Chapter 4
Dean cringes as another round of chaos echoes off the walls.
He hadn’t been kidding when he told Ava that he couldn’t sleep because this place is never quiet. What he neglected to mention was that it’s been intentional.
A group of the others, Walt and a few of his hanger-ons have taken to taunting another inmate and keeping him awake at all hours. They bang against the bars and make a general ruckus and when they bore of that one of them produces a small radio. Dean is convinced it’s contraband, but either way, they crank it up when the lights go out, placing it just outside the cell of the man they’ve got in their crosshairs.
Walt’s group has earplugs. The rest of them don’t.
Dean isn’t sure why they’re harassing not only this one guy, but by extension anyone else within hearing range, but Clyde keeps telling him to mind his business.
‘Don’t question them. Don’t start anything. If you get on the wrong side of that group again, you’ll have worse things to worry about than not sleeping well.’
His ribs and broken toe are a slow healing, persistent reminder of how easily they’d taken him down. Still, he is curious. More than he should be, but the lack of anything else to do, coupled with the fact that this harassment is on his own doorstep every time the music blares, makes him wonder.
He nudges his good foot up against the mattress above him, calling out to Clyde, who isn’t getting a wink of sleep either. “How long is this shit gonna go on?”
He’s only loud enough to get the other man’s attention, not eager to raise suspicion to the others.
A moment later, Clyde’s red hair peeks over the edge of the bed. “Until whenever that poor bastard agrees, I guess. Told ya not to worry about it. Just mind yours and keep ya head down. If you’re lucky, they’ll skip right over you like they did me.”
“Skip over me?”
Clyde nods. “Yeah. They don’t bother everyone, but some get special treatment. They want him to join up. Be one of them.”
Dean squints, turning this information over a few times. “Walt? He’s running the shots, right?”
Clyde laughs like he can’t believe Dean hasn’t connected the dots yet. “Nah, man. The other one. You seen ‘em. He ain’t said nothing to you yet, but I know you seen him. Taller, talks with his hands a lot, sounds like he’s giving a speech every time he opens his mouth. Jaxson.”
He has seen him, always at the center of the group that Walt and his friends cluster in. Often running off at the mouth and even though Dean stays far away from them he catches the echo of those words more often than not. Jaxson strikes him as someone who enjoys the sound of his own voice, but he hasn’t pegged him as the leader. Maybe because he hadn’t been there when Walt and the others kicked Dean’s ass six ways from Sunday.
He should have known, though, should have realized that the one in charge wouldn’t get his hands dirty in petty squabbles.
“Okay, so he’s running it but what the fuck is it? Some kinda prison gang? Guy joins up or they drive him crazy with sleep deprivation?”
Clyde only shrugs. “Dunno, ain’t part of it. Think they’re planning something big, but I ain’t invited to the meetings. Consider yourself lucky you aren’t either. Think it’s loud now? Imagine how bad it is inside that guy’s cell.”
He has a point. The sound is loud and obnoxious, but it’s muffled enough that Dean can drift off eventually. Block it out. But that’s only because the tiny radio is far enough away on the other side of the block.
How that man hasn’t broken it yet is beyond him. Dean’s pretty fucking sure that their toy would meet the cinder block walls faster than they could turn it on if they shoved it in his cell, too.
Of course, that would likely land him in traction.
“Keep your head down. All I gotta say on the matter. Whatever they got going on, whatever they’re doing with all these ‘new recruits’, ain’t nothing you wanna be a part of.”
“Guards don’t care?” Dean replies. “Why haven’t they shut this down?”
Clyde snorts. “Come on, they don’t give two fucks. You gotta know that by now. They ain’t even in here half the time. Just watch us on the cameras. Collect their paychecks. We’re on our own.”
Dean watches Clyde disappear over the edge again. He closes his eyes and takes a few deep breaths, trying to drown out the sound of pop music followed by a country song, followed by some sort of religious nonsense.
This is definitely nothing he wants to be a part of.
* * *
It’s been over a week since he’s spoken much to Ava.
He’s gone for his usual visits, but Nick has been off, leaving a new guard to take him back and forth. Greg, who seems less hostile than Nick, but much more inclined to do his job than to linger in the break room for half an hour.
His last three visits have lasted a grand total of ten minutes or less, and he’d be surprised if they said more than a handful of words to each other. He hasn’t asked her about the car and she hasn’t offered. Lack of privacy makes it impossible, but it nags at the back of his mind each time.
Maybe today he’ll bring it up. There’s a new guard leading him down the hall, one he’s not seen before. Young and green and frightened of his own shadow. The type of person Dean doesn’t think should be working in a place like this where the inmates can smell the fear coming off him in waves.
It might buy him some time alone with Ava, though, now that Greg isn’t on the other end of his cuffs.
