Page 28 of My Family

Harry shakes his head. "A month, maybe longer. Last package never made it. Last two, actually."

Miles closes his book, attentive.

"Do you think he got caught?" Jack asks.

"Maybe," Harry says. "I don't know. But the point is, I'm out. Supply's gone. I tried brewing juice to offer them instead. Something went wrong with the fermentation. It's undrinkable. My clients aren't happy. They said I'd better get more, or I'll get hurt."

Nobody speaks for a minute.

Then Jack says, "How bad is it? Like, who are we talking about?"

Harry looks at his hands. It's the first time I've ever seen him look like this, and I realize the word I couldn't name before was right. He looks scared.

"Ramos," he says.

Liam goes still. Miles doesn't react visibly, but his stillness shifts. Jack exhales through his nose.

Even I know who Ramos is. He's been transferred twice and ended up back here both times. That alone should tell you everything.

"Harry," Jack says slowly. "How long have you been dealing for Ramos?"

"I'm not dealing for him," Harry says, fast. "I source independently. He's a client. Or he was." He stops. Rubs the back of his neck with one hand. "He was my biggest one."

"That's the same thing," Jack says.

"It's not…" Harry starts, and then doesn't finish. For a second his jaw works, like he's running through the argument in his head and realizing he doesn't have one. He closes his mouth.

Then something happens that I don't think any of us were prepared for.

Harry takes his glasses off.

He folds them carefully, the way he always does. And then he presses the heels of his hands against his eyes and just… stays there. Breathing. His shoulders are up around his ears, and he's not performing anymore.

He's just a twenty-year-old kid who's scared as fuck.

"I thought I had it handled," he says, and his voice comes out wrong. Stripped of the usual polish, lower and younger than I've ever heard it. "I always have it handled. That's the thing, that's what I do, I always…" He stops. Presses harder. "I built something in here. A system. I know who wants what and who has what and I know how to stay two steps ahead. That's the only way I know how to be safe." He lowers his hands. His eyes, without the glasses, without the smirk, look very young and very tired. "And now I don't know where my contact is. And Ramos is sending messages through people. And I don't have a move. I can't get more. I can't."

The room is so quiet I can hear the pipes in the wall.

Jack gets up from his bunk. He crosses the room and sits down beside Harry, not saying anything, just putting himself there. His shoulder against Harry's.

Harry looks at the floor. "I'm not asking you to fix it. I just…" He exhales. "I didn't want you to get blindsided. If something happens to me. Or near me. Or to you all."

"Nothing's going to happen to you," Jack says.

"You don't know that."

"I know Ramos isn't going to touch you in front of sixty witnesses and Griff."

"Griff isn't always here. He'll make it look like it's an accident."

"We are," Jack says. Simple. Final.

Harry looks at him for a long moment. Something moves through his face. It's not gratitude exactly. It's more like recognition. Like he didn't expect that and doesn't know what to do with it.

"I'll fix it," Harry says, quieter. "I just need time."

"Then we buy you time," Jack says.