by Zoey Parker
Her footsteps echoed against the concrete walls and floors. Every minute seemed to last an hour. She could still taste the adrenaline at the back of her throat from the panic in the gym.
Finally, a short, squat female guard named Keller led Kurt back to his own cell. She had thinning brown hair, bad teeth, and a nose that resembled a pig's snout. She was one of the COs who worked for the White Brothers, and in the locker room, Sarah had noticed several neo-Nazi tattoos on Keller's arms and body.
Kurt was still shirtless, with medical tape around his ribs. Most of his face was purple from the punches he'd taken. Keller pulled his cell door shut, but left it unlocked before walking away.
Sarah looked around to make sure no one was watching. Then she crept over to Kurt's cell, sliding the door open and leaning in.
“How are you holding up?”
Kurt was lying on his cot with his arms at his sides. One of his eyes was swollen shut. The other was simply closed.
“I've had worse,” he said. It sounded like he was trying to move his face as little as possible when he talked. “You shouldn't be in here. Someone's going to wonder why you are.”
“I couldn't help it. I had to make sure you were okay.”
Kurt's eye opened, and he glared at her. “You need to stop trying to look out for me, and start looking out for yourself instead.”
Sarah knew Kurt was trying to protect her, but his words still stung. She hated how he kept pushing her away and saying it was for her own good, as though she was still some kid who needed to be told what was best for her.
“Thank you for saving me,” she said quietly.
“You already thanked me,” he answered flatly. “But I won't always be there to save you, especially if Gable and the other guards decide you're a problem. Now get the fuck out of my cell before you get us both in trouble.” He closed his eye again.
Sarah opened her mouth to say more, but she didn't want to upset him. There was plenty to say, but for now, it was enough to know that he hadn't been injured too badly.
She left the cell, closed the door behind her, and resumed her pacing through the cell block.
Chapter 15
Sarah
Kurt heard the cell door slide open again, and at first, he assumed Sarah had returned. He wasn't sure how that would make him feel.
Angry that she'd disregarded his warnings?
Or relieved?
He hated having to talk to her that way, but if he really cared about her safety, he knew he didn't have a choice. He liked that she cared about him and he wished he could reciprocate, but the closer she tried to get to him in here, the more dangerous things would be for her.
When he opened his eyes, he saw Hawkeye standing at the foot of his cot, smiling down at him.
“How are you holding up?”
They were the same words Sarah had used, and as a reflex, Kurt found himself giving the same answer. “I've had worse.”
He wanted to tell Hawkeye he shouldn't be in here either, if only to get rid of him so Kurt could get some rest. But he stopped himself. Clearly, Hawkeye would do as he pleased.
“Man, every hump in this prison has some kind of nickname,” Hawkeye said. “But after today, I can damn sure see how you earned yours. That was one hell of a fight you just fought.”
“No it wasn't,” Kurt replied. Every word made his face hurt, and he felt like if he were forced to say much more, he might lose his temper. “He beat the fuck out of me for two rounds. Then he stopped. Then he died. I barely laid a glove on him.”
Hawkeye laughed. “Wow. With descriptive skills like yours, I guess it's a good thing you're not a sports announcer. Anyway, I realize you're probably not in a very talkative mood right now, so I won't take up much of your time. But I made a pile of money betting on you today, son. And I figured you deserved a cut of it, for representing us so well.”
Hawkeye pulled a thick roll of bills from his pocket, tossing them onto the bed between Kurt's legs. Kurt looked at it, remembering the sight of Rodrigo's spasms as he threw up his mouth guard.
“Keep it. All I want is to know what happened in that ring.”
Hawkeye shrugged. “Just what I said. You fought harder, you won, he died. It's fucked up, but it happens.”
“I know it happens.” The pain in Kurt's face kept sinking deeper and deeper with each word, until it felt like the front of his skull was one massive bruise. “I killed someone in the ring once before. I know what that looks like. It doesn't look like it did with Rodrigo, where the guy just stops fighting back after two rounds and collapses in a pool of his own puke.”
“He probably just had a bad burrito or something. Who knows? As far as I know, it was a clean fight, period. Try not to get too hung up on it.” Hawkeye pointed at the roll of bills. “And seriously, keep that. I know you're feeling a little off right now, but when the bruises and ribs start to heal, I'm betting you'll be glad you've got it. Now get some rest. We'll talk more after the lockdown's over.”
And with that, Hawkeye left, pulling Kurt's door shut and whistling to himself as he returned to his own cell.
Kurt looked at the money for a long moment, then kicked it off the cot and closed his eye again.
Chapter 16
Sarah
The lockdown lasted for four days. During that time, there wasn't much for Sarah to do except keep patrolling block G and do random cell checks for weapons and contraband. The prisoners stayed in their cells, except for when groups of them were carefully escorted to the cafeteria or the showers. Gable and the other guards made sure that Brothers and Sinners ate and bathed at different times, to prevent more fights from breaking out.
