Beth
The lockdown lasted for four days. During that time, there wasn't much for Beth 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. Butler and the other guards made sure that Knights 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 Beth, especially after the glimpse of chaos she'd gotten after the boxing match. The idea of an entire section of Bluebonnet 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. Welker said that some of them later committed suicide or spent the rest of their lives in mental institutions, but based on the relish in Welker's voice when she told these sordid tales, Beth figured she was probably exaggerating for dramatic effect.
Beth kept drifting over to Hank'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 Hank'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 Beth had heard, Ram 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 Bull's cell, he poked his head out. “Hey, D'Amato. Come in here for a sec.”
Beth entered Bull'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. Besides, 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.”
Bull'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,” Beth answered sarcastically.
Bull's grin widened. “You should be. See, Butler told me all about you and the Carnage Warriors.”
Beth felt like a net was tightening around her heart.
“Don't look so surprised,” Bull continued. “Butler's got no secrets from me. And then you come and drag Hank 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, Beth thought. I was so sure I was being careful. What have I gotten us into now?
Bull 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 Butler turn you in to the cops for the false info on your paperwork. Or I could withdraw my protection from Hank and the rest of the Warriors. 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?”
Beth 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?”
Beth nodded.
“Now go get my movies,” Bull 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, Beth looked up adult video stores on her phone and drove to the nearest one.