Since Lambert had drifted away from Memory Lane for a moment, Cole tried to steer him back on course by asking, “Did you tell Sweet Lips you loved her?”
“Nah. I hiked up that skirt, pulled them hot little panties aside and ate her out right then and there.”
Nodding while forcing half a smile onto his face, Cole said, “Nice one.”
“It sure was. She didn’t even need to ask me to go downtown or nothin’. That’s how I knew it was love. You got anyone like that on the outside?”
Even if he’d known the guy well enough, he truly didn’t want to talk about Paige. Just thinking of the last time he’d seen her caused him to twitch. She insisted he hand himself over to the authorities so they could help him. Apparently, the plan had been for those men to try and remove the Nymar tendrils, but that went real bad real quick, and Paige was nowhere to be found. Perhaps she truly didn’t know what had happened, but that didn’t make him feel much better.
Anxious to divert his attention, if only for a moment, Cole leaned against a wall, crossed his arms over his chest and asked, “So you and Sweet Lips had some breath mints and lived happily ever after?”
“Even better, man. I took her by the hand and led her into that tattoo shop. She said somethin’ somewhere along the line about likin’ ladybugs, so I got them inked on me. And since I already kissed her in all the right spots, I thought I’d commemorate that too.”
Cole realized that his guess about the lip marks hadn’t been exactly right, but it was close enough.
“That’s some good work on your neck,” Lambert said.
Cole took another look down at the markings. They were the same as last time and still hadn’t moved. That was a little bit of good news.
“You got any ink on yer ribs?”
“No,” Cole replied. “At least, not since the last time I checked.”
“Ha! Gettin’ inked there ain’t easy, I can tell you that much. The buzz I was on lasted for about the first five minutes or so and then it was just me and that prick with the electric needle in his hand. I got it done, blazed through a chunk of credit I had on my Visa, and then went out to show my new lady with the magic mouth. Know what she said?”
A slight young man in hospital scrubs approached the pair of guards at the far end of the hall without a word of acknowledgment and then stepped into the elevator. “What did she say?” Cole asked.
“She told me that Sarah ain’t spelled with an H. You ever hear of that? All that hell I went through, all that ink I got drilled into me, all that lickin’ I did outside the shop, and she tells me I spelled Sarah the wrong way. I demanded that bitch show me her driver’s license just to make sure she wasn’t giving me a hard time.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah!” Tracing his hands along the ribbon lettering, Lambert finally slapped his ribs and winced as though the ink was still fresh. “She was right. Damnedest thing I ever saw. Sara. Right there in black and white. No H.”
“Did you try to get the tattoo fixed?”
“Nah. I stole the bitch’s purse and ran like hell.” Grinning from ear-to-ear as he situated his jumpsuit and sealed it up, he added, “Made it all the way to the mountains.”
“Is that how you wound up here?”
“Hell no! I was dragged away after reading the minds of some rich folks in Aspen.”
“Were they thinking anything interesting?”
“Don’t recall,” Lambert said with a shrug.
“More weed and Jim Beam?”
“Nah. I just don’t remember. This night, though,” he said, while patting the side where his Sweet Sarah Sunshine resided, “is one I won’t never forget. I dream about those lips of hers. So what about you? What’s your story?”
“I killed a building full of vampires in Denver. They framed me for killing cops and made sure I was caught for it.”
Lambert’s eyes grew wide. “Seriously? Now that sounds like a helluva good day!”
“Not really, but maybe you should put a good word in for me at my parole hearing.”
“Parole hearing?” Lambert grunted. “What’s that? Nobody on this floor gets to see the outside again unless it’s by an act of God. Come to think of it,” he added while rolling his eyes up to look at the low ceiling, “maybe that’s what the G in G7 stands for.”
“How long have you been here?”
“Can’t remember. The more mind readin’ I try to do, the more of my own crap up here gets wiped clean,” the other prisoner said while tapping his forehead.
