they wanted to smile more than frown.
“Tell me about them,” he demanded and pointed at the paper. “You’re in my block, and unlike some of the guards, I don’t like reporting casualties. I’m not your best friend, but I want to help.”
