“Does she?”
I cracked my neck, buying myself a second I didn’t need. “Let’s just get some sleep.”
Sleep didn’t come that night. I lay there, staring at the concrete ceiling, and all I could think about was her.
I tried to figure out why and when exactly my brain had short-circuited.
Maybe it started with her looks. That dark hair falling like ink around alabaster skin. The kind of skin that didn’t belong in a place like this, under these fluorescent lights that made everyone else look half-dead. Not her. She practically glowed. And those green eyes. Christ, those eyes. The color of grass on a sunny day. Light. Optimistic. The kind that looked up at the sky and saw joy instead of concrete and razor wire.
She was beautiful. Objectively, undeniably beautiful.
I smirked in the dark.
But it wasn’t just that. Beautiful women existed. I’d seen plenty before my time in prison, and none of them had burrowed under my skin like this.
It was her personality.
The way she’d squared her shoulders when I’d gotten too close, even though I’d seen the fear flicker in her eyes. The way she’d expertly cleaned and sutured my knuckles. Twice. Professional. Good at her job. She hadn’t treated me like an animal either, like some of the other staff and COs had done.
The last three nurses at this place had been useless. One quit after a week. One cried every time an inmate raised his voice. The third was incompetent as hell.
Harper? Harper moved with precision and efficiency. Confidence born from competence.
A nurse that good could work anywhere. Cushy private practice. Some fancy hospital where the patients brought flowers instead of rap sheets. Instead, she was here. In this concrete hellhole, patching up men who’d sooner spit on her than thank her.
Why?
That question gnawed at me almost as much as the memory of when those inmates had cornered her. When I’d seen the fear flash across her face before she’d tried to hide it.
Everything in me had gone cold. Then hot. Then something beyond both.
NOT HER.
That was the only thought. The only thing that existed in that moment.
Not her. I will not stand by and watch them do something to her.
I rubbed a hand over my face, trying to calm the anger still simmering in my chest.
What the hell was wrong with me? I barely knew her. She was my nurse. That was supposed to be it.
But she had been so kind to me. Even after what she’d seen I was capable of, knew what I’d done to Doyle. And, based on that scar on her face, someone had been veryunkindto her.
My tongue grazed along the edges of my teeth.
Was she still in danger?
Here, in this place? Yes. Absolutely yes. Men in here were unpredictable. Desperate. Some of them hadn’t seen a woman up close in years.
How long before one of them tried something?
The COs were useless. Half of them were corrupt. The other half were lazy. What if they couldn’t get to her in time? Whatif something happened during a shift change, or a lockdown, or any of the hundred moments when the system failed?
Would I even know if she was hurt?
Probably not. I’d just show up for medical one day, and there’d be some other nurse. Some stranger. And I’d never know what happened to the woman with the dark hair and green eyes.
Could I keep her safe? The question was laughable. I was an inmate. A convicted murderer. It was a full-time job to keep myself safe, constantly watching my back.