“That sucks.”
Footsteps slapped against the concrete floor outside of the cell, announcing the arrival of Waylon and one other guard. He looked inside at Cole, scribbled a few notes onto his clipboard and said, “On your knees and approach the bars.”
After the guard opened the cell door, Cole was allowed to crawl through. Before he was clear of the bars, a foot slammed between his shoulders and pinned him to the floor. Waylon tugged at the collar of Cole’s jumpsuit so he could see the tendril markings and then stepped back while saying, “You’re getting a roommate.”
Cole tried to lift himself up, but was forced back down again so harshly that his face cracked against the floor. Looking up with blood trickling from his nose and lip, he asked, “Am I supposed to shine his shoes while I’m down here?”
Lambert chuckled.
Waylon scribbled.
The guard motioned to someone farther down the hall while drawing a stun gun from his belt. More interesting than that, Cole spotted a bulky figure in the cell beside his. The prisoner there barely made a sound as he moved his wide, leathery body away from the bars and out of sight.
The elevator door rattled open and two more guards escorted another prisoner down the hall. He was Cole’s height, had lighter skin, dark eyes, and about a quarter of his teeth. Instead of the jumpsuits worn by Cole and Lambert, he wore light gray sweatpants and a white T-shirt that was missing its sleeves. The tattoos on his arms, knuckles, and neck looked as if they’d been smeared on with a toothpick after his skin was sliced away and then steamed back into place.
“Put him through his paces,” Waylon said as Cole was forced to back into his cell. “And remember what happens. I’ll want to know everything.”
The stocky prisoner knew the drill of getting into Cole’s cell, but wasn’t happy about it. He dropped to his knees and lowered his head only as long as it took for him to crawl through the low opening. When he looked up again, he glared at Cole as looking at the man who’d molested his baby sister. Climbing back to his feet, the prisoner tugged at the bottom of his shirt and hiked up his pants. “Anything I should know about him?” he asked.
Waylon checked his notes. “Just that he needs to be kept alive. Other than that . . . put him through his paces.”
“This isn’t right,” Cole said. “I didn’t hurt any of those cops. I already told that to everyone that had ahold of me since that night. Jesus Christ, when is someone gonna check the security cameras at that warehouse? There were cameras! There was a damn news helicopter! Someone will—”
His cellmate drove his shin into his groin, forcing Cole to buckle as all of the breath was swept from his lungs and expelled through his gaping mouth. It would take a second or two for the pain to really sink in, so he rushed the bigger prisoner and slammed his shoulder into the guy’s chest and pushed him against the bars. Waylon and all of the guards walked away amidst the knocking of hard soles upon a harder floor.
When Cole felt an elbow drop onto his back, he rammed his shoulder once again into the slab of beef that was his new cellmate. He kept his head down and delivered short hooking punches to the other man’s ribs as if chopping down a tree from two angles. The prisoner weathered the storm while twisting his body to wedge an arm between Cole’s shoulder and his own chest. As soon as Cole was shoved back, he delivered an uppercut that knocked the back of the other man’s head against the bars. The prisoner barely even twitched before driving an elbow into Cole’s face.
>
Not only did that elbow hit him like a club, but Cole’s groin now felt like it had been hit by a flaming jackhammer. Two hooking punches barely caught the other prisoner’s attention. A sharp jab to the nose took the smile off the other man’s face, but only until the prisoner thumped his fist against a portion of Cole’s jumpsuit that was already soaked through with blood. The moment those knuckles hit his incision, Cole was done. The prisoner shoved him toward the toilet and walked over to lay his bulky frame on the freshly made bottom bunk.
Since Cole could barely move, he sat on the toilet and prayed for death.
“Hey, friend,” Lambert said from across the hall. “I didn’t catch your name.”
“Cole.”
“You got some balls, Cole.”
“Yeah. Too bad they’re up near the back of my throat right now.”
