Chapter 10
ROGERS
Being a correctional officer isn’t all good days and bad days.
It’s not leave your time at the door on your way home.
Especially not for Collin Rogers, when he brings the scars home.
The risen white blemishes in his skin that tell the story of how he nearly died.
And would have, had it not been for the intervention of one crazy Satanic worshiping motherfucker.
It’s been a year since the day he discovered he has no morals.
Not when it comes to survival. Deleting video footage.
Destroying evidence. The hole he fell into on that day had a shovel, and like any not-so-sane person he picked it up and kept digging that hole deeper.
It’s so far down now, not even the light of who he once was can reach him.
And why should it. The people he works for didn’t prevent him from being ambushed and nearly killed.
They refused to even cover half the medical bills.
Placing it on him for not abiding by the rules of traveling in pairs.
Never mind the fact that there are no security cameras in the laundry or in half the rooms in Sandstone Correctional.
It’s considered ‘not of importance’ and a ‘waste of resources.’ Yeah, thanks prison board of desk huggers for telling me that getting shivved in a room without cameras is not of importance.
They were quick to point out the binding disclosure contract he signed when he started.
He probably should have read and fully understood the fine print of that before he signed.
It tied his hands on being able to do anything about the treatment of himself and blatant disregard to his care after being injured on the job due to their negligence.
The threat of ‘he’ll face prison time’ went unsaid, but it was as obvious as his mental and physical scars are paralysing.
His medical bills had been covered though.
An ‘anonymous’ donation. He knows by who—now—but at the time he was in too much pain and filled with so much rage and stress he hadn’t questioned it.
It had been a relief off his shoulders. And when his two months of sick leave were spent he’d had no choice but to come back.
Bills don’t pay themselves. And with no education past high school his job options are limited.
He’d come back jumpy and in the grasps of PTSD. Expecting to be grabbed from around every corner or pulled through any door or any cell. He’d stuck to his rock of a co-worker like literal shackles held them together. Nolan Thomson, who helped him out of his dark days after the stabbing.
That first day back, Thomson had waited by the stairs while he’d spoken to the inmate who saved his life. As he thanked him again for it.
Little by little he’d come to the realisation that the other inmates didn’t fuck with him anymore. They abided by his instructions minus the usual level of sass and eye rolls. He’d voiced this observation to Thomson, who’d exposed the news that rumours said he was bending over for Sinn'ous.
Suffice it to say, he still to this day has not dispelled those rumours. The prison board won’t help him, he’ll take help from the resident psychopath over the prospect of being attacked again.
A loud buzz cracks him back into the present. His ID card tapped to a boxy square card-reader that lets him into the building’s outer doors. Having an early shift when the sun hasn’t bloomed the horizon is torture.
“Hold it.” Nolan Thomson jogs across the parking lot, juggling two mugs of coffee and a brown paper bag Rogers already knows is filled with bagels and cookies courtesy of his saint of a wife.
He hands Rogers a cup as he barrels past into the cold interior that’s less inviting than the outdoors temperature.
“Thanks.” He sips the still hot wake-me-up, burning his tongue in the process.
Today is already starting out in the shit column.
Welcome to SSC, otherwise known as Sandstone Correctional, where the inmates stab and the coffee bites back.
~~~
Kitchen duty. Collecting inmates from various cells to make their way to the kitchen to undertake the marathon that is cooking for hundreds of men. They have three hours before the cells open to have everything cooked and ready to serve.
He’s in charge of collecting half the Wings and Thomson has the other half.
They’ll meet in the middle and count inmates at the door before they unlock anything.
You have to have a guard pass to turn on the electricity to start any stoves or to unlock any doors in the kitchen.
That on top of two keys to access the lock box bolted into the back of a locked cabinet where the knives are kept.
“Hurry up, Levis, get your ass out.”
“Coming, boss.” Levis drawls, and his cellmate snickers, because that’s a hilarious word. Coming. What is he? Trapped in the mind of a teenager? No one thinks that’s funny.
Levis is a sleaze, but chances are good he won’t stab you in the back.
Unless it profits him, and even then he’d most likely send one of his underlings to do it.
Buzz cut hair cropped close to the scalp, bulky build, your typical gang style tattoos, and the mark of the StaZos in the shape of a star above his eyebrow.
The eerily quiet Wing has all the hairs on Rogers’s body raised, even with—or probably because of—the rest of the prisoners still sleeping.
The kitchen staff are supposed to be non-violent offenders. Tell that to his flight response. Every instinct in him is alive, pumping adrenaline and adding fuel to his already caffeinated mind. If he lets it, he’ll drift into the realm of seeing figures hunched in dark corners.
This prison has no place to be so gloomy and hair-raising.
He pulls the cell’s door shut and waits for the electronic click.
Levis might be paged in as non-aggressive but his cellmate sure as shit is not.
He is not the type of person Rogers wants to worry about creeping up on him.
Convicted of several counts of aggravated assault, including one count of attempted murder on an arresting officer.
No more scars need to be added to his already ample collection.
He does need to swing back around to A-Wing to check on Jasper’s progress, he’d left the cell open.
The kid looked like the embodiment of the living dead.
Bags under his eyes, hair mushed at odd angles, clothes dishevelled.
And Reni is in solitary so no worries over a second inmate slipping out.
Jasper doesn’t strike him as anyone to watch your back around.
Levis ambles over to the collection of men clustered in front of B-Wing’s corridor exit. A picture of disinterested men in prison issued greys. They straighten when Rogers pulls in behind Levis, and walk on at a flick of his hand down the corridor. They all know the drill.
He runs up their rear, hand placed on his taser in case anyone gets any bright ideas. No chances will be taken. He’ll breathe when he’s standing next to Thomson. Alone as he is in the moderately lit corridor is clawing fingers over every inch of his skin.
