Burn (11 page)

“Bravo! Bravo!”

Sloane rockets off my dick like someone’s just thrown a bucket of ice-cold water over us. In the hallway, leaning up against the wall opposite our alcove, a guy with a torn black T-shirt and ripped black jeans claps, grinning ear to ear. I don’t recognize him, but he’s young. Like early twenties. And he’s a Widow Maker; that much is obvious. “Good show,” he says, still clapping. “Didn’t think the fun started ’til tonight. Obviously I was wrong.” Sloane scrambles for her clothes, swearing under her breath—her panic is nowhere near as funny as it was when someone busted her in the toilet. Now it makes me angry. I turn and angle my body so that I’m standing in front of her, blocking her from view.

“Usually polite to announce your presence, asshole,” I snarl. Fuck that I’m naked. Fuck that Julio will be pissed. I’ll break this kid’s jaw if the next words out of his mouth aren’t
I’m sorry
.

Lucky for him they are.

“Sorry, bro. My bad.” He’s not laughing anymore. He’s holding his hands up, looking suitably concerned about the expression on my face. He must have thought I’d be embarrassed, too. But living in prison takes all that away from you. Your modesty, your humility, everything. “I didn’t mean to come up on you like that, man,” the kid continues. “But shit, dude. You
were
fucking in a hallway.”

I still think I should hit him. My fists are already clenched when Sloane grabs a hold of my arm. “It’s okay. He’s totally right.”

She sidles out from behind me, somehow now fully dressed though looking mighty dishevelled. Her cheeks are crimson, but she manages to look the kid in the eye. The kid’s face blanches when he gets a proper look at her. “Holy. Fuck. Me! What the…?” His reaction is instant. He looks like he’s seen a ghost.

“Mal, what the hell are you…” A voice, commanding and annoyed, comes from behind us, and then another Widow Maker rounds the corner. Black boots, black jeans, black tee, finished off with a leather cut that bears the VP badge over the top pocket. The guy stops dead in his tracks when he sees me, and this time it’s my turn to look like I’ve seen a ghost. Because he is.

Cade Preston.

Motherfucking Cade Preston.

He opens his mouth, staring at me with absolute shock on his face. “Zee?” and then, brow furrowed, “why are you naked?”

I can’t think of anything else to say, so I make do with the first thing that comes into my head. “You! Why the fuck aren’t you
dead
?”

4 years ago

Chino

“This food tastes like shit, man.”

“Mmm. Yeah, I’d say there’s a pretty high ratio of shit in here.”

“Fuck a
high ratio
, dude. This stuff
all
be shit. That brown mushy stuff be dog shit. That bread be horse shit. And that pudding is bird shit, dude, straight up. I seen the wrecking crews scraping that stuff off the roof.”

I prod the brown slab of reconstituted meat on my tray with my plastic fork, eyeing it dubiously. Marco sees me do it; he makes a derisive
chhh
sound through his teeth. “Zee, man, tha’s the worst shit on there. That’s Colossus’s own personal brand of shit. He’s back there in that kitchen laying tracks all day long. That’s why black guys don’t eat meatloaf, motherfucker.”

This is how mealtimes play out every day in prison. We complain about the food, and then we eat it anyway because we have no choice. But meatloaf day is especially bad. Colossus, the huge fucking Russian guy who was convicted of killing his wife and kids also happens to be the cook, and he delights in burning everything he sends out of the kitchen. His dry meatloaf is disgusting.

The canteen is humming with chatter and raucous banter between the inmates, everyone segregated into their appropriate racial stereotypes. White supremacists, blacks, Mexicans, Italians… It doesn’t matter if you’re not a neo-Nazi, a gangbanger, a coke dealer or Mafioso on the outside, inside walls like these, your heritage is your creed. The system’s mostly based on hate. The blacks hate the whites, the Italians hate the Mexians
and
the blacks, the Mexicans hate the whites, and the whites hate everybody, including other whites if you piss them off.

Cast adrift in the middle of this sea of hatred, I sit at a table with Marco, perhaps the blackest person I’ve ever met, and Leroy, who just so happens to be Mexican. There’s an empty chair next to Leroy, awaiting the fourth member of our group: Cade. Cade’s white like me, but neither of us were ‘white’ enough to join the Klu. The Klu are perhaps the largest group after the blacks, and they don’t particularly like when fair-skinned folk race mix.

They call the four of us the UN, a term that even the guards find funny. We’re outcasts. We eat together, shit together, shower together, run the yard together. The only time we’re not watching each other’s backs is at lock up, but then it’s just us and the guy we’re bunked with. And generally shit doesn’t go down one on one like that.

“Where’s your boy?” Leroy asks, hacking at his food with the side of his fork. You get proficient at that when you’re given a blunt plastic knife to cut through Colossus’s food.

Marco chews, open-mouthed, fork hanging loosely from his hand. “Dunno. He’s out, though. Hadley saw him in with the nurse an hour ago.”

This is news. News that makes no sense. “The nurse? Why?”

“He got busted up talking back to one of the guards on his way outta the SHU. They were gonna throw his ass straight back in there, I think, but they done needed the cell for Barteaux. Crazy motherfucker shived himself again.”

Usually you worry about by other people shiving you in prison. Not Barteaux, though. “That is the
third
time he’s done that.”

“I know, man.” Leroy laughs. “Dude reckons he’s gonna get his ass transferred outta here if the administration thinks he’s being targeted. Someone really outghta’ tell the guy not to keep stabbing himself in front of the cameras.”

Marco breaks off from his own laughter, pointing down the far end of the canteen. “Ho. Hold up. I see our guy.”

