Chapter 12 WRECKER
WRECKER
We’re out on the field this afternoon, the sun beating down, dust rising off the gravel track.
Nico paces ahead of us, kicking pebbles and muttering about the guards.
Jace stays close, hands in his pockets, scanning the fence line like he’s memorizing every inch.
We make our slow loop, the three of us sticking together, heads down but never truly relaxed.
I’m just about to say something about the heat when a shiver runs up my spine.
I look up, a strange sense prickling at the back of my neck.
For a second I could swear I feel someone watching me.
I slow down, searching the edges of the yard, the windows that look out over the field.
Nothing obvious. Still, I can’t shake the feeling.
Jace notices me looking around. “What is it?” he asks, voice low.
I hesitate, not sure how to explain it without sounding crazy. “I don’t know. Felt like I was being watched.” I pause, trying to put it into words. “But it didn’t feel…bad. Not creepy. More like—” I break off, the feeling already fading.
Nico throws a look over his shoulder, smirking. “We’re in a prison, brother. Everyone’s watching.”
But I just shake my head, still unsettled. “No, it was different. Like somebody out there was hoping we’d notice.”
Nico shrugs, brushing off my words. “We’ve got bigger things to worry about,” he says, kicking at the dirt, eyes flicking to the towers and back.
Jace nods, not quite looking at either of us. “Wilson hasn’t contacted us in a week. Nothing since the arraignment.”
“He might be busy,” I offer, though the words sound thin even to me. Decker was always steady, always found a way to get messages in or pull us aside, even when things were at their worst.
Nico shakes his head, jaw tight. “It’s not like him. Not with everything hanging over us.”
The silence that follows is heavy. The guards watch from their posts, inmates drift in and out of groups on the far side of the yard, but something feels off.
Two days slide by, long and restless. Each morning we check the call list, hoping to see Decker’s name, but it never appears.
I scribble out a letter, short and direct, and give it to the guard, but when I ask about it the next day, I get nothing but a shrug.
Jace leaves messages with the public defender’s office, just in case, but there’s no word back.
Even Nico, who usually complains about Decker’s lectures, starts to worry out loud.
Every afternoon we scan the rec yard for someone in a suit or even a new face by the staff gate, but no one comes.
Meals taste like cardboard, time slows to a crawl, and our old certainty feels worn thin.
I find myself replaying our last conversation with Decker, looking for clues I might have missed.
It’s like waiting for a storm you can’t see, but you know it’s coming.
At night, I lie awake listening to the distant shouts and clanging doors, wondering if Wilson has forgotten us, or if something worse has happened.
By the time another week has passed with no word from Wilson, the unease settles deep in my bones. It’s hard not to think something has gone wrong—maybe with the case, maybe with Decker himself, maybe with all of us.
One afternoon, I’m crossing the yard when two guards come out, dragging a prisoner between them. He’s shouting, his hands cuffed tight behind his back, face red and wild. I step aside, but the sound of his voice follows me.
“I didn’t do anything!” he yells. “I swear, this is a mistake!”
A few inmates nearby just shake their heads. One of the older guys, a lifer called Harlan, stands beside me for a moment, watching the scene.
“Doesn’t matter much,” he says quietly. “Most of us got stories like that. You fight, you lose. System’s got a plan, and you’re just in it. Might as well get used to it.”
I nod, a tightness in my chest I can’t explain. It’s not just the missing lawyer or the growing list of charges. It’s the slow realization that here, innocence doesn’t count for much. Harlan is right.
By the next morning, something shifts in me. I’ve always tried to trust the system, or at least trust that Decker could work it for us. But waiting here, day after day, feels like being buried alive. I’m tired of feeling powerless, tired of not knowing anything about what we’re really up against.
I stop one of the guards after roll call, doing my best to sound calm and reasonable. “I want to request access to the law library,” I say. “I need to look up statutes about federal weapons charges and conspiracy laws. I want to understand what we’re facing.”
He gives me a long, skeptical look, but after a moment he nods and scribbles something on his clipboard. “I’ll let the librarian know. Don’t expect miracles, though.”
Later that afternoon, I’m escorted through a set of locked doors into a small, bright room with shelves of thick legal books and an old computer humming in the corner. I sit at a scarred table, my hands already restless, heart pounding a little with purpose.
I start searching for anything I can find on federal weapons charges, how conspiracy gets prosecuted, how sentences are handed down. I read case after case, circling anything that sounds like us. Most of it is overwhelming, but every small piece of knowledge feels like a foothold.
I spend the better part of an hour hunched over law books and the sluggish library computer, reading the same statutes and rulings until the words blur together. The legal language is dense, and I start to wonder if it’s written that way just to keep people like me from ever finding hope.
After a while, I spot the librarian shelving books nearby. She’s middle-aged, hair pulled back in a tight bun, with gentle eyes behind thick glasses. I step over, my notes in hand.
“Excuse me,” I say quietly, not wanting to startle her. “I’m looking for anything on recent federal weapons cases—conspiracy, trafficking, anything that might set a precedent for a defense. Do you know where I should start?”
She gives me an apologetic smile, glancing at the clipboard she carries. “We have a few reference books on criminal law, but I’m afraid most of our materials are a bit outdated. I can check the online catalogue for you if you’d like.”
I nod, grateful for the effort. “I’d appreciate it. Even a starting point helps.”