When he’s led through the door and deposited onto the bed, she greets him with a smile that only gets bigger once his handler heads for the door, telling them he has another prisoner to transport to the warden’s office before disappearing around a corner.
She hands him his pills first, as she normally does, because he no doubt looks like hell every damn time he shows up. A day or two without the good meds leaves him feeling like a train hit him, backed up, and hit him again.
“So…I got those photos you asked for.” She’s hesitant, like she’ll bother him by bringing it up, as if that could ever be the case.
He’s excited to do something that doesn’t involve staring at the wall or listening to country music. Something somewhat productive. “Let’s see ‘em.”
She whips out her phone from her back pocket, pulling up the pictures and handing him the device that he cradles in both hands. Her eyes stray to the closed but unlocked door, clearly second-guessing herself for a split second. That’s all it takes to remind him that he’s asking for something that could get her in trouble. Possibly fired.
He scrolls through several photos, squinting at various parts, all shiny and new, the trademark of a freshly restored vintage car, before spotting the problem. “Yeah, you need a new timing belt. Thought that might be it, can see it’s all worn. Shouldn’t cost more than seventy-five depending on labor fees, but don’t let no one jack it up or sell you filter replacements, or oil changes and new tires. They’ll get you out there.”
He’s given the sweetest smile in return, one that reaches her eyes and scrunches her nose the smallest bit as she takes her phone back.
“Thank you. I was hoping you’d see something. I’ll make sure they don’t hold my car hostage for a dozen other repairs.” She pauses then, regretful. “Sorry, I completely blew past your injuries and went right for the photos. Greg doesn’t have Nick’s attraction to jelly donuts and we just got lucky with the new guard today. How are you? Anything hurting more than usual? Anything you feel needs attention?”
“It’s alright. Glad I can help,” he says with a shrug. “Feelin’ a bit better.”
Ava raises a brow like she can see right through his attempt at not complaining, making him sigh in defeat. “Fine, ribs and toe still hurt, but that’s gonna be weeks, right? Gotta live with it.”
“Yes, it’ll be awhile until you start feeling back to normal. If it’s not worse, then that’s a good sign. Consistent pain, unfortunately, is par for the course in your case.”
He nods, assuming the same already. She hasn’t checked his splint because he managed to avoid puddles today and his head wound has begun to close, so now it’s just the two of them in silence again until he musters up the courage to try his turn at making an effort. She’d done it the last time, asking him what he did for a living and while he can’t ask her the same because the answer is obvious, he can try for something that feels safe enough. “Why’d you wanna work here? I mean, there are better places to be a nurse. It’s a shit hole here.”
Well, that came out stumbled and abrupt. It sounded way better in his head than it did in real life, but she smirks at him, her voice teasing when she responds. “So you’re asking what’s a girl like me doing in a place like this?”
He nods, the skin on his cheeks warming at her tone that sounds…flirtatious? No, can’t be. Couldn’t be. Not with him.
“It was easy to get. That’s the short answer because you’re right, no one really wants to work here. I didn’t either, but I know Greg and his wife. We’re friends and he put in a good word for me. It was after the accident, and I needed something. Anything. Quick.”
Dean frowns, feeling like a dick for once again bringing up bad memories, but she doesn’t seem that bothered, only resigned and matter-of-fact.
“It’s turned out okay, though. I’ve settled in here. It’s not as bad as I assumed it would be and the pay is good. I’m lucky. Really.”
She could be the first person to consider herself lucky to be in prison. Working here or not.
He knows the pay is good, a friend of Boone’s from his army days got a job as a guard in another county and would go on and on about how great the money was, in between telling anyone who would listen how much the job sucked.
Dean assumes everyone here gets some form of hazard pay for having to deal with the prisoners and it’s well deserved as far as he’s concerned. Saw one of them toss a handful of their own shit at a guard the other day, getting it into the other man’s eyes and mouth. The prisoner earned himself a taser to the stomach for his efforts and the guard rushed out of the room once he’d been secured, frantically wiping at his face with a disgusted scowl.
Hard to imagine any amount of money being compensation enough for that.
“Think it’s this place that’s lucky to have you,” he says quickly before he can talk himself out of it. She does a solid job and treats him and the others with respect. That’s hard to come by.
What he really feels, though, is that it’s him who’s lucky to have ended up in her infirmary. Even if all they do is talk about surface-level stuff while she’s checking his injuries it’s still a bright spot in his day, a hundred times better than being back in the pod again and it doesn’t hurt that she’s easy to look at. Or that she seems to enjoy his company even a tiny bit. Which he tells himself is only his mind playing tricks on him.
He’s replayed the moment she touched his ankle on a loop since it happened. The way she’d spoken so softly, how her thumb had brushed over the bone light as a butterfly’s wings, and the goosebumps on his skin she left behind.
