“Tatum Black was in on this,” I said to him. “The fucker didn’t touch me, but he was here. He orchestrated the attack.” Orlov snapped to attention, and as much as I hated him on a personal level—he took too much pleasure in being a fuck and abused his position—I knew he loved nothing more than running a rat to ground. He nodded and strode off.
Dr. Bond stayed with me the whole way to the medical wing; we didn’t stop there. They kept the stretcher rolling and took me outside. I shivered in the cold as I was loaded into the back of the black van they used to take inmates to the hospital in New Gothenburg, which was always a trip and a half when it was necessary.
“Is it that bad?” I murmured, surprised at how difficult it was to speak. I trembled on the spot and felt fucking stupid.
“Could be.” He patted my shoulder. The squint of his eyes let me know he definitely thought it was bad. My leg ached and throbbed. My side was on fire.
“Who went into medical earlier? Who was with Peter?”
Dr. Bond rolled his eyes. “Worry about yourself. You won’t be back to work for a while. It’ll be settled before you get in again.”
“Just fucking tell me,” I grumped as ice slipped through my veins.
He sighed. “Laken Miller,” he said, sounding irritated just by mentioning his name. “He caught a shiv. It was a bolt, just like these two wounds you have. They shoved it into his forearm. We sent him in the other van. We better not have another emergency today or we’re fucked.”
“They’ll lock it all down. The whole prison. Unless you have celly on celly, nothing else will happen.” I wrapped my hand in Dr. Bond’s blue scrub shirt and dragged him close. “Peter’s in trouble. Get him in the fucking medical dorm somehow. The guys that did this to me are out for his blood. I was just standing in the way.”
Dr. Bond widened his eyes at me and nodded. “I’ll try.”
“Don’t fucking try. Do it, Doc.”
He sighed and winced. “I really will try. Worry aboutyourself.”
That was great advice and all, but my stomach was in knots. Not because I’d been attacked. No, I’d known that was coming from day one on the job. Every guard took a beating at some point, which is why I kept in shape. But my gut roiled because I had no idea how to tell Peter anything about what had gone on. How would I let him know I was okay? I had no idea how long I’d be off work, and I couldn’t protect him from the outside. The short progress he’d made in physical therapy wouldn’t be enough for him to protect himself from Black. The knife I’d given him would be nearly useless. My head swam with pain as the doors of the medical van closed and worry clawed at me.
At least Peter should be safe for a couple of days in the SHU, but after that, I had no idea what might happen. If Orlov couldn’t pin this on Black, he’d be even cockier. My stomach churned. I turned, and someone—one of the nurses—shoved a small white bucket under my face that I unloaded my guts into. My vision swam and I fought to stay conscious. As the van started to move, the gray-brick walls of TFC faded into the distance and my heart sank.
“Stay safe for me, Peter,” I mumbled.
“What?” the nurse asked.
Shaking my head, I lay back down and tried to ignore the pain in my side and leg.
10
Peter
The overhead lighthad burned out an hour ago. I sat in the darkness, stiffly gripping the handle of my borrowed walker. I hated this isolation cell, hated everything about it. The blank black walls were the perfect screen for my mind to play all my most horrific memories. My breath came in ragged gasps, and I fought not to panic. It had been a few days, I wasn’t sure how many, since I’d been thrown in here. I’d barely slept, a low-grade terror driving me to shove myself in the corner of the room so I could watch the door. The floor was cold under my ass and my body was stiff. One horrible thought had rung like a bell in my head over and over again during the endless, unfilled time: if Black could get to Drew, a strong man, could he get to me in here?
And all the time I’d been huddled in the corner with my shoulders pressed tight against two walls, my gut had been churning over Laken and Drew. Laken was probably mostly okay. He’d been punched hard and had taken a shank to the arm, but Drew? I had no idea. He could be fucking dead for all I knew. Dr. Bond had told me Drew was taken to a hospital in New Gothenburg when he’d brought my walker to me, but he wouldn’t say anything else—worried about privacy violations.
I had no phone number to call Drew, not that I could get to a phone anyway. I didn’t know how to reach him when he wasn’t at the prison. Not being able to hear his voice shredded me, just like knowing I couldn’t talk to Angel did.
But Dr. Bond had told me he thought Drew would be okay.
I couldn’t help but worry. Too many times I’d thought I had something good, something for me, only for things to go wrong and have it snatched away.
I’d lost so much to Tatum Black. I’d lost control of my body to him. My willpower. For a while, even my fucking mind. I’d let him control me. And after he chewed me up and spit me out, I allowed fear to drive me to ruin myself and my family. I let go of the walker and dropped my face in my hands. Rocking back and forth to try to calm myself gave me something to do, but it wasn’t working. My lower back hurt, but in a sick fucking twist of fate, not as much as usual. If I had one, I might actually be able to walk with only a cane today.
The resounding clank of a lock turning had me snapping my head up to stare at the door in horror. My heart tried to shoot up the back of my throat. I swallowed and clutched at the sides of my walker as the door cracked open, bracing for the worst.
“What the fuck. Why’s the light out?” The young voice wasn’t Black’s, but that didn’t mean anything. The man who’d injured Laken wasn’t Black, he’d just been controlled by him. I scratched my nails across the concrete floor and tried to draw my legs up in front of me like a shield.
“Don’t know,” answered a different man, and he got a snort of laughter in return as the door widened. A brown guard uniform relaxed me a bit, but the shock of red hair wasn’t Drew’s, not that I thought he’d be back already after getting hurt. It was with some trepidation that I realized this was the asshole kid who’d put me in here and wouldn’t listen when I’d tried to explain I was getting that fuck off Laken. Part of me had hoped that when someone finally opened that door, it would be Drew. I was worse than a kid holding on to a fairy tale.
“Get your ass out here, Gaffin. Slowly.” The guard didn’t come into the room and hid on the other side of the door. I could have sworn I heard a tremor in his voice.
“Won’t be quick,” I grumbled, and stood by carefully going to my knees first, then using the walker to steady myself. There wasn’t much room between the wall and the thin mattress they called a bed in here, so it was difficult to maneuver the walker. I got hung up a couple of times.