She disappears to the desk, and I return to the shelves, thumbing through thick volumes, frustration building as each one turns out to be a dead end. I’m scanning the spines when, from the opposite side of the shelf, a book falls with a thud, sliding halfway under the shelf toward my feet.
I crouch and pick it up: Federal Sentencing Guidelines Annotated, 2019 Edition. It’s one I saw in the online catalogue but couldn’t find anywhere on the shelves. I flip through the pages, my pulse quickening as I spot a section on conspiracy statutes, exactly what I need.
Just then, I hear the faint squeak of a wheeled book cart moving quickly down the next aisle.
I glance through the gap in the shelves, expecting to see the librarian, and catch a glimpse of someone pushing the cart away at a surprising speed.
There’s something about the set of her shoulders, the quickness of her step, that doesn’t match the woman I spoke to earlier.
Curiosity gets the better of me. I step around the end of the shelf, clutching the book. “Ma’am? Hey—thank you! I think you just helped me find what I was looking for.”
The woman doesn’t slow down. In fact, she picks up her pace, the cart rattling as she heads toward the far exit. I hurry after her, weaving through the narrow aisles, the library suddenly feeling too small and too bright.
“Hey, wait—excuse me! Can I ask you something?”
She glances back just once, and for a moment, her face is clear in the fluorescent light. My heart stutters in my chest. It’s not the librarian. It’s Carrie.
I stop in my tracks, the weight of the law book suddenly nothing compared to the shock in my chest.
“Carrie?” The name slips out, caught somewhere between disbelief and hope. “Is that really you?”
She hesitates, her hand still gripping the edge of the cart, and for a moment it’s just the two of us in the silent stretch between shelves. She turns, shoulders drawn tight, eyes wide with shock and sheepishness.
“It’s me,” she says quietly. Her voice is different, tired and raw around the edges, but still hers.
I take a step closer, unable to keep the relief from my face. “What are you doing here? I thought—” I stop myself, realizing how much I want to reach out, how little space there is for comfort here.
Carrie’s gaze flicks to the security camera mounted high above the doorway. She keeps her voice low, barely above a whisper. “I work here now. Sort of. It’s complicated.”
I’m holding the law book tight in my hand, the words inside suddenly unimportant compared to the thousand things I want to ask her.
Carrie pauses just long enough, her hand tight on the cart, the truth written all over her face. She lets out a shaky breath and lowers her voice.
“It was the only job I could get after everything that happened. The library let me go—said my association with the club made me a liability. This place…it was all that was left.” She glances at the shelves, her jaw set like she’s still getting used to saying it out loud.
“But I’m here now. I can help, if you need anything for your case. ”
My pulse jumps at her offer. “You’d do that?”
She manages a small, tired smile. “Of course. I know how lost you must feel with all this. Just give me a list of what you’re looking for.”
Relief washes over me at first, seeing her here and hearing her offer to help. It’s almost enough to let my guard down, just for a second.
My mind slips to the night we were all together.
The heat of her body beneath mine, her legs wrapped around my waist, the sounds she made, desperate and raw.
The feel of her nails scoring my back, the way she arched and begged for more, sweat-slick skin and tangled sheets and her mouth hot and hungry against my neck.
I remember the way her thighs trembled, the taste of her, the wild, heady way she let us claim every inch of her and then took control with a flash in her eyes that undid me completely.
It makes my pulse pound, painfully even, because everything that came after still lives in the space between us now.
I drag myself back, force my thoughts to clear, and look at her with a question that’s burned in me since the world crashed down. “Have you heard from Jinn? Do you know where he is?”
Carrie’s gaze flicks away, her fingers tightening on the edge of the cart. “I haven’t seen him since that night,” she says softly. “He disappeared. Everyone’s looking for him, Levi. The feds, the club…but he and Marcy are just gone.”
She won’t quite meet my eyes. Something in her tone makes the back of my neck prickle. “He didn’t try to contact you?” I press, my words coming out harder than I mean.
She hesitates, shakes her head. “No. He’s not reaching out to anyone. I wish I could tell you more, but I can’t.” Her voice cracks, and for a second she looks as lost as I feel.
I nod, but suspicion itches under my skin now, refusing to settle. I want to believe her. I want to trust that this is still the same woman who let me see every secret part of her that night. But too much has changed. Too many lies have already been told.
“Do you need any help with the reading? I overheard you asking Mrs. Jackson, so I thought I would…”
“Help me and then run away?” I finish for her coldly.
Her eyes widen. “No, it isn’t like that, Levi.”
“Wrecker,” I correct her.
She takes in a breath. “I just didn’t want you to see me again, like this. I had no idea you were here.”
For some reason, I can’t bring myself to believe her.
And despite the flicker of hope at seeing Carrie again, my gut twists with unease.
She offers to help, her voice soft and earnest, but there’s something she isn’t saying.
Her answers about Jinn are too careful, her eyes darting away at the wrong moments.
I want to trust her—God, I want to—but the stakes are too high now.
I turn the heavy book over in my hands, glancing down at the dense pages of legal code and feeling frustration start to burn in my chest. The language is thick, every sentence a maze. I know I could use her help, but something in me holds back.
“Please let me help,” she says.
“No, I’ll figure it out,” I say quietly, not quite meeting her gaze. I can see the hurt flash in her eyes, but I force myself to look away.
Without another word, I tuck the book under my arm and move down the aisle, every step growing heavier as the distance between us widens. I don’t look back. I don’t let myself.