“Good going,” someone from a nearby table called, then cackled.
The guards were yelling again, not at me, but at everyone else taking their chance to be obnoxious. I snagged milk out of a cooler and wheeled myself to a table where there was a spot open at the end. I glared around and my face was too hot. This place fucking sucked.
Someone in a gray jumpsuit shuffled out from behind the serving area with a yellow bucket and mop, giving me the evil eye, but a different man came out with a new tray and slid it on the table in front of me. He was too tall and too thin, and I thought he must not eat any of the food he cooked because his gaunt cheeks were painful to see. He brushed back gray hair from his tan face. “I’m Phil,” he said. “If you come through the line when I’m here, I’ll bring it out for you.”
He seemed all right, but I was too embarrassed to say anything much, so I only nodded. Men sat at the other end of the table and didn’t talk to me. Being ignored, combined with the bad cafeteria food and the boring class I’d just come from, gave me terrible flashbacks to high school. I shoved around the gloppy food with a plastic spork, decided it would have been better if Phil hadn’t brought it out after all, and then drank the milk. The same stupid part of me that liked talking to Greene made me wish he was here.As if he’d want to sit with me.I shoved my tray back farther on the table and thought about leaving it there. I might be able to get away with it, considering I’d already dumped one.
The back of my neck felt itchy, so I glanced around the room. Tatum Black sat at a table in a corner with four other guys around him, all tattooed and pumped from burning boredom with exercise. He stared at me, the mean glare completely familiar. My blood froze in my veins and my stomach twisted in knots.
Fear blazed to life in me and I was disgusted with myself. This would all be a lot easier if I’d died in the car accident that stuck me in this chair a few years ago. I’d been in a chair after high school from getting fucked up in a fight, and I’d worked my way out of the wheels once.
I just couldn’t see doing ittwice.
What was the point? I closed my eyes for a second. I might have stood a small chance of walking around on my own again without equipment if I hadn’t let myself get in such bad shape. Maybe if I hadn’t drunk half my life away. I scooted my chair out, and none of the guards yelled at me to dump my tray, so I left it.
The trip to my cell was a Herculean task and took fucking forever. No one offered to help me, and that was fine. People I’d seen in the cafeteria passed me on their way back to their cells. I would push for a while, until I was sweaty and my back ached too much, and then I would stop until my panting for breath wasn’t quite so awful. The doors that separated the blocks were a struggle when I reached them.
Nothing in prison was set up for a man in a wheelchair.
By the time I got to the door of my cell, I was relieved, even though I knew a nightmare would be living next to me. I wasn’t sure what to do about it. Greene had asked… but what could I say? If I said a single word about Tatum, there was plenty he could spill about me, even if I hadn’t wanted to do most of those things, and even if he’d ordered them. No, I wasn’t a saint, but I wasn’t… like him. I shuddered and wheeled myself inside.
Exhaustion hit me when I looked at the thin pillow on the low bed. Unlike the other cells, there was no top bunk. I was able to get close enough to the mattress and put my feet on the floor. With a heave that had more sweat popping out on my forehead, I pivoted until I collapsed on the bed. Pain lapped at my lower back like tides of flame. I rested my elbows on my knees and tried to lean forward to stretch my muscles out. I felt like someone had told me at one time that would help, but I also needed surgery.
My body was as much of a wreck as my life. I sighed and closed my eyes, trying to fight through the pain. I’d loved pain once, sharp, glancing blows on my knuckles and cheeks and chin. A hit to the stomach would have had me laughing.
This was a different kind of pain, worse than any bare-knuckle match. It didn’t stop with a buzzer. It just kept going and I had to live with it.
The sound of my borrowed chair banging against the wall as it was yanked back had me glancing up. And up. And up. Tatum stood there with an amused twist to his mouth. He moved fast—there wasn’t time to be shocked, only react. I tried to swing at him and connected with his chest, but it was like a fly punching a semi. He laughed and slammed me against my bed. The man was big as fuck. Fear clawed through my chest and I tried to fight back. He shoved my arms down, and the first brawl I’d ever had with him—if getting my ass handed to me in less than thirty seconds could count—raced through my mind. I was already shaking my head. I didn’t want it. Not from him.
I didn’t want to relive that awful time.
“No,” I croaked out.
“Knew it was you, Pete.” His breath about knocked me over and my stomach roiled. “Wondered if I’d ever see you again.” His words were rough, almost slurred, and I had to wonder how much had happened to him between the last time I’d seen him and now. The Tatum Black I’d known had been a slick talker and an even better dresser, when the mood hit him. This man seemed far more damaged.
I shook my head.
“It ain’t you? I remember how much fun you were. Imagine it. Good time for both of us. You used to beg me to stop, but you always fucking shot your wad.” He ran a hand down my side, and I grasped his wrist. He paused, toying with me. It was clear he was at the advantage.
“You’ll hurt me. I don’t want… If you aren’t careful… my back….”
His eyes nearly glowed with excitement. I should have fucking kept my mouth shut. Me being in pain wasn’t adownsidefor him. It never had been. I couldn’t catch my breath and tried to shove at him, but he didn’t budge. There was a time I would have been able to clock him and do some damage. Bitterness and terror had me striking, but I couldn’t get a good angle for my swing, and his face didn’t even move as I connected to his square jaw. He snorted.
“Aw. I remember how you used to wriggle on my cock. Cry until you were snotty. You want it again?”
I couldn’t move. My muscles seized, and I did a bad impression of a rock. Unfortunately I was still living flesh. He could rip me apart. There was no right answer. If I said yes, he’d hurt me.No, he’d hurt me.
There would only be a fresh hell.
He lowered his face until he was breathing against my cheek. Pain had me trying to scrabble away as he sank his teeth into my earlobe. I shoved, and he eventually decided to let go. “I been stuck alone a while. That’s the only reason I’m not snapping your neck right now. You know too fucking much.” He slid his hand to my throat and squeezed. My breath caught, and he let up. “I know you told that woman you married all about me, too. All those things you saw while you were with me.”
My mind raced, and he nodded, almost like he could see the thoughts smashing around in my skull. I shook my head. “Ex. Angie’s gone. She’s living somewhere else. Somewhere nice. Like she deserved.”
He laughed, a guttural sound as unpleasant as rocks clashing together. “You tell yourself that? I heard about you after you ran and I went to prison. I was in max for a few years. Not much to do there ’cept think. I asked around about you when I got the chance. Thought maybe your sweet ass was waiting for me inside somewhere, if I could just get the cells arranged. But nope. Peter Gaffin got away, while I was behind bars. There were more than a few of us unhappy with that.”
He squeezed my neck until I coughed. I glanced toward the cell door, and there was another man in a T-shirt and gray sweats standing outside the bars, glancing this way and that. Tatum’s lookout. He always had someone else around to take the fall. I wondered how they’d finally caught him, but figured he’d murder me here and now if I asked.
“You’re lucky I like them alive and kicking,” he said with a thin-lipped smirk. He tightened his grip on my neck and clenched a hand to my arm so hard it hurt. With a heave, he twisted his body to the left. Pain tore through me as he dropped me on the floor. I couldn’t move except to writhe on the spot where I’d fallen as he crashed down on top of me. It wasn’t anything at all for him to hook his fingers in the waistband of the sweats I wore and drag them down to my knees. My underwear went next, and the cement floor was cold under my ass.
