There was no way I wouldn’t be at least a few minutes late. I yanked off my winter coat and stashed it in the back seat so I’d be able to just run into work. Next, I straightened my brown uniform and scowled down at my silver name tag.Greenegleamed at me, smudged all to hell. I wiped it with my sleeve, only made it worse, and then let it go. TFC was a medium facility, but I still knew two guys who’d been stabbed with the pin on their own tag. The higher-ups like the look of it for the visitors, though.
Groaning again, I put the Jeep into first gear and started out at a crawl along the rutted trail that wasn’t much of a real road. After a few minutes I hit the ATV path that pretended to be a street and led up the twisted hill, away from the shore of Lake Ontario. Ten minutes later I was on the highway, flying toward work as fast as I dared. Sometimes the New York State Troopers were kind when they pulled over the guards from TFC, and sometimes they swung the hammer. Depended on whether or not they were feeling like we were part of the same brotherhood that day.
I couldn’t risk the time suck. I kept the needle four miles over the speed limit and no more.
The pretty scenery flew past, snow-dotted long grasses, with one or two scrubby pine trees, which slowly transformed into old-wood forest that was getting ready to wake up for the year. Today was cold as hell, but soon it would be warmer, and I could barely wait. I smacked my hands on the steering wheel and turned on the radio while I daydreamed about the kayak in my shed. There was nothing better than walking out my front door to lose myself on the lake.
The time alone calmed all the bullshit that churned around in my brain.
About five miles from TFC, I hit the shift-change traffic, not that it was much, and it only amounted to me getting stuck behind a mail truck that was going ten below the speed limit. TFC was in the middle of God’s country, and there wasn’t normally anyone around, except for the few cons released every day and us guards. But I could already tell today was shaping up to be one ofthosedays. On my right, I drove past the garages and laundry, which were separate buildings from the main prison. Cons went about their jobs, despite the cold.
When I turned left into the parking lot, I waved at Wettekin, who stood shivering by the area where they offloaded new meat. He was a thin redheaded kid with an acne problem who was mean to the cons and scared of them, too. It was a combo waiting to go poorly, and eventually he’d either kill someone or get murdered. I was sort of waiting to see how that one would play out. He reminded me far too much of my younger self I wanted to forget.
Not that I couldeverforget the way I’d been then.
Sighing, I pulled into the small parking area for the workers. Once I stopped the Jeep and threw the parking brake, I let the engine cut out and sat there. I rubbed my tired eyes. If I punched in late, or even worse, forgot, I’d get a talking-to from Lon Wiseback, and that wasn’t something I was up for on a good day, let alone one when I’d been up half the night before with a storm. Wind had hammered my cozy house, and while I knew the small building was secure to the ground, the sound always made me worry the whole thing would fly away into the lake. It was a stupid fear for someone who’d purposefully chosen to live where I do, with the waves outside my bedroom window, but I couldn’t shake it. Laughing at myself, I hopped out and shivered my way through the key-coded gate door and the frigid air toward the guarded entrance.
Before I could get to the building, someone whistled at me from near a bus at the unloading point where the new cons would disembark to go through intake. It was Wettekin. Becausefuck my life.
“What’s going on?” I asked and tried not to let any of what I was thinking into my words. Carefully, I approached Wettekin and the bus. On my side a man was staring out the window at the ground and didn’t seem to notice me. I slowed because, unlike a lot of faces that passed through TFC’s gates, his was worth looking at—all inspiring angles, with dirty blond hair that gleamed gold. I went around the front of the yellow bus and met Wettekin near the door. It was a reclaimed school bus, but I’d always thought it was slightly creepy they hadn’t bothered to paint it another color. There was a group of future cons—and some familiar ones—huddled near an entrance to the building, with another guard standing there bundled up in his winter gear keeping an eye on them.