Since the lockdown kept the guards idle for the most part, the more experienced ones started to exchange tales of the riot fifteen years ago. To this day, no one was entirely certain of how it had started. Some said an inmate took up too much time on an exercise machine in the gym, and another prisoner got impatient and shivved him over it. Others insisted that it had been meticulously planned by a few of the convicts as cover for an escape attempt, and that the attack in the gym had been staged.
All anyone knew for certain was that the convicts had held six guards hostage for almost three whole days before the governor ordered the Emergency Response Team to breach that section of the prison with tear gas and assault rifles. When the smoke cleared, nine prisoners and two guards were dead, and a third guard took a bullet in the spine which left her paralyzed for life.
The stories scared Sarah, especially after the glimpse of chaos she'd gotten after the boxing match. The idea of an entire section of River Oak raging like that for days at a time was terrifying. According to the veteran COs, the hostages had been severely brutalized before the ERT intervened. Even the ones who survived never returned to work at the prison after that. Keller said that some of them later committed suicide or spent the rest of their lives in mental institutions, but based on the relish in Keller's voice when she told these sordid tales, Sarah figured she was probably exaggerating for dramatic effect.
Sarah kept drifting over to Kurt's cell to check in on him. Each time she did, he glared at her and maintained a stony silence. But she still couldn't help herself, and she was pleased to see that Kurt's face was healing, albeit slowly. The swelling had subsided, and the bruises had gone from purple and black to yellow and brown.
From what Sarah had heard, Wilder was in much worse shape. He had a depressed skull fracture which had nearly killed him, and it would be at least a week before he made it back to the cell block.
On the third day of the lockdown, as she walked past Hawkeye's cell, he poked his head out. “Hey, Martin. Come in here for a sec.”
Sarah entered Hawkeye's cell, and he handed her a slip of paper and some cash. “I want you to go get me some new porn. I've written down the kind of stuff I'm into, and a couple of my favorite stars. About five DVDs should be enough.”
She raised an eyebrow, gesturing at his collection of discs. “I'm not doing that. Bes
ides, it looks like you've got plenty of them already.”
“Yeah, I've seen all of those about a hundred times. I'm bored with them, and I want new ones.”
“Well, that's too bad, because I'm still not going to do it.”
Hawkeye's lips smiled, but his eyes were cold and flat. “You know, I'm in this place for life. Actually, three lives...three life sentences. I'm going to be in this cell every hour of every day of every year until I die, and I'll never have sex with a woman ever again.”
“I'm sorry to hear that,” Sarah answered sarcastically.
Hawkeye's grin widened. “You should be. See, Gable told me all about you and the Black Dogs.”
Sarah felt like a net was tightening around her heart.
“Don't look so surprised,” Hawkeye continued. “Gable's got no secrets from me. And then you come and drag Kurt off on his first day, with some bullshit excuse about bringing him to the warden's office over his paperwork. But according to the warden's secretary, you never brought him there, and his paperwork was fine. After the fight, a few of the guys in here saw you go over to his cell for a few minutes. The same guys also say you've been hovering around the door of his cell a lot since then, looking in on him. It doesn't exactly take a genius to figure out that there's something spicy going on between you two.”
Oh fuck, Sarah thought. I was so sure I was being careful. What have I gotten us into now?
Hawkeye nodded, as though he could read her thoughts. “Yeah. In a place like this, everyone knows what everyone else is into, and word travels fast. Bottom line: You were sloppy, and you're in deep shit. I own you. I could tell you to strip down to your bare pussy and let me fuck every hole in your body. And then I could do the same thing tomorrow, and the day after, and the day after, for as long as we're both in here. And if you refused, I could have Gable turn you in to the cops for the false info on your paperwork. Or I could withdraw my protection from Kurt and the rest of the Dogs. Or I could have him killed. Or I could contact my people on the outside and have you gang-fucked and stabbed to death. Or all of the above, if I were in a really bad mood.
“But instead,” he continued mildly, “all I'm asking you to do is go find an adult video store and pick out a few movies for me. I don't think that's an unreasonable request, do you?”
Sarah shook her head. Her face felt hot, and her eyes were stinging, but she didn't want to cry in front of this monster.
“Good. It's so much nicer when we agree on things, don't you think?”
Sarah nodded.
“Now go get my movies,” Hawkeye said. “And please hurry. My dick's starting to get hard, and if I can't plant it in my fist, I'll find somewhere else to put it instead.”
She went to her car. Once she was behind the wheel, she started shaking like a leaf and the tears spilled out. She sobbed loudly. She felt stupid and powerless, like a bug who'd walked into a patch of sticky tree sap and suddenly found itself unable to move without tearing off its own legs.
Once she'd calmed down and wiped the tears from her face, Sarah looked up adult video stores on her phone and drove to the nearest one.
Chapter 17
Kurt
When the end of the lockdown was finally announced, applause rippled through the cell blocks. The doors were opened and the inmates stepped out into the common areas, stretching and catching up with people they hadn't seen in four days. But since none of them had anything new to report to each other, the talk quickly returned to the topic of the fight and its tragic conclusion.
