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The metal clang of the jail cell door closing made every muscle in my body tense, though I tried not to show it. Wafts of bleach and stale sweat and urine assaulted my nostrils, and I blinked hard to prevent my eyes from watering.
“Make yourself comfortable, Mason,” the corrections officer yelled to me, using the only name they knew me by in here. Lee Mason.
I wasn’t alone in the cell. My cellmate—a large white guy with a shaved head and homemade tattoos—already lay on the bottom bunk. He scowled at me as my gaze slipped across the small space, and I avoided making eye contact with him. He literally had white supremacist written all over him, and the last thing I wanted was to be forced into anything gang related. I had enough problems as it was.
I knew I wouldn’t be staying in this cell for long. I’d be moved into the dorm rooms within a few days. This was just to let me adjust, to get my bearings—as if anyone could ever really adapt to this place.
I’d already been taken before a judge to be formally charged, and given a public defender who barely looked old enough to be out of law school. The guy didn’t exactly give me much hope that I would be out of here any time soon.
I couldn’t escape the irony that I, as a hit man, was locked up for a murder I didn’t actually commit. I wasn’t innocent, far from it, but I was innocent of the crime for which I was awaiting trial.
My thoughts stayed constantly with Vee and our unborn child. It killed me to think I might be behind bars when the baby was born. I hated to think about how I would be missing the changes in Vee’s body, watching her belly stretch and swell, feeling the baby kick beneath her skin. I hoped Nicole would change her attitude now that she knew Vee was pregnant and would help her instead of constantly acting like a weight around her neck. When I’d last seen the two of them, the girl had acted as though she’d finally opened her eyes to the truth, but she was eighteen—young and unpredictable. Who knew what would happen?
I crossed the cell toward the bunk beds against the wall on the right. The top bunk was free. As I approached, the skinhead sat up, planting both feet on the floor and leaning forward to place his tattooed forearms against his thighs. His gaze drilled into me, daring me to stare back. I wasn’t going to give him what he wanted. I knew how that would end up. He’d ask me what the fuck I was looking at, and it would just be an excuse to start something. Everyone in here felt the need to go into each new encounter as top dog. This guy—his name was Callum Hooper, the corrections officer had informed me with a smug smirk—was doing exactly that.
Throwing my few belongings onto the top bunk, I continued to ignore him.
“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” he snarled.
I kept my voice calm. “Getting onto my bunk.”
“Who told you that was your bunk?”
“I took a lucky guess.”
“Well, it ain’t.”
The muscles in my jaw tensed, but I did my best to not let my internal anger show on the outside. “I don’t see anyone else in here. You need two of them?”
“Yeah, actually, I do.”
I exhaled a sigh. “Okay. I’ll tell you what, you tell me when you want to swap, and then we’ll swap.”
“What?”
“If both bunks are yours, I’ll sleep in whatever one you’re not currently occupying. Unless you’re able to divide yourself in two, of course. Or perhaps that’s your way of saying you want someone to divide you in two?”
His mouth gaped. “Are you fucking threatening me?”
“Nope. Just pointing out the logistics.”
“The what?”
“The physicality of you not being able to be in two places at one time. So, shall I take the top bunk?”
He looked at me in baffled confusion, as though he thought he’d ended up in a cell with a lunatic. “Errr ...”
I didn’t give him a chance to think it through any further, but instead hauled myself up onto the wire frame bed, with the mattress so thin I could feel the metal of the base through it. I hoped the guy now lying beneath me didn’t get it into his head that shanking me through the thin mattress while I was sleeping was a good idea. The ceiling was only a matter of a foot from my face. I could make out the cracks running across it and the dark speckles of mold growing in the edges. I couldn’t decide if things would be better when I moved from here to the dorm. Here, I only had one guy to deal with instead of the twenty or so I expected in the dorm, but there was something about being locked in here with this guy that set my teeth on edge.
I rolled to my side, the bed squeaking, hearing a grunt of annoyance from my bunkmate. Where was Vee now? Would she have found a motel? How long would the money last if she was staying somewhere like that for any length of time? It wasn’t that I gave a shit about the money—I didn’t—but I wanted to know she’d be able to take care of herself and the baby. Prenatal care was expensive, and I knew she didn’t have insurance. I also worried about what she’d be doing in response to my arrest. She wouldn’t just walk away. She’d be furious and doing everything in her power to see me free again. How far would she go? She knew I hadn’t killed Harvey Baglione; she’d been there when he died. What lengths would she go to in order to prove my innocence?
I didn’t think I’d sleep at all that night. My thoughts, together with the possibility of the guy below knifing me while I slept, did everything they could to keep me awake.
Incredibly, the blare of the alarm signaling the cells unlocking jolted me from sleep.
