HUNTER (The Corbin Brothers Book 1) (105 page)

Was any of it worth it? Had the nightclub been worth being locked up? Maybe if I still had my money I could tolerate this a little better. But there was nothing waiting for me. Nothing. Prison was all I had—this half of the room, this mattress I was sitting on, this jumpsuit that was showcasing my belly and my thick thighs, these fucking ugly shoes.

I pushed my fingers through my hopeless hair, realizing that things I had taken for granted before were notably absent here. My hair hung in hanks around my head. I hadn’t done it since the last night I’d worked at the nightclub. Throughout the trial, I’d tried to run my fingers through it, tried to shape it into something, but I still knew that I looked awful, hardly put together.

That was my next six or seven years, if I could make it without hurting someone or breaking rules. Skanky hair, shit wardrobe, and not a drop of goddamn alcohol.

This wasn’t prison. This was hell.

I looked up to see Willow watching me. This was my cellmate, the person who would be sleeping with me for God knew how long. We’d definitely started off on the wrong foot, though it hadn’t been my fault. I’d certainly done nothing to try to relieve the tension between us. Maybe it was time to make nice.

“So,” I said. “Tell me about a normal day in prison.”

“That’s none of your goddamn business, sugar,” she sniped, shoving the last armful of noodle packets into her cabinet. She was barely able to shut the door without possessions tumbling out.

So this was how the game was going to be played. Great.

I cleared my throat. “I’m in prison because I was convicted of sex trafficking, sugar,” I said, “and a number of other things on top of that.”

“I don’t give a shit,” Willow said, shrugging as she hopped into her bed with a Twinkie. Where was this girl getting Twinkies?

“You asked me why I was here,” I said. “I’m trying to tell you.”

Willow ate her Twinkie delicately and with great relish. I had the feeling she was trying to make me jealous, but I was in no mood for Twinkies. All I wanted was liquor. Any kind of liquor as long as there was a lot of it.

“What’s sex trafficking?” she asked finally, after she’d rattled the wrapper obnoxiously for no less than five minutes as she’d hunted down all the little crumbs and smears of filling.

“They said I coerced girls into selling their bodies for sex,” I said. “That I forced them to.”

“And did you do it?” Willow asked.

I shrugged. “The jury seemed to think I did,” I said. “I’m here, aren’t I?”

“You didn’t have any appeals left?” she asked.

“My lawyer thought it was best not to drag it out,” I said.

“So you did do it,” Willow crowed.

“It was a business,” I protested, pushing myself off the bed and standing over her, crossing my arms. “It wasn’t what they said it was. If they didn’t want to do business, they should’ve left.”

“Okay, okay,” Willow said, holding her hands up. “You didn’t do it, then.”

I blinked a couple of times. Didn’t I do it? I was confused now. It had been my nightclub and my business. And sure, I was anything but naïve. I knew it was wrong. Still, I was surprised by the testimony from the girls. It had hurt. I’d always thought that they’d worked there because they wanted to be there. The idea that I’d forced them to do anything was distasteful.

“Cell check! Cell check!”

Willow leapt off her bed so fast that it made me stumble backwards.

“Shit, shit, shit,” she hissed. “Someone must have snitched. Fucking bitches, all of them. Shit.”

She reached into the bottom of her cabinet and produced a black garbage bag that was tied tightly and wrapped in a towel.

“What’s that?” I asked, eyeing it. “What’s cell check?”

“The guards are going to be in here in a minute to sweep this room for contraband,” Willow said, holding the bundle as if it were a baby.

“What’s considered contraband?” I wondered.

“This,” she said, thrusting the package at me. I backed away from it.

“I don’t want it,” I said. “I just got here. I don’t want to get in trouble.”

“They won’t suspect you,” she said. “You’re new. Please. Take it. Put it in your jumpsuit. You’re so big they’d never notice.”

“Fuck you,” I spat at her. “That’s the second time you’ve said something about my weight. There won’t be a third time, bitch.”

