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“Yeah, well, phone time is over.”
I sigh and let the phone ring one more time before replacing the handheld back into its cradle, stepping away. A few of the girls sneer at me and mutter under their breath, as if I was the one who just told them that phone time is over.
“Still no luck, eh?” asks Lace, coming down the hallways toward me. The other girls depart and the two of us walk back to our unit.
“No,” I say, and this time I’m not lying. “I hope she’s okay.”
“I’m sure she’s fine,” Lace assures me. “Sometimes the prison number throws people off when calling, so they don’t answer because they don’t know who it is. Or maybe she’s just out of the house right now. No biggie.”
“Sure,” I say, but doubt still stabs at me. Julia is my sister, my best friend. We’ve had each other’s backs since we were little girls, surviving not on our own but together. So why haven’t I heard from her since the arrest?
As we step into our unit, Jaxon stops me right outside. “Random drug test,” he tells me, and Lace walks on without me.
“Seriously?”
“Seriously,” he confirms. “All the prisoners get them.” He starts to walk toward the medical wing, so I fall into step beside him.
“This is stupid.”
“Maybe so. But you have nothing to worry about, right?” Jaxon glances at me out of the corner of his eye, and I scoff.
“Obviously.”
Jaxon falls silent as we walk, but after a few moments he speaks again. “Who was that visitor you had here earlier?” His voice is guarded, and I know it’s not just mere curiosity.
“Just a friend,” I say, but I can’t even look at him when I do.
“He seemed like a fairly shady friend,” Jaxon says, and there’s no getting out of this one. He already knows. We approach the door to medical and Jaxon ushers me in. The nurse isn’t here yet, so I sit down on the edge of the bed and wait, twisting my fingers nervously around and around.
“Why do you care so much?” I ask. “Do you treat all of your prisoners with this amount of concern?”
“I guess it’s the cop in me.”
“You used to be a cop?”
“Yeah.”
“But you’re not anymore.”
“No.”
“Now you’re just a corrections officer.”
Jaxon looks like he’s about to say something, but he thinks better of it and shakes his head, rubbing a rough and calloused hand over the back of his neck.
“He was just someone I had to see, that’s all,” I continue, folding my arms across my chest. I shiver, feeling vulnerable suddenly. But it’s not because of Mr. Jaxon.
“You met him to carry in drugs for Ronnie.”
It’s not a question. I don’t say anything. There’s nothing to say.
“Shit.” He looks away from me, like a father disappointed in their teenage daughter. He’s scary when he’s angry because of his size, but I know he won’t hurt me. He might be the only person in here that won’t.
“I had no choice.”
“You always have a choice, Joey.”
“I didn’t. Not this time.” My eyes fall to my lap, where I clasp my hands nervously. When I look back up at Mr. Jaxon, he doesn’t say anything, but something in his expression tells me that he knows. He knows I didn’t have a choice, because that’s how things are here. The guards can’t protect us. No one can. We have to do what it takes to stay alive.
