Blood to Dust (9 page)

Beat moves lower, his swollen cock pressed against my sensitive flesh.

The hand that’s clasping my mouth shut is now moving downward, the back of it brushing my erected nipple, going south, grabbing my ass roughly with a squeeze. I sigh, rolling my head against the concrete, wanting to submit to him but knowing I’m about to knee his balls and try to run again. . .

Then his head drops, his forehead meeting mine. I can smell the cheap plastic of his mask and the sweet scent of his masculine sweat. And that peachy mouth, the one I haven’t even seen yet. He lets out a frustrated grunt.

“Let’s go, Pea.”

Nate scoops me up and helps me to my feet before I manage to damage his boys. We walk back to his house—I have no other option I’m completely imprisoned, clasped by this real-life gladiator. But when we walk in, something dawns on me.

He
is
attracted to me.

He is fighting this for Godfrey. For his life. But if I convince him that I can offer him a way out. . .game on.

There’s a flicker of passion in him. . .and I’m about to set it to flames. Flames that’d burn every single plan Godfrey has for me.

Nate shoves me into the basement and locks me in.

“Last warning. If you don’t want to end up blindfolded and tied again, you’ll behave.”

I sit on a blanket he brought down for me and wait until I hear his body sinking against his mattress, the cheap springs wincing under his weight. Taking out his diary from where I’d hidden it, I read another entry.

NOVEMBER 12
TH
, 2010

“GOING TO PRISON IS LIKE DYING WITH YOUR EYES OPEN” (BERNARD KERIK)

Losing yourself in repetition is easy, and that’s what prison life gives you.

A structure so neat and linear, days mesh into weeks, then into months—and before you know it—even into years.

I miss Chow Time at 6:00 a.m. every day because I’d rather chew on my cellmate’s leg than eat the breakfast they serve. And Pedro? His leg has seen some pretty rough shit, along with the rest of his crack-addicted body.

I’m a welder at the prison’s general maintenance shop. At 32 cents an hour, I won’t get rich, but at least I’ll be able to afford some Ramen noodles from the canteen.

I work alongside an old English wiseguy named Godfrey. They nicknamed him God in here for a reason. With a distinctive limp that promises a good story behind it, he spends most of his time listening to classical music or hanging out with Seb— another British inmate who I think’s gay by the way he looks at me. Ninety percent of the people here want to fuck me, but Seb? He looks like he wants to take my butthole on a dinner date and buy it flowers. Maybe even a piece of nice jewelry.

Frank told me that I shouldn’t mess with Godfrey.

Beware of God, for he is very powerful and can seal your faith.

I fly low and work out. Read even more. Four or five hours of reading, every day. Skip the college classes and other bullshit programs they offer, as if you’ll walk outta here into the open arms of society. If life gave you the San Dimas card, a full house is not in your future. Hell, you’d be lucky to have a roof over your head when it’s all over.

But I go to the self-help class because they make you sign up for this crap, and because what else is there to do in this shithole? My options are limited, my time—boundless.

At dinner, I hang out with Frank and his Stockton crew.

San Dimas is known for county gangs. Forget about the blacks, the Latinos, the whites. Sure, there are jump offs between races every now and again. Mostly, though, we keep things civilized.

Other than the Aryan Brotherhood. They’re a pain in everyone’s ass.

Literally.

I walk into my cell today to see a guy I don’t recognize. He’s big, fat, with a homemade swastika tattoo adorning his meaty neck and the face of every illiterate hillbilly from the flicks. Bald, of course. Prison sucks the youth outta you.

“Can I help you?” I grunt.

“Na. But I can help you. Seen you around.” He leans his shoulder on the wall, one hand tucked in his pants. His eyes zero in on my crotch. “You need protection.”

Ignoring him, I reach under my thin mattress, tugging out a paperback. He clasps my arm, his hand greasy. “I said,” he grits, “you’re a pretty boy. Bend. Over.”