“I’m sorry,” she spluttered. “I didn’t mean it. Please. Please take it. I can’t get in trouble again. Please.”

I took the package, which sloshed a little bit, and flattened it against my stomach, securing my jumpsuit just as a pair of guards entered the cell.

“Outside,” one of them ordered, and Willow and I dutifully obeyed. The garbage bag inside of my jumpsuit made what seemed to me to be a thunderous rattling sound, but if the guards noticed, they didn’t let on. Why had I put my ass on the line for a girl I didn’t even know? I couldn’t believe the stupid decisions I was making in prison, and it was only my first day.

Willow fidgeted as we stood out in the hallway with other inmates getting their cells searched.

“Are they searching everyone’s?” I asked.

Willow nodded. “Sometimes they do it randomly, but it’s usually because they get a tip. As in some bitch snitched.”

This last part, she said a little louder, drawing the attention of other girls standing out there with us.

“No one snitched on you,” someone hissed.

“Quiet in the hall,” a guard called, and I tried to stand as still as I could. There was no reason to make any extra movements, to rattle the bag and whatever it contained and give myself away. Willow had said that I wouldn’t be suspected because I was new, but I was sure that if I got caught with whatever I had inside my jumpsuit, I wouldn’t escape punishment. Follow the rules, the lawyer had said. Keep your head down, Pitt had said. So far, I was doing a miserable fucking job of both things.

“There’s an awful lot of you, isn’t there?”

I turned to my other side to see another inmate leering at me.

“What you see is what you get,” I sneered.

“More of you to love,” the inmate said, raising her eyebrows suggestively.

“Stay away from the new meat, Tama,” another inmate said softly. “She looks a little squishy.”

My eyes darted up to tell off whoever had made the jibe, but the guards exited our cell.

“Clear!” they announced. “Return to your cells.”

Willow and I filed in to assess the damage. Her cabinet had been positively turned out, its contents scattered back out across the floor.

“I just cleaned this up,” she complained.

Both of our beds had been unmade, the mattresses dumped on the floor. Even the bundle of clothes I hadn’t had a chance to put away yet had been picked through and strewn on the floor.

“They don’t really seem to care about our stuff, do they?” I asked, stooping to collect my things and gasping. I couldn’t believe I’d forgotten about the bag of contraband I’d been carrying around. Bending over made it gurgle and the bag crinkle unmistakably.

“Glad you didn’t get the chance to bend over out in the hall,” Willow said critically, holding her hands out. “Everyone would’ve been able to tell what you’re carrying.”

I unfastened my jumpsuit and handed my cellmate the bundle. It had warmed against my skin, but I could tell now that it was pure liquid inside. What could it contain?

“So this is contraband?” I asked, readjusting my jumpsuit.

Willow nodded. “I’ll show you—I at least owe you that—but it has to wait until lights out.”

“All right,” I said. “Here, I’ll help you clean up.”

“Why are you helping me?” she asked, her suspicious look back in place.

I shrugged. “I’ve already helped you by hiding your contraband. It seems to be becoming a habit.”

I gathered up all of Willow’s things—she had to really like those instant noodles for as many as she was hoarding—and helped her arrange them in her cabinet. It was easy to put the beds back together with two people working at it, and soon the room looked better than it had when I first got there.

“That’s better,” I said, dusting my hands off and sitting back on my bed.

“You don’t have much stuff,” she observed, looking at the sad stack of clothes in my open cabinet. “Need to go to the commissary?”

“What’s that?” I asked.

“This is your first time in, huh?” Willow marveled, hugging her knees. “Commissary’s where you get all your stuff. You either earn money working here at the prison—not much, but some—or you have your people on the outside add money to your account.”

“What can you get there?” I asked. “Noodles, I’m guessing, are on the menu.”

“Hell yeah, noodles,” Willow said happily. “And other snacks. And hair stuff, bath stuff, slippers, dishes, lots of things.”