Both of the other inmates laughed at that one.
Chapter Five
The next two days passed in a blur. At least, Cole thought it was two days. Since he wasn’t let out of his cell once in that amount of time, he had to use the movements of the rest of the prison as his only gauge. Meals were served. Lights were shut off and turned back on again. Also, his psychotic cellmate only stopped pounding his face into pulp right before lunch and for a few hours after dinner.
Cole had taken to calling him Chop, simply because letters spelling the words PORK CHOP were tattooed onto his fingers just below the knuckles of each hand. And the only reason he got such good looks at those tattoos was because they were flying at him nonstop for what he guessed was two days. Chop never let up unless he needed to use the toilet, get something to drink, or eat some food off the trays that were slid into the cell by guards who were all too eager to move along. By the time day three rolled around, Cole wondered if he was simply being beaten to death as penance for what he was supposed to have done to those cops in Denver. Judging by the disgusted looks he was getting from the guards, he could very well have been getting off light.
“Step aside, asshole,” Chop said. “I gotta take a piss.” He and Cole were both bloodied and battered from their near-constant brawling. Both men could handle themselves, but neither was about to concede. Even more important, Cole’s incision was healing thanks to his enhanced system and his willingness to let the rest of his body take a beating just to divert Chop’s fists from that spot. Even so, it was only a matter of time before Chop tore him wide open. Judging by the interest with which Waylon scribbled his notes, that might well have been what the man in the suit was hoping to see.
When Chop moved over to the toilet and tended to his business, Cole looked over at Lambert. So far the skinnier inmate had been content to remain on his bunk like a rodent seeking refuge in the narrowest crevice of a cave. The sound of a steady liquid stream hitting dented metal filled the cell, accompanied by a contented sigh from the man directing the flow. Cole rushed at Chop from behind and almost got an arm around the man’s thick neck before the inmate spun around to intercept him. His leaky penis was still hanging over the top of his sweats as Chop once again introduced his tattooed fist to Cole’s face.
“Took ya long enough to try that,” Chop mused before lunging forward to get a grip on Cole’s jumpsuit so he could toss him into the metal frame of the bunk bed.
Cole bounced off the bed and landed in a sideways stance. The plan had been to outlast the constant assault and defend himself until Chop was either called off or convinced that he’d met his match, and Paige’s training had been good enough to get him this far. Now, after days of spitting blood and sleeping with one eye open, he was starting to rethink that plan. The healing serum in his body was wearing thin, and the Nymar tendrils had faded into lines beneath his flesh that gave him occasional jolts of strength along with a constant ache running all the way down to his core.
If the spore was still inside him, Cole knew he could have thrown Chop through a wall or maybe even pulled the cell door from its hinges. With only the torn tendrils left behind, those were no longer options. He wasn’t Nymar. He was just sick and tired of being locked up and knocked around. The pain that cinched around his innards tightened, forcing a hardened scowl onto his face. When Chop punched him in the stomach, his fist thumped against a thick mess of scar tissue. Cole pulled away from the other man’s grip and delivered a quick blow to his ribs. His fist landed in the same spot he’d been hitting ever since the beatings first started, putting one of Paige’s lessons into action. If someone’s weakness couldn’t be found, make one.
Chop kept fighting, but Cole remained one step ahead. By the time he swept Chop’s legs out from under him to drop him straight to the floor, he could hear Lambert hollering joyously from the other cell.
“Put me through my paces?” Cole snarled as he straddled Chop’s chest and clamped a hand around his throat. “What’s that supposed to mean? Tell me!”
“You’re dead, you piece of shit,” Chop grunted as he struggled to pry Cole’s hand away from his neck. “If it ain’t me, it’ll be someone else that does it. You stop now and I’ll let you live long enough to suck my dick.”
After driving his knee into the tempting target still dangling from the front of Chop’s pants, Cole placed his hand flat on the prisoner’s face. As good as it was to be on the winning end for a change, it felt as if his organs were going to rupture like pieces of wet sausage being sliced by lengths of garrote wire.