Kurt noticed that the Sinners were giving him dirtier looks than usual, and when they passed him, he often heard muttered threats. Hawkeye assured him that it was just because so many of them had lost money on the fight, but Kurt could tell they all shared his suspicion that the fight was rigged—and they seemed convinced that he'd been in on it.
A few days after the lockdown ended, Kurt was sitting in the prison yard with Hawkeye and Bear when Roberto and a gang of Sinners walked up to them.
Before Hawkeye or Bear could say anything, Kurt stood up and offered a hand to Roberto. “I'm very sorry about what happened to your brother. I didn't have a chance to say anything earlier, but he was one hell of a fighter, and what happened to him was a damn shame.”
Kurt saw Hawkeye's bewildered, pissed-off expression in his peripheral vision, but he ignored it. This was the right thing to do, and he was determined to do it, no matter what Hawkeye thought.
But Roberto only stared at Kurt's outstretched hand with his upper lip curled into a snarl, as though he wanted to rip it right off Kurt's wrist. “Yo, you can wrap your fucking apology in greaseproof paper and stick up your ass, white boy. I ain't interested.”
Hawkeye stood up, standing in front of Kurt. “Hey, cholo: Our guy won, your guy lost. Get over it, and get out of our fucking faces.”
“My brother didn't lose no fight. He had a seizure and choked to death on his own goddamn puke. You want to know why?”
“Not particularly, no,” Hawkeye said, feigning a yawn.
Roberto's eyes stabbed into Kurt's like daggers. “They found heroin in his system. Lots of it.”
“Well, that ain't no big surprise,” Bear drawled. “Everyone knows how much you Sinner boys love yer dope.”
“Yeah, except Rodrigo fucking didn't. He was straight edge, man. He never did a drug in his life. You gringo cocksuckers cheated. You slipped him the dope somehow, 'cause you knew it was the only way you could win.”
Hawkeye stepped forward until his face was inches away from Roberto's. “We won because the white man is superior to all other races in every measurable way. You don't like it? Do something about it. Otherwise, go find a chalupa to munch on.”
Roberto's nostrils flared, and for a moment, Kurt was sure he'd haul off and punch Hawkeye. Instead, he took a step back and spat on the ground at Hawkeye's feet.
“This shit ain't over,” Roberto hissed. “All you pasty white motherfuckers better start sleeping with one eye open.” He turned and walked off, followed by his posse.
Kurt waited until they were out of earshot, then turned to Hawkeye. “Let me guess. You doped Rodrigo's nasal spray, then told me to punch him in the nose so he'd have to use it.”
Hawkeye let out a derisive snort. “All right, maybe I did. So what?”
“First of all, I never cheated in a fight in my life, and it sucks knowing I have now. Second, Roberto was the one giving him the spray. You had him feed poison to his own brother, and you made me part of it.”
Hawkeye chuckled. “For the life of me, Kurt, I simply cannot understand why you keep acting as though these animals are real people like you and me. They're just a bunch of mindless spics and coons, man. They kill each other off by the hundreds every day. Who gives a shit about a couple more?”
“We got us a problem now, though,” Bear said. “If'n they know we killed Rodrigo on purpose, they're gonna come after us for sure.”
“Unless we show them what a bad fucking idea that would be,” Hawkeye replied evenly. He turned to Kurt. “You're going to have to kill off one of the Sinners. Maybe even two, if you can swing it. I can get you a weapon by lunchtime. That'll send a message to them and let them know not to start any shit with us.”
Kurt shook his head. “No fucking way.”
Hawkeye raised his eyebrows and tilted his head, as though Kurt had suddenly started speaking in a foreign language. “Come again?”
Bear stepped in, tittering nervously. “Aw, come on, Hawkeye, ease up. Sure he'll do it, no problem at all.”
“No, I goddamn won't,” Kurt said in a steely voice, glaring at Bear. “And the next time you try to speak for me, Bear, we're going to have a real fucking problem.”
Bear's jaw went slack.
“I just gave you a direct order, Kurt,” said Hawkeye. “Would you mind telling me just what the fuck makes you think you're in a position to refuse?”
“First, because it's a stupid order. You fixed the fight, you were dumb enough to
get caught, and now you want to start a war over it? Because I may not be a lifer like you and Bear, but even I know that whether I kill one, two, or ten of these guys, it won't stop there. They'll come back at you, you'll have to retaliate, and on and on. Second, I didn't come in here to be your fucking hit man. If I get caught whacking a Sinner—which I probably will—then what do I get? A longer sentence? Life, maybe? I told you when I first got here, all I want to do is keep my goddamn head down and do my time quietly.”
“You seem to be real big on the 'firsts' and 'seconds' of things,” Hawkeye said slowly. “So I'll give you a couple in return. If you don't do this, the first thing that's going to happen is the Brothers and the Dogs stop watching your back. The second thing that'll happen is that your girlfriend Martin—or whatever the fuck her real name is—will get dimed out to the cops for giving false information on her application, and she'll go to prison herself. And just to give you a little bonus, the third thing that will happen is that wherever she's sent, I'll get word to the Aryans there that she needs to die...slowly, if possible. Do you want me to keep counting, Kurt? Or would you agree that my math checks out?”