This wasn’t going to work. E block was too far away from everything, and Gaffin barely seemed able to movewithmy help. “I think he should go to the medical-assist dorms.”
“I’m fine.” Gaffin wouldn’t look at me when I leaned around to try to get a good glimpse of his face.You’ve got to be kidding me.
“You sure?”
“Fuck, I’m good.” Gaffin glared at me. Goody, a taciturn man. That would certainly make my life easier, just like a live porcupine in my shorts might.
Wettekin sighed, and I wanted to smack him. He was barely past his teens and I hadn’t met a more disrespectful ass this side of the bars. He’d been getting a bit big for his britches lately. “Medical-assist is full of old-timers. No one is turning any of them out for this guy. I don’t have time for your bleeding-heart routine. Gaffin ain’t here for a vacation. He can wait in his cell.”
Rage smashed through me, and I imagined all the ways I could potentially put this little shit into a jam—a dangerous one—but then I made myself stop those pleasant thoughts. I nodded and pushed Gaffin into the building. The trip to E block was a short one from this entrance, and about the time I pushed the door open to E block, Gaffin piped up with, “Why did you do that?”
“What?”
He didn’t say anything else, but his hands twitched on the armrests.
“Come on. This ride was built for conversation.” I tried to joke, then winced, wanting to slap myself. He was attractive, and I was acting like an ass when I should be doing my job. Obviously I could do both. “You want to know why I tried to help you out?”
“Yeah,” he snapped. He stiffened as his gaze roved to the black iron cell bars, and I almost felt bad for him. It was a shock to realize you could be locked in somewhere, and this man was about to experience it. His glare dropped to the gray cement floor.
“Why not?”
He turned enough to look at me like I was the insane one as we passed a few occupied cells. One man looked up and whistled, and I assumed it was for Gaffin’s suit. “I’m in here for a reason. I belong here.”
“Probably, but you’re human, too.”
He snorted. “You’re the only person who thinks so.”
“Oh yeah?”
One at a time, his shoulders lifted. “I’m recently sober. I got a lot under my belt, as far as doing wrong to people goes.”
“That’s great.” I smirked and waited for it.
“What the fuck do you mean?” He shifted in his chair to glare up at me. We arrived at his dismal half cell, even more claustrophobic than the regular ones, and I pushed him in. In theory, this cell was handicapped accessible because there was a short sink and a rail on the wall next to the toilet, but there wasn’t much room to maneuver the chair. I had to suck it in and turn to point him facing out again. When I was done, I clambered around him and bounced on my butt on the thin foam mattress TFC called a bed to get past.
“You’ll have plenty to do in here, thinking of ways to improve your life. A great boredom killer, right there.”
“Fuck you,” Gaffin snarled, but he stared at his lap and clenched his fists. His anger wasn’t for me, not really, and I knew that feeling.
“Someone will be in to get you processed. Do you have any other medical equipment I should go track down?”
He shrugged and didn’t help me with verbal answers, and I had to check on my other cons who were on assignments to make sure no one was getting into any trouble. Since I’d been moved to afternoons and the morning crew wasn’t that great, I always had fires to put out when I got to work. I left Gaffin to it and ran around out on the snowy grounds to check in with the maintenance garage and laundry—both were behind schedule, although everyone there seemed fine. No injuries was a win for me. I liked to try to keep my cons safe. None of my men in E block were in the secure housing unit—what everyone normally called the SHU—which was also a relief. I tried to badger the men to sign up for classes and activities to keep them busy and give them something to do that wasn’t fighting.
Fights meant the SHU, usually without exception.
Brandon seemed like he was fine when I peeked my head into his classroom, and that was good. At my small interruption, he gave me a wave and his typical boy-next-door smile. Brandon, a teacher and real counselor who held degrees, wasn’t like most of the men who worked here; he had big blue eyes and an average build, along with brown hair he kept cut short and classy. Technically Brandon wasn’t my problem, but I liked him, and he gave me a place to send my cons during the day. I also worried about him because he worked too much.
Then I was called on the radio app on my work phone to help stop a fight at the fleet garage. I ran but didn’t get there for the rumble, although I had to help cart two men to the medical wing. I was pissed off because one was from E block, and he gave me a mumbled “sorry, Greene” around his busted-out front teeth. Blood gushed down his white T-shirt and dotted his sweatpants as I left him to the care of the docs. Filing the paperwork on that incident took forever, and by the time I thought to go check on Gaffin, he wasn’t in his cell anymore, which was probably a good thing.
I hoped.
The afternoon flew by, and at dinnertime I peeked in on the mess hall, but all was under control. I decided to swing around and check for Gaffin again, since he wasn’t in the room when I did a quick scan. At a table in the corner, the spot where Tatum Black usually sat was surrounded by his pack of Warrior toadies, and I tried not to make eye contact with any of them. Since the Warriors MC had fallen apart, they’d become defectors and members of Black’s gang. They called him Beast, along with most of the other cons and guards. I shook my head and moved on.
After another twenty minutes of searching, I found Gaffin sitting with his fists clenched on his knees in the corridor that connected C block to the rest of the building, and I got the idea that maybe he’d been there for a while. He was staring at the gray cement floor, brows furrowed and sweat running down the sides of his face. His blond hair was dark and damp at his temples.
“You stranded?” I asked.
He barely raised his head and ran a palm over his cheek. “Exhausted.”