I wait for him to throw the first punch, but he just jerks me closer. He’s fatter, bigger. I’m lean but strong enough to take him. Then again I don’t have the AB behind me in case shit goes south.

And it will absolutely go south, judging by the hungry look on his face.

But not the kind of south he’d like to stick his dick into.

“Look, man,” I say calmly. “I’ve nothing to lose. Don’t make me kill you. My ass ain’t worth it.”

He thrusts me into the wall with a thump, his nose brushing mine as he gets in my face.

“Eyes like whiskey, hair so soft, lips full like a girl’s. You think people haven’t noticed? Let’s take a trip to the shower, pretty boy.”

I’m about to do something that’d haul me into ad-seg for a long-ass time, when I notice a shard of glass making its way to my skin. The sharp edge travels along my neck before it passes my cheekbone, poking into the Aryan asshole’s chin. Frank’s crumpled-paper face follows the blade as his lips find the tattooed man’s ear.

“Back off, Hefner. Can’t you see he’s just a kid?”

The Aryan guy’s eyes never break contact with mine. I’m still sandwiched between him and the cracked wall when he lets a rotting sneer loose.

“Careful, old man. You’re no shot-caller in here. We are.”

Frank snorts. “Hefner,” he says, digging the shard into the man’s skin. “There’s only one shot-caller, and that’s God.” He refers to Godfrey Archer, not the almighty. “Now, this one’s not for taking. Get out.”

Hefner’s few working brain cells command him to fuck off out of my forty-eight-square-foot cell, and after an impotent stare down, he dissolves back into the murky hallway of our floor.

“I could’ve handled him myself.” I tug my hair up. “But thanks.”

Frank doesn’t acknowledge my appreciation. Just shoves the shard into my hand, curling my fingers around it.

“Keep it safe. Goddamn, Nathaniel. You are too fucking pretty for San Dimas. You better toughen up or your asshole will be wide enough to push a watermelon through by the time you leave.”

With that, my old neighbor turned rape-preventer walks away, leaving me and what’s left of my pride feeling even smaller and less significant than my tiny room.

It’s difficult to hate him when he’s becoming more human with every page.

In fact, I want to show him how human I am, too.

He shut me up yesterday because he was bending, and I want him to break. Back to the master plan. Back to doing what I can to recruit him to my team.

It’s my turn to show him that I’m real.

“The following weekend, I used that first-class ticket to London and paid Camden a visit.”

Nate grunts quietly upstairs and wish I was there with him on a bed I’ve never seen, in a room I’ve never been in. A room that is undoubtedly not much bigger than his San Dimas cell.

“Camden lived in a Victorian building in Marble Arch, right in front of the big Primark, smack in the middle of London.” I smile to myself, hugging my knees. I may hate Camden, but I’ve always loved his apartment.

“I didn’t know what to expect. We didn’t even kiss the first, and last, time we’d met. . .but he wooed me. Big time. That weekend, we went to amazing restaurants and enjoyed the best seats in the West End. And it took him exactly sixteen hours, from the moment I landed in London, to the moment I landed on his bed, where he drilled into me like there was oil at the end of my pussy.”

My lips curve into a smirk. Nate is probably not so hot on hearing about another guy screwing me senseless. But I understand his silence as a green light to continue, so I do.

“By the time she left London, eighteen-year-old Prescott thought she was madly in love with Camden Archer, the flashy, English hot-shot with charming manners and a fine taste in music and films.”

I hear his tender chuckle. “But let me tell you, Beat, it all went downhill from there.”

“Whatever,” he murmurs. The first time he’s acknowledged my story directly.

“Let’s do dinner tomorrow.”

“No.”

“I’ll be good to you. Maybe even bad, if it’s your type of thing,” my raspy voice suggests through a smirk. “We’ll both pretend that we have someone who cares. Everyone needs a friend.”

