“What do you mean?” I asked, tilting my head.
“There were stains on your clothing that indicated a man had been with you.” His gaze was so heavy on mine, so unwavering, like he was begging me for an answer I didn’t know how to give. Outwardly, he wasprofessional, and I might have just been projecting what I wanted to see, but I felt it. That glimmer.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said to him, looking away.
“Penelope,” he growled my name, looking around. I think he was going to do more, maybe grab me, threaten me, but Sally walked by the bay with a slight smile directed my way, and Darling retreated, his jaw muscles ticking. “Did someone touch you? Did one of the guards—” His voice was loud, performative.
“Only what you told them to do, Darling,” I whispered back, loud enough just for him.
His jaw tensed even more, and he stared at me. We looked at each other, not speaking, just letting a heavy tension wave back and forth between us. His nostrils flared and his eyes tightened; he was so, so close to that precipice. I recognized it because it matched my own. He was playing his own game, that much was obvious. But it wasn’t clear if I was a pawn or a player.
God, he wanted to speak, to say something, anything, to confess or deny. But his jaw remained locked tight, muscles rippling under his scruff. He did it, hetold Randal to come to my cell and hurt me. The glare in his eyes told me all I needed to know.
“I’ll tell them you coughed up phlegm, that you’re sick and need to stay here for a few more days. Better than suicide watch.” Darling stood up, breaking that eye contact as he spoke. And he didn’t look back as he left.
The curtain waved a little in the breeze of how fast he fucked off.
Eight
Adrian
Ishoved my uniform in my locker, grateful to have the shitty polyester off my body. I never wore it out of the building, taking it off the second I could. It made my skin crawl. I hated the way it looked on me, the way it made me feel. Everything was wrong about it, fake, like I was wearing someone else’s skin.
When I was a detective, I loved the uniform. It was my own clothes, but the badge I wore was right, made every bit of clothing sit correct against my skin. Without it, things felt wrong, off kilter.I never lived for my job, but I was damn good at it.
And now I was here, in this dump, in these hideous clothes, still not living for my job. But damn terrible at it.
My mood plummeted even more when I checked my cell, finding messages asking how I was, if I wasdoing okay… People from my old life trying to stay relevant.
I was going straight out to the bar down the street tonight with a group of colleagues, and no way would I wander into anywhere, even if it was close to a prison, dressed like this.After weeks of pestering to go blow off steam with the people I spent all day with already, I caved.
They were insane.
No one liked prison officers. Almost as much as they loathed cops. And in a town where the prison loomed over the high street, it was only exacerbated.We were part of the festering rot of the looming building, the soul sucking, life draining concrete blocks shadowing the entire town.
“You almost ready?” Anderson asked, only having loosened his collar. He was one of the better guys here, maybe the only I’d bonded with at all over the months I’d wasted grinding toward the top. He was a fellow corporal here, and we got on just fine. Fine. Only fine. But that was enough. I wasn’t here for deep friendship.Or a long time.
Most of my time away from here was spent alone, to the point I’d almost forgotten how to socialize, so it took me a minute to muster up social norms, friendly and engaging reactions. Fuck this.
“Yep,” I grunted, shoving a black t-shirt over my head and flattening my dark hair back down. “Good to go.”
Anderson snorted and shook his head, and together we made our way through the corridors and out of the building, through the gates, checking out as was routine, and heading to our cars. Leaving the prison was as much of a ball ache as entering it, and it festered an emptiness in me. I was leavingherthere. A place she wasn’t safe, a place she couldn’t flee.
I wanted her out, with me and away from this hellhole.
Sighing, I sank into my car. It was a mess, full of takeout wrappers and old coffees, dog blankets I hadn’t bothered to take back inside after my spaniel soaked them with rain and mud. I just ignored it, like I always did, and took myself off to the closest bar I’d been directed to.
Working in the prison was… not what I expected. Surrounded by these feral women all day had ruined all illusions of it being a good career. The guards were decent for the most part, but there were bad eggs, and the prisoners, well, they were all bad eggs. Every one of them tried something. Sex. Violence. Tears and sympathy. I soon stopped wondering if the system was broken when yet another of the fuckers proved she should be there.
But there was that one, with the confidence that went from soaring to plummeting mid-sentence, with green eyes and almost black hair that she kept messy and loose. She might be the baddest egg of all. I thought of Karner, lying in that hospital bed after whatever the fuck happened with Randal, and my teeth creaked and threatened to crack from the pressure.
She lied to me, and when I confronted Randal about it, finding him dopey eyed and half asleep in the break room, he’d shrugged, seeming fully baffled by her state. Either he was a great liar, or she was. I didn’t like either option.When I’d— Shit.
My jaw ached from the pressure I was putting on it, so I turned the radio up to drown out my thoughts. Dark thoughts.
The wrong ones.
Randal was well hated amongst the staff for pushing his luck with the inmates. The female COs found him disgusting for his brazenness and the worst of the men for taking their tail.