Wettekin rolled his eyes and snapped the gum he was chewing. “This guy is a pain in the ass. Can you escort him inside while we get the rest of these cons ready for Lon? You’re better at talking, and I don’t have fucking time to turn this into an issue.” He sounded almost wistful, as if he wished there was sufficient time to create problems for someone else, and I hated him a bit more than I already did.
Frowning at Wettekin, I took a step up onto the bus, but the slim man sitting near the middle with a wheelchair jammed in at his side—that can’t be very comfortable—didn’t look at me. In fact, his shoulders drooped, and he did a good job of ignoring my existence.
“Fuck, they’re supposed to use the bus with the lift when we have someone in a chair.” I glared at the empty driver’s seat. The cop was probably inside in the nice, warm break room shooting the shit. I thumped my palm against the cold windshield. Why didn’t anyone around here ever do what they were supposed to fucking do? And then they wondered why the cons didn’t care to attempt to listen when they got treated like shit from the get-go.
Wettekin shrugged when I turned my glare on him, picking at a sore on his cheek, and I wanted to slap him. “Not my problem,” he whined.
“It’s someone’s problem.”
“Yeah, but not mine. And now he’s yours. He’s going to E block. You supervise E, right?” He flashed me a smile, and if I didn’t hate him so much, I would have called it cute.
“Yeah,” I growled out. “I supervise E, and the workers for the maintenance and lawn garages, and whatever the hell else the bosses tell me to do. We’re doing time the same as they are, and don’t forget it.”
The little shit sent me a huge grin as he slunk away toward the prison door and the cons already freezing their asses off. Most of them weren’t dressed for the weather. My fellow guards led the cons inside, where they would probably sit in the cold hallway to fill out paperwork before they were processed.
Sighing, I walked up the rest of the steps onto the bus and made my way along the aisle toward the man. My stomach squirmed uncomfortably as I studied him. He was attractive, with sleek lines. A chin that was slightly pointed and cheekbones that were high had me staring. His blond hair was a mess, like he’d been in a fight, but the color made me want to look too long because it was beautiful and clearly natural.
Between the way he was holding himself, huddled like prey, and the wheelchair, he’d get eaten alive. My stomach shriveled up. I didn’t want to see that happen.
“I’m going to take the chair out first, okay?” I said and tried to sound friendly, but not too friendly. It was a delicate balancing act with most of these men, and I never knew what kind of an attitude someone would have on their first day. Coming to prison was stressful, and I’d seen the effects time and time again as people were dumped here and their true colors slowly came out. Sometimes that was good—most of the time it wasn’t.
But I always tried to start out on the right foot with a person.
“It’s hurting my leg,” he said quietly as he pushed at the chair. “But they wouldn’t let me move it out into the aisle.”
I wanted to say a few things about whoever had done that, but I knew to keep my mouth shut. It wouldn’t help anything. I tugged at the chair until I got it loose from where it had been wedged between the seats. With more muscle than I would have thought necessary, I struggled with it toward the front of the bus. The damned thing wasn’t light. “Can you walk at all?”
“Got on here, didn’t I?”
Yeah, but that doesn’t mean much. They could have thrown your ass on the bus.I didn’t say that out loud, either. I got the wheelchair outside and down on the ground and stared at it for a minute. I’d unfolded chairs before, but this one gave me some trouble, and it took me longer than it should have to figure out how to open it, snap everything into place, and turn the feet pedals where they should be. I blamed it on my sleepy brain. Finally I patted the seat into place, feeling accomplished.
By the time I hopped back on the bus to help the man walk outside, he was on his feet and breathing heavily as he grasped at the backs of the seats on either side of him, doggedly putting one foot in front of the other. The suit he wore was out of date but made him look good, even with the grimace twisting his face, and I sucked in a deep breath; the clothes had to have been for court, but I could enjoy them, right? He let out long breaths and bared his teeth, transforming his handsome face into a mask of pain. I rushed forward, but he swatted at me before I even reached him.
“Fuck off. Don’t touch me,” he gritted out. “Hurts like hell.”
“Let me help you.” This time I didn’t reach for him.