I roll my stress ball in my hands, squeezing it until my fingers hurt.

I need.

I need my family back, and hugs, and to count my happy places every now and again. I need to be acknowledged and, as much as I hate to admit it,
I need him
.

My traitorous cock has betrayed me again.

I’m starting to think Godfrey deliberately put this girl under my supervision because he wants me to go fucking nuts. Never, in my entire life have I lusted after a woman. Women were low-hanging fruit for me to pick, sink my teeth into and toss after one bite. Prescott is no different. She’s offering herself to me on a silver platter, with a side of grapes. But with her, I want it.

Why do I want it? Because she’s broken like me.

Why do I need someone broken? Because she understands, never judges, and doesn’t back down.

Broken people do things better; we learned how to make it in life without the missing parts other people have. Because when you’re in the dark, you appreciate everything that shines.

She’s not the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen. She ain’t the cutest or funniest. But she’s shrewd and cunning. A chameleon changing her colors to adjust to the situation she’s been thrown into. I know she’s trying to manipulate me, and to some extent, she’s succeeding.

It’s fun watching her sweat for me, especially because in the outside world, I’d be her slave, polishing her expensive tiles in swim trunks and listening to her ramblings about Tahoe vacations.

Flashbacks of grinding against her like a fucking pervert have me walking around with a crimson red face all day. I’ll never live this shit down.

I go about my usual routine, showing up at work. Thank fuck Mrs. Hathaway’s still in Tahoe, because this dancing monkey is not in the mood to walk around half-naked just for her amusement. My body is humming with quiet rage, and I know exactly what will set it free, but I can’t have it.

Godfrey would kill me if I touch her.

Throwing the Smiths vinyl record onto the gramophone—if there’s one thing I love about this job, it’s Stan Hathaway’s record collection—I start working. Scrubbing, washing, vacuuming and dusting to the sound of Morrissey wording my misery ever so sweetly. My sorry ass would lick every inch of these Italian granite floors if I had to, just to save some money to run out of Cali-fucking-fornia.

I pick up my dirty backpack when I’m done and check my phone out of habit. I have four missed calls. Weird. No one ever calls me, other than the occasional fraud. I frown at my phone and redial the number on the screen, my pulse kicking up. The area code reads San Rafael.

I’m not ready for this phone call, and as the other line clicks alive, I know that my favorite person in the world is now dead.

Fuck, fuck, fuck.

I jump into Stella and call Irvin, telling him he needs to feed Pea and give her her fifteen minutes of bathroom time. I don’t call her Pea, sticking instead with “God’s girl.”

I don’t trust the bastard with her, but I need to drive to San Rafael to identify the body of Frank Donald Dixon. Dead, after four years in a coma.

Because of me.

Because of Hefner.

Because of God.

Because of the Aryan Brotherhood.

They’re still after me.

I show up at the forensic laboratory and a grief counselor immediately greets me. A woman in her mid-thirties, thin with perfectly applied makeup and a haircut from the magazines. She shakes my hand, the grin that graces her face confirms blue blood runs in her veins. She explains that I’ll need to identify him by a photograph. I was his only contact person. Me. How sad is that?

The last time I saw him was the day shit went down, and I dread the idea of seeing how he spent the last few years while I was eating four bangers and trying (yet failing) to stay out of trouble.

She sits me down and shows me a picture, and I nod, my face blank. It’s him, all right. The last person who resembled family in my life is dead. No mom. No dad. No neighbor who showed me the ropes in prison. No one.

If I die on my way back to Stockton, no one will give a rat’s ass. Just like no one gave a rat’s ass about Frank. The grief counselor breaks the self-pity party I’m throwing by rubbing her palm against the back of my hand.

“Hey. I don’t usually do this, but I’m almost done here. Give me ten minutes, and we can grab a drink?”

Everyone wants to fuck Nate Vela, but no one offers a shoulder to cry on.