Chapter Thirty-Nine
I’ve been foggy for days.
I hate it. I never feel like this.
It’s the whole reason I never did drugs in high school or college.
Not only do I despise feeling out of control, but I also really just can’t stand being hungover.
Groggy and dehydrated, with an underlying awareness that you did something embarrassing the night before, but you just can’t remember what it was.
Actually, total memory loss would be preferred over what I’m experiencing, which is this sort of broken slide projector type flickering of distorted images and sounds.
Panting, growling, groaning… Echoes of two men fooling around in the dark.
Click—a dark room—click—a rickety cot—click—me on my knees, hunched over—click click click—gripping and spreading open full cheeks, feasting sloppily on a tight little hole…
Jesus.
I’ve been curled up in my bed just pretending… Wishing, hoping, fucking praying it didn’t happen. That it wasn’t real…
Because despite how hazy it is rippling through my memories, I’m certain I know who was in that bed with me last night, and I can wish until I’m blue in the face… But I know it wasn’t really Michelangelo.
He’s not here. He wouldn’t be in a dank, crumbling cell in solitary confinement, writhing around out of pure need.
But someone else would be… Was.
The same person who’s consistently been in solitary more times than any of my other friends.
And I just can’t deal with that reality.
There’s nothing I’d love more than to stay in bed all day when I’m spiraling like this, but I can’t.
Because this is prison—and an awful one, at that.
Its purpose is to make you miserable, which means getting you up and out of bed at random times, when all you want to do is lie down and rot away the knowledge that you were drugged and made to do extremely naughty things with your friend last night.
“Up and at ‘em, Rachel McAdams!” Velle barks from out in the row, accompanied by the sounds of inmates being filed out of their cells. “Heads up, the storm’s been messing with the power, so the food and water are almost guaranteed to be cold. Happy Doesn’tmattersday.”
Groaning for no one’s benefit, not even my own, I drag myself out of bed, forcing enough sluggish movement from my body to grab some products.
Velle pulls open my bars, leaning up against them with his arms folded over his broad chest. And I’m reminded of last night, in the hallway…
When he jerked Rook off into Dash’s mouth.
If only that was where the night ended.
I peek at him, brow raised. Apparently, that’s enough of an inkling to what I’m thinking for him to respond.
“No cuffs, princess.” He grins. It’s a wicked one. The kind of smile a cobra would give a mouse right before it swallows the poor creature whole. “You’re welcome.”
I can’t help squinting. He seemed pretty pissed off last night at the prospect of Rook hooking up with prisoners and supplying them goods, as if it’s not something he does himself.
But then, hypocrisy is probably one of his least unsettling personality traits.
Still, he was grilling Rook pretty hard about him potentially being the one getting Dash his stuff…
while simultaneously giving him a dry-hump reach-around into the mouth of the very inmate he was all bent out of shape over.
So who the hell knows what his deal is.
“You’re in a good mood this morning,” I grumble. “I take it the power outage didn’t affect the mansion.”
His head slants. “Candlelight works just fine, inmate. You feel me?”
My lashes sort of flutter at him while memories assault my mind.
Cell in solitary… flickering candlelight…
Tonguing until my jaw went numb.
Shit. What the fuck…
Where did those candles even come from??
Did The Ivory put them there in anticipation of someone getting freaky? Did he plan for it to be me, or would he have settled for anyone?
And most importantly… Why??
Dozens of questions are littering my mind, but I’m fighting them all off. Kicking, punching. Karate chopping them shits.
Fuck off. I’m not thinking about this.
It never happened.
Denial is my friend.
“Right.” I stomp to the door to leave.
But Velle stops me with a hand on my chest.
“Hold up there, Senor Voyeur,” he hums, cavernous blue eyes scrutinizing me.
I’m instantly even more tense, fully certain he’s going to threaten me, for one reason or another.
Something to do with Dash, staying away from Rook, or not telling anyone what happened last night in the hallway.
I know none of that was my fault, but I can’t help feeling hella guilty right now, after the events of last night. Maybe it’s because Dash is still rotting in solitary while I’m not. And he was just as much a victim of that weird shit as I was. More, in fact.
The kid obviously didn’t know what was happening. I can’t be sure if he, too, was drugged, or if whatever is wrong with him is just as bad, or worse, than being unwittingly dosed with LSD.
“Let’s just get one thing clear…” Velle’s gaze narrows, and I hold my breath. But then he stuffs his hand into his shirt pocket, removing something and holding it out to me. “Would you like a piece?”
My eyes fall.