Sure enough, Cade’s making his way through the tables, tray gripped in his hands. He’s a big guy, almost as big as me. Dark haired and covered in tattoos. We could be brothers, but we’re not. He got sent away to serve a bullet—a year’s sentence—for a crime he refuses to talk about. I saved his ass from a severe beating kindly being served to him on his first day by the Klu, and ever since then we’ve been friends. When Cade rocks up and slaps his tray down on the table, Leroy prods his finger into the seam of angry looking stitches running from Cade’s temple down to his cheekbone. “What d’I tell you about the clavo,
ese
? You don’t wanna be keeping that shit in you cell, man. They gonna put your name above the SHU hole they keep throwing your ass into at this rate.”

Cade’s a repeat offender for contraband, or
clavo
if you’re Leroy. So far I’ve seen his ass get dragged to the SHU for weed, a knuckle-duster and a cell phone (fuck knows how he got that in here). He scowls, smacking Leroy’s hand away.

“Fuck you, man.”

I pass him a pack of smokes, raising an eyebrow. “What was it this time?”

Cade opens the pack and takes three, tucking them into the top pocket of his jumpsuit for later. “Lewd images of a graphic sexual nature,” he recites, spooning food into his mouth.

Marco erupts into hails of laughter. “Porn? You got busted for a week for lookin’ at pussy?”

Cade just shrugs it off, swallowing down his meal. “They’ll screw me for anything. You know that.”

“Yeah, man, we do. They still riding you hard?” Marco asks.

Cade casts a suspicious glance around the tables, eyes narrow. He blows out a deep breath. Ever since he’s been in here, he’s been the target of attacks from both the Arians, the Mexicans,
and
the prison guards, although no one is saying why. Least of all Cade. The prison admin want him to spill his guts over something, and the gangs are afraid he will. Thus far he’s been on lock down, refusing to even tell the three of us whatever this dark shit is that’s threatening his life on a daily basis. “Offered me WITSEC this time,” he admits.

Leroy thumps his arm. “Damn, dude. You know they give you a salary for life when you join WITSEC? Free money. You don’t gotta do nothing for the rest of your days!”

“Apart from look over your shoulder,” I say. Cade gives me a nod—I understand. The others are petty criminals. Leroy broke into a hardware store and stole a power drill. That crime would have landed him in Lompoc instead of a supermax if the stupid fucker hadn’t bludgeoned the security guard who caught him half to death. Same story with Marco. He was a small time dealer on the outside, probably would have scored twelve months in minimum security if he hadn’t assaulted a cop trying to escape. These guys have no idea what it’s like working in organized crime. I do, and Cade does, too. He hasn’t told me, but I fucking know he’s in some deep shit. WITSEC is nowhere near as safe as the cops and politicians make it out to be. There’s always a way. A person to be threatened. A computer to be hacked. And then you’re dead. We eat our food, and we don’t talk about it anymore.

In the end, worrying about a flawed witness protection system doesn’t really matter. Cade doesn’t get to join WITSEC; he doesn’t even make it out of Chino. Three weeks later, during one of the rare moments the UN aren’t in session, an Arian named Spider stabs my friend three times in the back. Kidneys. Liver. Lungs. A professional hit. The guards carry his limp body down the gangway, past the open door of my cell where I’m doing chin ups, leaving a river of blood behind them. He doesn’t come back.

The official line is that Cade Preston is died of his injuries.

This guy, this stranger…he looks dangerous. Zeth freezes in the hallway, staring straight at him, jaw clenched. And he just accused him of being dead? I have this awful sinking sensation in the pit of my gut. Zeth looks like he put a bullet in this guy, buried him, only to find out that he dug himself out of his shallow grave and has come back to life. The frightening thing is that that’s entirely possible. Was Zeth supposed to put this guy down? Is out and out warfare about to be unleashed? Zeth just picks up his clothes and gets dressed, frowning slightly.

“Hey, Mal, why don’t you go see if the boys need anything, huh?” The stranger asks the guy who was mortifyingly watching Zeth and I have sex only five minutes ago. Mal looks mildly put out but, at a stern look from the dark-haired guy down the hall, does what he’s asked and leaves.

Now that he’s fully dressed, Zeth seems to have gathered himself together a little. “So you’re a Widower, Cade? I guess that makes sense,” he rumbles. He sounds…I have no idea how he sounds. I can’t figure out what’s going on with the stormy expression he’s wearing. Cade scuffs the toe of one boot against the heel of the other, nodding.

“I guess it does, huh? You’re probably very confused right now.”

“Could say that.”

The tension between these two is stifling. Cade seems faintly apologetic, while Zeth is definitely wired to blow a fuse.

“They moved me after the stabbing. I got put in solitary for the remainder of my sentence.”

“They put you in solitary for
five months
?”

“Yeah, man. They pushed pretty hard. And then they pushed harder. I wouldn’t give them what they wanted, so they left me in there to rot. Said I knew where to find ’em if I changed my mind.”

So prison. Zeth knows this guy from
prison,
and by the sounds of things Zeth thought he had died inside. I clear my throat—a timely reminder of my existence. Cade glances up at me, shocked to see me still standing there. Apparently Zeth feels the same way. “Uh, Naomi, why don’t you go get ready for later? I need to have a conversation with this guy.”

A conversation. And not a conversation conducted with his fists? I’m so curious about who the hell this guy is, but I can tell there’s no point objecting. I suddenly feel very, very dirty. I need a shower, and I’m kind of steaming mad at Zeth. He fucks me in a hallway in front of a complete stranger, doesn’t have the decency to
notice
the complete stranger, and then ditches me to go hang out with an old prison buddy? This sounds way too much like something out of White Trash Days of Our Lives. I give him a pointed look and turn my back, not even bothering to answer him. Our room is only twenty feet away—twenty freaking feet and he couldn’t make it that far—and I’m sure he hears the loud reverberation when I slam the door.