The corrections officer slammed his hand against the door. “Rise and shine, children. Time for breakfast.”
Breakfast was at six. I’d already been given that information during check in, and my possessions removed and logged.
“Have I got time to take a piss?” I asked the guard.
“No. Hold it.”
I wasn’t going to argue with him. The guy had one of those mean-looking faces that made me think he liked to pull wings off insects when he’d been a kid, and just watched them spinning in useless circles.
I did my best to avoid eye contact with my bunkmate Callum. I let him go first and followed his bulky back out of the cell and into the corridor.
“You wanna watch that one,” Callum hissed at me over his shoulder. “Don’t get on the wrong side of Damps.”
I couldn’t tell if he was trying to warn me or threatened me.
We fell into line with numerous other men, each one as mean and ugly as the other. I spotted a few of the more regular looking guys—older men with paunches and thinning hair, most of whom walked with their shoulders rounded and their heads down. They were the bankers, the accountants, the politicians, who had all been caught doing something they shouldn’t and were now awaiting trial. I didn’t envy those men. Sure, they were most likely assholes, but they didn’t stand a chance in here. I didn’t want to be here any more than they did, but at least I was young and strong, and I knew how to handle myself in a fight.
I caught the same C.O. watching me as we lined up for breakfast, that annoying smirk on his face as though he knew something I didn’t. I picked up my tray and held it out for other inmates who were working kitchen duties to slop the gray substance, which I assumed to be oatmeal, into the dip designed to hold it. I kept my chin lifted, my shoulders back, but continued to avoid eye contact with anyone. I was trying to go with an air of not being one to be messed with, while not deliberately causing anyone to mess with me.
I scanned the cafeteria, trying to figure out where the hell to sit. It was like being back at school again, only this time with far more dangerous, fully-grown people. Racial groups had divided off, the blacks with the blacks, the Latinos with Latinos, white with white. I didn’t want to decide based on skin color—being a racist asshole was never my thing—so I spotted the group of men I’d noted in the line. The older guys weren’t my group either, but I wasn’t going to allow some white supremacist to start tattooing me to show my allegiance.
I stepped forward, but someone moved into my space. It was the C.O., Damps, the one with the mean face. “Where you think you’re going?”
I jerked my chin toward the table I’d set my sights on. “To sit down.”
“Your place is over there.”
He nodded toward the table where my cellmate sat. They were all looking at me, daring me to disobey. I wasn’t about to let myself be bullied by any of them.
“I’m fine where I’m going.”
I took a step forward, but he moved toward me and the next thing I knew, the tray flew out of my grip, the few items of a juice box, bread, and the porridge flicking into the air. It landed on the floor, the tray hitting a split second after, the clatter making the rest of the cafeteria inhabitants turn around.
I gritted my teeth, my whole body tensed. I couldn’t react. This was a test. They were seeing what I was made of. Hot-headed and easy to antagonize, weak and frightened, or cool and unruffled.
I went with the final option.
I glanced down at the spilled food. “I wasn’t hungry anyway.”
Moving to walk away, something struck me from behind, pitching me forward.
“Clean up your goddamned mess, inmate.”
I realized Damps had shoved me in the back with his foot. I took several deep breaths to prevent myself from spinning back around and lunging at him.
My lips pinched, my nostrils flared. The last thing I wanted to do was get on my hands and knees and start cleaning in front of all the other inmates and officers, but if I didn’t, I would most likely end up in solitary, which would mean no visitors. If Vee managed to arrange to see me, and turned up to discover I’d been put in the hole, it would kill her.
Thinking only of the woman I loved, I got to one knee and scooped up the goop from the floor with my hand, flicking it back onto the tray. Something wet hit me on my back, warm dampness seeping through the prison uniform, and I realized someone had thrown more of the porridge at me. Ignoring it, I finished cleaning up, dumped the tray, and left the area. I went back to my cell and removed my soiled shirt.
I used the time before my cellmate returned to drop to the ground. I put myself through a grueling workout of pushups, sit ups, and burpees, until sweat shone on my chest, highlighting the lines and ridges of muscle. I would need to be tough in here, strong and hard, though the workout on an empty stomach left me lightheaded. I drank water from the tap from the small sink beside the toilet.
My cellmate returned. He caught sight of the numerous scars that littered my body.
“Jesus,” he said, curling his lip. “What the fuck happened to you?”
I wasn’t about to start pouring out my soul to this asshole. Instead, I grabbed my dirty shirt, the dampness drying to hardening crust, and pulled it on. “Nothing.”
“You better watch Damps,” he said, though I still couldn’t tell if it was a warning or a threat. “He seems to have taken a liking to you.”
I climbed back onto my bunk and lay on my back, breathing hard from my workout. “Don’t worry about me. I can take care of myself.”
I hoped I wasn’t going to have to.