CHAPTER FIVE
Four years ago, Tyler Walsh asked his brother, a seven-year heroin addict recovering from his most recent bender, why he couldn’t just walk away from the drug.
“You know it’s making you unhappy.You know it’s going to kill you one day.The high can’t possibly be that good.”
Jared looked at him with his milky, Narcan-fogged eyes and replied, "It's not the highs, man.It's the lows."
Now, four years later and three years after Jared finally exceeded the limit of what his wasted body could handle and died face down in a storm drain, Tyler understood exactly what he meant.Addiction wasn’t about feeling good.It was about not feeling bad.
Tyler felt like shit right now.His job at the Northbridge Special Management Unit required him to interact with the worst people humanity had ever spit out.As for his home life…
He chuckled bitterly as he wrapped up the tour of the mental health ward and headed to the kitchen for the day’s most important meal.
His home life was nonexistent.His wife was leaving him.She wanted for full custody of Elise, and she was going to get it.Tyler had stayed away from the illegal drugs, but he was slowly but surely losing the battle against alcohol.Judging by the way his other addiction was going, it would soon be the only thing keeping him from swallowing his gun.
Enter his addiction.Marcy.Marcy used to be the only part of his life that felt good.Now she was the only part of his life that didn’t feel shitty.
But that was enough.Enough that every evening after dinner, Tyler visited her in the showers in the women’s ward, assisted by the troglodyte of a woman’s ward head, appropriately named Bertha.Provided Tyler finished watching prisoner numero uno eat his dinner in time to get to the showers before Marcy had to eat hers, Bertha would make sure they got time to themselves.
And Tyler made the most of that time.Marcymade the most of that time.She was skinny as a rail with flat breasts and more gum than tooth, but she used those gums enthusiastically and told him before and after how much she enjoyed it and how she couldn’t wait for next time.
That feeling, the feeling of being wanted… That was the only thing in between him and a bullet.
The cook—real name Kellen Ericson, preferred name, honest to God, Chef—frowned when he saw Tyler approach.“So, what does his royal highness want for dinner today?”
“Chicken pot pie and a blueberry muffin.”
Chef blinked.“Helikesthe pot pie?”
“He calls himself a priest and kills people for breaking the Ten Commandments,” Tyler said.“He’s not even close to sane.”
Chef chuckled at that.
Cox hadn’t asked for a specific meal since arriving at the facility.In fact, he’d spent his first few days here not eating anything.Hence Tyler’s enviable job of watching him eat his dinner through the observation screen so the prison wasn’t sued for mistreating their esteemed guests.
What Elijah Cox really wanted was “gifts.”The first gift was a cell phone.He’d used that to make one phone call.The next thing he wanted was a pen.He’d used that to write a letter.
The third thing he wanted was a lot harder and more dangerous for Tyler to get.He wanted Tyler to mail that letter.Since every staff member, all the way from the janitors to the warden, was thoroughly searched before and after their shifts, getting out with a letter from a prisoner was about as likely as robbing the Federal Reserve.
But Tyler got it for him.He got it for him the same way that homeless drug addicts always found money for heroin.He was addicted to Marcy, and he would do anything to protect his twenty minutes every worknight in the showers getting told that a woman actually enjoyed making him feel good and actually liked spending time with him.
Tonight, he didn’t want anything, but Tyler always pretended he did so the warden wouldn’t wonder why he chose certain meals.As far as the warden knew, Tyler was just trying to make sure Cox didn’t go on another hunger strike.Really, different meals were packaged differently, which allowed him to transport Cox’s requests without getting caught.
He’d come up with the pot pie tonight because he knew everyone else was getting pot pie, and he didn’t want Chef to have to work any harder and get even more pissed.It wouldn’t do for someone to start grumbling and the warden to start wondering if maybe something else was going on between Tyler and the most important prisoner housed here.
“Here you go,” Chef said, handing him the meal.“I drew a smiley face on the package, just so His Highness knows we’re still treating him special.”
He laughed uproariously enough that Tyler chuckled politely along with him.“You’re the man.”
“Yeah, that’s what your wife said.”
Wouldn’t surprise me,Tyler thought.She said it to her boss behind my back for four years straight.Aloud, he said, “Yeah, thanks for keeping her off my back.”
That joke was even weaker than Chef’s, but Chef laughed even more uproariously.Tyler left him laughing and headed to Special Population, Northbridge SMU’s euphemism for the prisoners that represented the greatest flight risk but weren’t considered insane enough for the drugs and straps of the mental health ward.
Cox was housed in Unit 409.Unit 409 was, according to the records, just another cell, but unofficially, it was almost a science-fiction-level box designed to house the single most dangerous man in the SMU, one who had broken out of prison once before, one who had murdered several people and more frighteningly inspired others to murder in his name.
Unit 409 was constructed of the same woven aramid fiber material as the rest of the cell, with the same layered borosilicate-polycarbonate bulletproof glass covering the cameras, lights, and sensors in the walls and ceiling, and the same standard-issue aramid fiber furniture flow-formed from the floor and walls.What made this unit special was a proprietary ventilation system that had its own oxygen supply and its own power source.At any time, it was deemed necessary, tranquilizers could be pumped into the room and put Mr.Cox to sleep for any length of time between thirty minutes and ten hours.