Gum.
He’s offering me… a piece of gum?
I blink at it, then at him. Smirking and chewing, and winking.
“What flavor…?” I croak.
He shrugs. “Wintergreen, I think.”
My spine stiffens.
Wintergreen… Fuck.
The Ivory’s tongue pushing into my mouth, soft and warm and minty.
The drugs…
Is Velle trying to drug me too now?!
Did he see what happened last night??
I still can’t remember how I got back to my cell… Maybe The Ivory had Velle do it.
Maybe they were all watching!
Paranoia is bunching up my muscles as I grunt, “No. I don’t want it.” I push past him out of the cell. “I fucking don’t, okay??”
Velle’s brow furrows as he follows me into the row. “Simmer down, Susan. It’s just gum. Sheesh, you try to be nice around here for a change…”
I’m all twitchy and nervous, feeling like there are eyes scrutinizing every inch of me—most likely a symptom of lingering psychedelics in my system.
Watching Velle closely, I frown as he strides inside Ren’s cell, offering him a piece of gum as well. Ren, of course, takes it gleefully.
“Why is he so enthusiastic about that gum?” I mutter, mostly to myself, startling when Luthor replies.
“Right? Like he thinks a stick of Wrigley’s is gonna make up for years of menacing behavior.”
I peek at him, and he grins, lifting his fist. But I’m uncomfortably shifting in place until he eventually taps his knuckles on mine and frowns. “You okay?”
“What?? Oh, uh… yea,” I gulp.
Sure. I’m great.
Definitely not still tripping on acid that’ll most likely live in my spinal fluid for the rest of my life, deciding to awaken from hibernation and fuck me up whenever it wants.
Totally… okay.
“Get in, losers. We’re going showering in front of a bunch of dudes,” Jasper snaps at us, mouth quirking.
Luthor shakes his head. “Did you guys watch Mean Girls last night or something?”
“He watches it all the time,” Hancock snickers. “It’s like his favorite movie.”
Jasper shoots him an unamused glower. “I told you that in confidence.”
Luthor huffs while following them along, nodding to me. “You coming?”
“Huh?! No,” I croak, clearing my throat when I note the baffled look on his face. “I mean, um… Isn’t he joining us?”
I nod toward Ren’s cell. Velle is exiting without Ren, closing the bars with a clank. Ren’s still inside, lying on his bunk with his iPad. He peeks at Luthor, eyes alight with severity.
“Who cares,” Luthor scoffs. The tone of someone who obviously cares. “He probably has a date with Percy Gage’s dick he’s resting up for.”
I don’t feel good about anything that’s happening right now, but I have no choice but to keep swallowing it, scuttling after the rest of the lowly inmates, Unlike Warren Xavier, who gets to do literally whatever he wants.
Jeez, none of the gay shit I do in here earns me iPads or the ability to sleep in when I feel like it.
All I get is a metric ton of shame weighing me to the fucking concrete.
I think I’m doing bi wrong.
“Hey, why isn’t Ren coming to shower with us?” I ask Velle quietly while we walk, glancing at Luthor ahead of me.
I don’t want to upset him by focusing on Ren, because despite everything that’s happened between us, my loyalty needs to remain with Luthor.
Ren is definitely the Regina George of this prison, and Luthor is Cady Heron. Which would make me Gretchen Wieners.
And here I am, getting no candy canes.
Whatever, the movie slaps, okay? Get off my back.
Oh my God… Peppermint! That’s like wintergreen…
Alright, now I’m really losing it.
“Why? You need him to wash your back for you?” Velle snorts, snapping his gum.
I scowl at the floor.
“When’s Dash getting out of solitary?” Luthor slows to ask his own question.
I’m desperately trying to act like I’m not affected by literally everything around me right now, but it’s difficult when my existence still feels like a movie playing out for the Warden’s entertainment.
My eyes spring to the camera in the corner.
“Whenever I feel like it.” Velle smirks.
“Well… shouldn’t you let him out?” Luthor’s tone carries this innocence that only he can pull off. “Since you sorta, like… participated… in what he was—”
“Careful, inmate,” Velle growls.
“I’m just saying. You were there, you know what happened,” Luthor mutters.
“Yea, and what happened was that he was attempting to seduce my employee in an effort to snatch his keys,” Velle says pointedly.
“So he’s in there because you’re jealous?” Luthor claps back, and everyone stops to stare at him.
Seriously. The entire group of us comes to a skurrrt.
Velle is glaring at Luthor, who swallows visibly.
And that was the moment he knew he’d fucked up.