Sarah
Becoming a prison guard hadn't exactly been the cakewalk Ron told Sarah it would be.
The initial application was easy, sure. It was simple enough to list members of the Dogs as personal and professional references, and give them fake stories to tell in case they were called—which, it turned out, none of them were.
Then came the interviews. The first one was conducted by the warden's secretary, an obese, disheveled, mumbling woman in her fifties with thick glasses and thicker orthopedic shoes. The second was with Warden Glass himself, a gray-faced, professorial-looking man in his early sixties who spent most of the time talking about the home he was having built in Corpus Christi for his retirement. In both interviews, the same bland questions were asked:
What was her previous job experience? A year sweeping up hair in a salon, a summer doing bookkeeping for a garage, and six months waiting tables in a bar. Yes, she could provide specific dates of employment and phone numbers for her supervisors—although the salon had long since closed down, and she was pretty sure she'd heard that the owner of the garage might have died the previous year.
Why did she want to work as a corrections officer? The money and benefits, mostly, although she also felt she currently lacked direction and felt a job as a CO would provide her with a more focused career path. Her father had encouraged her to join the Marines—like he had when he was her age—but she felt this was a better option.
Had she ever been a member or associate of any gang or criminal organization? Not unless she counted her old cheerleading squad from high school, ha ha.
Did she have any friends or relatives who were currently incarcerated in the state or federal prison system? No.
Was she willing to submit to drug screenings and strip searches when required to do so? Yes, of course. She had nothing to hide.
After she was sent to an outside lab to pee in a cup, she was ordered to undergo a psychological examination. The multiple-choice questions they asked were laughable, since it was obvious which answers they were looking for. She received a letter with her official job offer less than a week later.
Then came basic training.
Eight hours a day. Five days a week. For three long weeks.
Four sweaty, aching hours a day spent doing endless push-ups and sit-ups, climbing ropes, running laps, learning self-defense and disarming techniques, and routinely getting her ass kicked by her sparring partners—all while drill instructors screamed and cursed in her face:
“You call that a push-up, girlie? You just bought yourself ten more, and I'd better see your nose touch the fucking floor on each one! Count 'em off!”
“You think you're on the way to the fucking prom or something, princess? Get that goddamn hair tied up before someone yanks your head back and cuts your throat!”
Then—while her face was still red and her muscles were twanging like badly-tuned guitar strings—Sarah had to endure four hours of classes a day on prison procedure, with entire books full of rules and codes and statutes to memorize. There were dozens of gangs whose symbols, hand gestures, and tattoos she had to learn. There were first aid classes and drills on how to react to a hundred different emergencies. There were tests almost every day, and every night, she went home with at least three hours of homework to complete. Some nights, she was so exhausted and sore that she cried herself to sleep.
But through it all, she kept telling herself that it was all worth it. Soon, she'd be able to see Kurt again, and she'd be in a position to help him when he needed her the most.
At the end of the training period, Sarah graduated with mediocre grades and received her certification, along with her new uniform. She took it home and tried it on in front of the mirror, modeling it for herself proudly. She liked how it looked on her. She liked how powerful and authoritative it made her feel, with the baton and pepper spray hanging from the shiny brown belt.
But most of all, she liked the fact that she'd actually earned it. She hadn't finished high school, and all the jobs she'd ever worked had been easy to get and easier to keep. She'd abandoned piano lessons, she'd dropped out of dance classes, and she'd never even bothered to try out for the cheerleading squad in real life. The path of least resistance had always been the obvious choice for her.
This was the first time she'd ever really worked hard to achieve anything, and now that she had, it felt exhilarating.
She reported for duty at River Oak a week later, just a few days before Kurt was scheduled to go there. Captain Gable was polite but curt as he showed her around, asking most of the questions she'd already answered during her interviews and nodding tightly at her responses. He told her she'd be assigned to cell block G, and said that if she had any questions or concerns, she should come directly to him for the first week or two.
Sarah's first day was largely uneventful. There were plenty of lewd comments and invitations from the prisoners, but she ignored them, and they soon lost interest. Two inmates got into a shouting match over a game of checkers, but she was able to break it up before it got violent. She saw a pair of Sinners making a drug handoff and enlisted the aid of two other guards to search them, which earned her a tight-lipped “Good work, rookie” from Gable.
When she saw Bear, she felt a brief flutter of anxiety. He hadn't seen her in over ten years, but would he still recognize her somehow? She walked past him and he looked up, but he didn't seem to know who she was.
He would soon, though. Once she'd had a chance to settle in and see how things worked at River Oak, she'd be able to tell the Dogs that she was here to help them.
Especially Kurt.
Toward the end of the day, Sarah saw Gable speaking in hushed tones with Hawkeye Frontley, the leader of the Aryans. As they talked, Gable handed a cell phone to Hawkeye, even though phones were considered contraband. She was surprised, and quickly walked away before either of them noticed her.
So Gable was in with the Aryans. So what? She was here to help the Dogs, and she figured other guards were probably bought off by other gangs. At least now she knew she wasn't the only one there with an agenda.
After her shift, Sarah drove to Shotz to celebrate with her uncle and the other Dogs. They toasted her over a dozen times that night, and every time, her heart glowed in her chest. She knew that Ron loved her and always would, but this was the first time she felt like she'd actually done something to make him proud of her.
When the night was over and Sarah returned to her apartment complex, she found Gable waiting for her.
“So you run with the Black Dogs, huh?” he sneered. “That's funny, because on your employment forms, you stated that you'd never been affiliated with any gang or criminal organization. By signing a legal document which you knew to be false or misleading, you committed perjury. The punishment is up to five years imprisonment.”
The blood in Sarah's veins turned to ice. She felt her hands start to tremble, but she tried to keep her voice calm. “Captain Gable, I don't know what you think you saw, but I can explain—”
“Save it. You think you're the only one who's ever tried to become a guard, so she could bend the rules for the gang she rolls with?” Gable turned his head and spat on the pavement contemptuously. “A word to the wise, lady—just because your shift ends doesn't mean I disappear. What goes around on the inside can easily come around on the outside.”
“But sir...I mean, with all due respect, I saw you and Frontley earlier today...”
Gable slammed his fist on the hood of Sarah's car, silencing her.
“We've got a special way of doing things at River Oak, and it doesn't include doing favors for bikers. Only Aryans get special treatment in my prison. They decide to let those favors trickle down to the Dogs, that's their business. I catch you doing an end run around them again, you're going to be out on your butt and facing criminal charges.”
Sarah cleared her throat nervously, summoning all of her courage. “If you report me, what's to stop me from reporting you?”
Gable barked out a harsh laugh. “Try it. I've been through over a dozen disciplinary hearings, and each time, I've come out smelling like a rose. I've run River Oak for going on twelve years now. You're a nobody. Remember that.” He started to walk away, then turned back. “And don't go running to your Dogs with any of this, thinking you can hide behind them. One word from me and you'll find yourself in a dark and lonely part of River Oak, surrounded by a dozen rapers and killers with no backup on the way. Think about it.”
As soon as Gable was out of eyesight, Sarah ran up to her apartment and locked the door. Then she curled up into a ball against it, shivering uncontrollably.
What had she gotten herself into?