“I wish I could go there,” I said. “But I don’t have anybody on the outside to get me money.” I didn’t even have any money of my own anymore. All of it, gone. All those years of hard work might as well have never happened.

“You don’t have family or anything?” Willow asked, dumbfounded.

“Not really,” I said. The last thing I wanted to do was get into my family dynamic—or lack thereof—with my new cellmate. She’d already pried the reason for my incarceration out of me. I didn’t want to give her any more ammunition. Careful who you trust, Pitt had said. I was basically shitting all over the advice of everyone who’d tried to impart any to me.

“Well, when you start working, you can save up your money for stuff,” Willow said.

“What kind of work is there?” I asked. “What do you do?”

“I work in the laundry room,” she said. “It’s okay, I guess, but there are other things. You could land a job assisting the officers if you have an education. They need help with filing and stuff. Or you could do grounds work, which is nice because you get to be outside. You could also work in the kitchen, cooking and stuff, or be on cleanup crew.”

“How is it decided?” I asked. “Do you get to pick?”

“Mr. Harrison will decide for you since he’s your officer,” Willow said. “You can let him know if you have any special skills, but it’s up to him, in the end.”

Kitchen staff didn’t sound too bad. I could cook up a storm and frequently did so at the nightclub. I winced a little at the memory—happy girls noshing on my cooking. Why had they turned on me? I’d given them a place to live, food to eat. If they hadn’t wanted to sleep with men for money, they didn’t have to. Why the hell was I in prison for being in charge of girls who just wanted to make money? It hardly seemed fair.

“Ready to go to dinner?” Willow asked, standing up and stretching.

“Already?” I asked. “What time is it?”

“Five-thirty,” she said. “Dinner’s always at five-thirty. It’s tough to get used to, at first, being so early, but you’ll figure it out. Until you do, there’s noodles.”

“There’s always noodles,” I agreed, following Willow out of the cell. That was one good thing. At least I was making nice with my cellmate. I needed to make friends here. There were too many possibilities for bad things to happen otherwise. And if I was looking at doing years here, I might as well try to get used to it, try to make a life for myself.

Many inmates were making their way to the cafeteria. My nose had been correct earlier, and I recognized the hallway we’d passed as the way to the cafeteria.

“You’re pretty eager for dinner, aren’t you?” Tama asked, sidling up to me. I didn’t like her leer, her face, or her proximity.

“You’re pretty eager for an ass-kicking, aren’t you?” I shot back, pushing my elbow into her to get some distance between her and me.

“I like when they play hard to get,” she said, giving me that eerie grin before melting back into the crowd.

“What’s that bitch’s story?” I asked, turning back to Willow.

She shrugged. “Tama always gets what she wants. If she wants you, she’ll have you.”

“Like fuck she will,” I responded. “Nobody can just have me.”

We got our trays from one end of the buffet line and worked our way up, kitchen workers in aprons and hairnets ladling food onto the partitions. It didn’t look half bad and I was hungry, besides. I imagined myself on the other side of the buffet and that didn’t seem bad, either.

“You can sit at my table,” Willow said. “Usually, people sit with their colors, but you’re new and you’re my cellmate and you did me a huge solid earlier with the cell search. We’ll see how it goes.”

“All right,” I said dubiously, balancing my tray with one hand and carrying a cup of water with the other.

Willow’s table was a raucous assembly of mostly white girls. They eyed me as I set my tray down.

“This is Wanda, my new cellmate,” Willow said, jerking her thumb at me. “Wanda, meet the girls.”

“Hello, sugars,” I said, not being able to help the idea that I had been transported back to high school and the popular girls were deciding whether or not I was up to snuff.

They started talking all at once again as I sat down. Willow slid in beside me and we set to eating. It was simple fare, sure, but it comforted me. I was eating a hot meal. That’s more than I could say before, during my trial. All I got were sandwiches. Compared to that, this was heaven. The corn was buttery, the chicken was well seasoned, and the vegetables were still firm. Whoever was in charge of the kitchen knew what she was doing.