That could be written off as a way for her to calm him down because much as he tries, he still shies away if he’s hurting enough. He can’t control his reflexes in those moments. When an injury is obvious and accessible someone always makes it worse.
Oddly enough, she doesn’t call him on it and that alone feels like a gift.
“Maybe,” she replies, watching him watch her. “So, what’s a guy like you doing in a place like this?”
Her question is fair enough and it’s about time he told her what landed him behind bars. He lifts his hand without thinking, reaching for an itch at his hairline. The cuffs stop him, but the circle around his wrist feels loose enough to slip his hand right out.
He hadn’t noticed before, hadn’t paid much attention. He was only glad that they weren’t biting into his skin, but now he’s staring at his own hand barely inside the cuff, the fat part of his thumb already past the metal that dangles off his fingers.
It happened with hardly any prompting from him whatsoever. All he had to do was raise his hand the right way.
For a moment he stares at it, perplexed. It could be a setup somehow, but the only person responsible is the guard, so he dismisses that thought soon after, deciding the newbie made a mistake and that’s all there is to it.
Until he looks up to find Ava plastered up against the cabinets, all previous curiosity about his sentence is replaced with enough fear that he thinks she might have a panic attack at any moment. One hand squeezes the countertop and the other covers her chest where that nasty scar resides.
Her exhales come out hard and fast, eyes wide like she’s never seen him before, and expects him to leap across the room and attack her now that he’s free. All he would have to do is drop that one cuff and it would leave him unattached to the railing, ready and able to move where he wanted.
They stare at each other for a few tense moments, caught in the vacuum of this small room and all the possibilities of how this could play out. Her lungs stop working and she holds her breath, the sound of dead silence kick-starting him out of the stupor he’d lapsed into.
Slowly, he reaches over with his other hand and puts the cuff back in place, clicking the metal down hard enough to push into his wrist and secure himself to the rail once again.
She watches his every move with rapt attention and sags into the edge of the countertop once he’s finished. One shaky hand comes up to cover her mouth, her words breathy and horrified. “Oh God, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I didn’t…it’s not….”
She can’t stop apologizing like he’s gonna hold it against her for assuming he’s dangerous. They’ve only had a couple of visits. They don’t know each other. Not really, and this moment only highlights that even more.
“It’s okay,” he says, barely a whisper, watching her gather herself up again.
“It’s not okay, you haven’t given me any reason to assume that you’d do anything wrong. It isn’t you, Dean.” Her voice quivers as she raises a palm flat over the scar again. “It’s this. It’s what happened before and I can’t talk about that, but I’m sorry for thinking that you’d do the same thing. Even for a second.”
He suspected someone hurt her here, but to know for sure is enraging. He wants to hunt that asshole down and slice into his skin the same way he cut into hers. Somehow, he keeps that anger in check to avoid setting her off again. “Said it’s okay and it is. Got every right to assume. I’m in here, aren’t I? Means I haven’t earned any trust and I get that. I won’t hurt you, though.”
She edges a little closer, giving him a soft nod, her eyes flitting up to his and back down again while she wipes away the remnants of unshed tears. “It’s not true that you haven’t earned any trust. You did. Just now.”
Hearing her say that makes his chest tighten and his lips curve into a half smile. He’s about to reply, but the guard shows up again before he can, fussing with his tool belt and fidgeting with the keys to his cuffs. He’s barely old enough to drink if Dean is estimating correctly.
When he gets back to the Pod, he figures now is as good a time as any to make sure this asshole doesn’t make the same stupid mistake again. The usual gravel in his tone turns to a growl and he barks out a scolding hard enough to make the guard take a step back. “Next time you take someone outta here you lock these cuffs up real good and tight. Had to fix them myself, you left ‘em too loose. The next guy might take advantage. You know what that means? Means that woman back there gets hurt, or you do, or someone else that doesn’t deserve it. If something happens to her because you were picking your nose in the break room instead of doing your job, I’ll bust it wide open, you understand?”
The guard gulps, his reply stuttering and the keys in his grip clanking together. “Yes…yeah…I mean, I will. I’ll double check. Won’t do that again.”
“Good. ‘Cause if she trips, she sneezes, she gets a hangnail, anything at all bothers her and I’m blaming you.”
For a moment, Dean feels like he’s the boss and this kid is his employee. A complete role reversal in zero point three seconds. He’s struck the fear of God into him enough for one day and turns to head back to his cell, hoping that a lesson has been learned.
Dean thinks of Ava the rest of the day and well into the night. Can’t get over the way she looked at him right before he left. Like she saw him. Trusted him. Saw past the uniform and the cuffs and everything else that makes him different from someone on the outside. It’s a step forward he hadn’t expected or hoped for.
He doesn’t need the music to keep him awake tonight. The image of the day’s events playing behind his closed lids does a good job all by itself.