Page 20 of Blood We Steal

He didn’t bother to confirm it, but instead took another bite of the sandwich.

“I sometimes forget that you were born with a silver spoon in your mouth.”

Rubin had the nerve to look offended, and I smiled.

“What? I’m just saying. You’ve never put water in your cereal because there was no milk.”

He looked at me but didn’t respond. I shrugged and then let out a chuckle. “I didn’t either. It was easier to just eat it dry.”

I finished the rest of the sandwich then tried to eat the apple, which was hard and tasteless.

“What’s been going on outside?” Rubin asked.

“Everything was pretty much normal until a couple of weeks ago. Then things got bad. We went to ATM-only at the bank,” I said.

Rubin frowned, and I remembered how my bank teller job and eventual promotion to manager had been a point of contention for years. Even when I had worked for him, I had kept it, and only managed to get him to agree by pointing out it would look strange if I had no employment at all. I also didn’t bother to mention that Damian had someone come to the branch at least once a week. No doubt to intimidate me. It worked too, but my pride wouldn’t allow me to quit.

“I’d cover the ATM myself if someone had trouble, and then this morning someone knocked at my door and told me I had somewhere to be, but you probably knew that, right?”

He didn’t respond, and instead put all of the bottled water into a box and stacked the remaining trays on the cart in a corner. He kept walking, and I followed him outside. He went to one corner of the outdoor area and stared intently at the bricks. I watched as he pushed at one of the bricks, which wobbled and then gave.

“What’s that?” I asked.

He pulled out something that looked to be a spoon. I looked at it closely and could see that it was actually three spoons with the ends broken off, wrapped with something.

“Is that homemade rope?” I asked.

“Sort of. It’s toilet paper, twisted up to make a pommel for a knife.”

I looked at it, then looked at Rubin. “Wow, is that my very first prison shank?” I said.

He nodded. “Yeah. Hopefully, we’ll find some more.”

“Hopefully, we won’t need them,” I countered.

He didn’t respond, but I knew that it was wishful thinking just as well as he did. We continued, and I stayed close to Rubin as we went into the cells.

“This place is disgusting,” I said.

“You should try living here for a year and a half.”

Rubin didn’t look at me, but his body was tense with anger that hadn’t been there a moment ago. I said nothing, and soon we had cleared all sixteen cells in this pod. Found four more shanks, a bit more bottled water, and Rubin finally faced me. He’d been almost relaxed as we’d searched the pod, but now he stood tense, the weight of his rage directed at me.

I acted like I didn’t notice. “What now?”

My attempt at ease didn’t fool Rubin one bit. “Now we go back to the warden’s office.”

“Is that necessary?” I rubbed my arms, hating how weak I looked, but unable to hide it.

“Don’t worry, Simone,” he said, the calm in his voice more insulting than an actual insult would have been, “I’ll get you across the catwalk.”

And insult or not, I was yet again left putting my life in Rubin’s hands, leaving me to wonder what he would do with it.

ELEVEN

Simone

“Stay close. I wouldn’t want to mistake you for one of those things.”