“Wait in the kitchen, inmates.” Rogers adds brass to his voice to starve off any wavers that try to weave their way through. Showing weakness in here, in front of the inmates, will get you killed.
He should know. He nearly was.
They push through the doors at the corridor’s junction right when Thomson’s group rounds the next corner of the adjoining corridor and makes their way down. Rogers holds the door open and waits for Thomson to arrive.
A flicker of orange to Rogers side catches his eye. Jasper is sneaking his way down the corridor to the showers, either ignoring Rogers or having not seen him entirely. Considering the kid hasn’t caused trouble since showing up he’ll guess on the latter.
He should really yell down to him, bring him back before he slips into the showers. Protocol would demand it. Then again, it’s not like anyone cares what happens within these walls.
Jasper is gone in a blink, and Rogers has no desire to go fetch him.
“You just going to ignore that.” Thomson asks by his side, tilting his head to indicate down the now empty corridor towards where Jasper vanished. His group of inmates sliding past the open door and into the cafeteria.
“Yep.”
Thomson raises a brow, his arm extended to support the door Rogers had abandoned at some point.
All the inmates are gone from sight, having slid through the next set of doors to the kitchen.
Nothing but empty tables and vacant chairs in the dark room, lit by lights leaching out under the kitchen’s doors behind the serving station.
“It’s Jasper Marcelo.” Rogers states in lieu of an explanation. It’s too early to be going into details on how not okay he is standing back while Sinn'ous circles the newest inmate.
The other officer gives him a look that screams ‘and,’ which he ignores, walking past him into the cafeteria.
“Wait.” Thomson’s mind clicks on, a light bulb switched. “Isn’t that the one he has his eye on?” He jogs to get in Rogers’s face.
No need to ask who he is. They both know who Thomson is referring to. There is only one he in this context.
“Yep.” He sidesteps and pushes the next door in, sharper than necessary to crack anyone in the face who may be trying to hide behind it.
All it hits is the stale air of too many bodies pressed into the space too often and no adequate air filtration.
Or windows to crack to air things out. A hot box he has the ‘privilege’ of standing in for the next few hours.
Oh, the joys of his job.
The kitchen is lit by the power of the sun, the fluorescent globes having a one-way contract to the sun’s innermost core. You could obtain a sunburn from the things.
Each bench is partnered by an impatient inmate waiting for things to be unlocked. And another three grey-clad men are over by the locked cabinet waiting on the knives.
He hates kitchen duty with a passion. Willingly giving inmates knives. He wishes he could refuse, but then where would they be? In the throes of a riot because breakfast isn’t ready on time.
He and Thomson work in unison to go through the motions of granting authorisation. Machines are turned on. Knives are signed out, inmate numbers written in messy hand on the available booklet. The smells of spices and the start of boiling water adding to the stench of grown men in need of showers.
Would it be weird to make them all go shower before they continue?
“Boss, where’s Jasper?” Levis’s voice pops his bubble, forcing him out of his mind. His frustration peeks to a point where he almost snaps, ‘why do you want to know,’ in a to-defensive tone.
Thomson beats him to it. “That question is above my paygrade, inmate.”
Levis glowers at Thomson for a beat, then chooses to hold his tongue and move on. Taking out his frustration on one of the unlucky men under his charge by verbal lashings.
“You say that about every question.”
“Yeah,” Thomson snorts a laugh. “You would think they’d stop asking me shit.”
Rogers joins Thomson, mimicking his lean back against the bare wall.
His eyes on the inmates and their hands, watching, waiting.
Ever-present in the moment while men cut, and cook, and all of the above.
The majority of his concerns are aimed at the knives, counting them every few seconds like a religious summons.
Try as he might he can’t ignore the cold sweat blooming over the nape of his neck, and beading down his shirt while he fights his instincts to tase any inmate drifting too close.
Even when none of them are taking any extra note of his presence.
He may as well be a chair for all the consideration they’re showing him.
This though still doesn’t calm his racing pulse.
Or his mind’s need to flash images of a blood-soaked laundry room.
I hate kitchen duty.
“I’m going to go make sure he hasn’t hung himself in there.
” He needs a second to breathe. He’ll take the soul boring job of solitary confinement watch over the heated hustle of the kitchen.
But SC usually always gets given to Joel Williams, who is old enough to tell you about his days fighting dinosaurs on his drive to work.
“If he has, I am blaming you.” Thomson flashes him a look that says he really will throw Rogers under the bus and back over him several times.
“Sure.” Rogers answers that look by giving him one of his own, that says ‘if you do that, I will share your dark secrets.’
This gets a flashy grin and hands held out in a sign of yielding to a higher authority.
Halfway down the corridor he’s jump scared out of his skin when the bells sound to announce the general population is free of their cells and can go to the cafeteria.
The corridors are about to flood with a stream of different shades of grey fabrics.
Some crisp new shirts versus old and worn out.
The crisper the prison greys the higher up in the pecking order the men are.
Being above your fellow man in power means first picks on laundry days.
So they get the nice threads leaving those at the bottom of the hierarchy to pick up the scraps.
Jasper sticks out in the crowd due to his bright orange. Why the newly imprisoned are put in orange is something unknown and you would think counterproductive. It’s a literal flashing beacon to paint you as a target.
Maybe that’s the point the prison board is going for? To beat them down immediately and break their spirit swiftly.
It’s sure working on the kid. Pale, clammy looking. He is clearly not coping with the transition into prison. Can’t really blame him, what with a serial killer sniffing at his heels.
It has Rogers feeling like shit, knowing he has no sway over Jasper’s fate.