“Get off him!” a guard shouted from outside the cell.
Lambert stood so his body was plastered against the bars and shouted, “Chop started it!”
“Both of you move to opposite sides of the cell!”
After finally managing to pry Cole’s hand away from his windpipe, Chop sank his teeth deeply into his wrist. The wet crunch was the last incentive Cole needed to do what he’d been trying to avoid for so long.
He’d done it once already, but that was back in Denver when he thought he might be under Nymar influence. Now, with the only Nymar in the vicinity having been turned into a pile of ashen skin flakes in a trash bag somewhere, Cole knew he was acting purely out of frustration, anger, and hunger.
“What the fuck are you doin’?” Chop grunted as Cole dropped his face down to bite into his shoulder. Teeth shredded Chop’s flesh and burrowed down even farther in search of what lay beneath the filthy tattooed layers.
“He’s a biter!” one of the guards shouted. “Get this door open!”
The man who responded to that was the same one who’d ordered Lambert to step aside. Waylon’s profile was barely recognizable from the edge of Cole’s vision as he moved in behind the other guards and gazed into the cell over their shoulders. “Everybody move back,” he said. “Make sure there’s a video feed rolling on this and remove anyone not approved for G7 cases from the surveillance rooms. Now!”
Feet scrambled and bodies moved. That was all Cole could make out, since he wasn’t about to stop what he was doing. Chop struggled beneath him and pounded his fists against his ribs and shoulders. When he hit the side of Cole’s head, he only forced him to twist his face and rip off a sizable portion of skin. Chop screamed and grabbed hold of Cole’s hair, pulling him up and away from the coaster-sized hole within inches of his throat.
If he had fangs, the job would have been so much easier. The fact that he even thought that made Cole realize just how far he’d fallen. He was a Skinner. He had the scars and nightmares to prove it. Although the skills he’d been taught had served him well so far, it was the cinching pain inside that spurred him into drinking another human’s blood. What sickened him even more was the fact that allowing that blood to flow down his throat brought him more relief than he’d felt in recent memory. The tendrils wrapped around his innards relaxed. The pain subsided. The healing serum kicked in. He started to get dizzy with the joy of no longer feeling like all of his organs were being pinched between the coils of a spring. Even with the coppery taste of Chop’s blood coating the back of his throat, he couldn’t help but smile as the cell door was open
ed and the guards crawled inside. The wound on Chop’s neck glistened like a freshly cut piece of raw meat that had been plastered to his skin.
“Is he dead?” Waylon asked.
The guards grabbed Cole, shoved the sparking end of a stun gun into his side and cuffed him. “Could be. Want me to check?”
“No. Take him to Medical ASAP.”
Waylon stood just outside the cell as Cole was slammed up against the bars. He jotted on his clipboard and asked, “What made you do that?”
“Didn’t have a choice,” Cole wheezed. “He wouldn’t stop swinging at me when I asked him nicely to stop.”
“Hold him steady,” Waylon said to the other two guards. Once Cole was straightened up and both arms were secured behind his back, Waylon reached into a pocket to remove a bundle of cotton swabs wrapped in a plastic baggie. “I saw you drink his blood. What made you do that?”
When the swab was rubbed against his chin, Cole squirmed away but wasn’t quick enough to prevent the sample from being taken. Now that the pain had subsided, he felt like he could withstand whatever punishment was about to be heaped upon him. He stared defiantly at the guards and kept his mouth shut.
“You’re not a host to the vampire growth,” Waylon said. “Do those tendril fragments somehow give you an innate need to feed or was this just to make your discomfort subside? Do those tendrils help you in some way like they do for the Nymar? Your scars and blood samples mark you as a Skinner. Are you truly being turned or is this possibly a by-product of the Mud Flu?”
The Breaking Page 8
