by Sophia Gray
With a dazed expression, Bib rubbed his temples. “Like I said, every problem's got a solution. But I dunno what it'll be for this one. Just thinking about it makes me feel like there's a six-car pile-up in my skull.”
“I was thinking maybe I could...I don't know, go to the cops.” Beth's voice was barely above a whisper.
“I know that seems like the best idea, hon, and I wish I could tell you it'd work, but it wouldn't. You'd be confessing to a crime with the application form thing, and the cops won't be willing to do fuck-all to protect you and keep you out of prison unless you agree to give them something big in return.”
“Like what?”
“Like testifying against me. Feeding them info on all the bad shit I've been involved in as the leader of the Warriors. Which would be fine with me, if putting me in prison would be the end of it. It wouldn't, though. It'd mean giving evidence that'd bring down everyone else in the MC too, and I just can't do that. Not when I swore an oath to protect them. Besides, it's not like the cops would just snatch you out of Bluebonnet and put you under protection. They'd want you to help them collect evidence to build their case against Butler and the rest, which would mean sending you back in there with a wire. That's too goddamn dangerous.”
Beth sighed. She'd never felt so tired in her life. “So what should we do?”
Bib considered this for a moment. “I don't know what to do about Hank or the other Warriors in Bluebonnet, but at least we can get you out of this mess. I'll have the guys whip up some fake ID papers for you. It should only take a day or two, and then you can just disappear. Maybe we can get you set up a couple of states away for a few months or a year, until the heat dies down and it's safe for you to come back.”
She thought about it. It seemed like a solid plan, and it was a relief to think that she might not be trapped and helpless after all.
But...
“If I don't show up for my shift, they might figure out that I told you what's going on. They could take it out on Hank and the rest of the Warriors.”
“Hon, you need to let me worry about what happens with the club,” Bib insisted. “I know how much you care about Hank. You know I care about him too. But he's one tough son of a bitch, and so are the rest of them. They can stand the heat, at least until I figure out a way to solve this shit. You ain't no outlaw. You're my niece, I love you, and I need to get you as far away from those fucking animals in Bluebonnet right now, before something bad happens to you.”
Beth was so tempted to just say yes and let Bib fix everything for her. When she thought of working one more shift in that hellhole, her stomach lurched and she felt like she might faint. She could just walk away from all of it—start over someplace new, work some low-profile job at a fast food joint or a gas station, make new friends, and erase all memories of Bluebonnet from her mind.
But there was something about what Bib said—that he didn't have any ideas about how to fix things for Hank and the other MC members inside, but he'd figure out a way. It reminded her of Hank in the stairwell, telling her he'd think of a solution to their predicament sooner or later. Oh sure, both men were extremely confident that they'd come up with something.
Somehow.
Eventually.
But how long would it take them? Would it work, or would men like Bull and Butler have contingencies in place that Hank and Bib hadn't thought of? And even if it did work, how much damage would be inflicted upon them in the meantime?
Seeing Hank almost every day as she worked at Bluebonnet had been difficult. Even though he tried to remain stoic, she could see how much being there was sapping his strength, his vitality, his identity. It was in the slope of his shoulders, the hardness in his eyes, the way his arms always seemed tense and prepared to lash out. It nearly broke her heart, especially since she knew she couldn't show him how much she cared about him without endangering both of them.
But how much harder would it be for her to be away from him? To imagine him in that terrible place without her? Running away would keep her safe, but it would also feel like she was abandoning him to his fate.
Beth felt these conflicting desires pulling at her, threatening to tear her in half.
“I can see the wheels in your head turning,” Bib said. “But there ain't nothing for you to think about. We're gonna get you some new papers in a day or two and get you the fuck out of there, end of story. If I have to tie you up, toss you in the trunk of a car, and drive you across the state line myself, that's what I'm gonna do.”
She nodded. “Okay. But please, please, you have to figure out a way to save Hank from all this. You should see what that place is doing to him, Bib. He doesn't deserve this.”
“I promise I'll do everything I can to help him,” Bib assured her. “Now I'm gonna go out the back and make sure no one sees me, just in case these fuckers are watching you. Remember, tomorrow you need to go in there like nothing's changed. If they see or sense anything different about you, there's no telling what they'll assume or how they'll react.”
But hours after Bib had left, Beth was tossing and turning in bed, unable to sleep. All she could picture was Hank, surrounded by pitiless stone walls and thousands of vicious men who wanted to murder him, with no one to comfort him or look out for him.
No one to love him.
Chapter 22
Beth
The next day, Beth tried to follow Bib's advice and act normally. But when she drove past the gate to the CO parking lot and saw the huge metal doors slide shut behind her, she was hit by a panic attack so strong and sudden, it felt like her heart was going to blast out of her ribcage and splatter against the steering wheel. Her hands shook violently, and she found herself gasping for air with each breath.
What if they had been watching her place last night? What if they'd seen Bib enter or leave, no matter how careful he'd tried to be? What if they were waiting to confront her inside—to punish her somehow?
What if they didn't know about Bib, but they still decided that today was the day they'd throw some extra torment her way? What if they followed through on their threats to force her into sex?
What if Bib came up with a plan and decided to act on it today, but they saw right through it? What if they took it out on Hank and the Warriors?
What if they were finally able to prod Hank into killing for them, and he got caught and sentenced to life? What if he got the death penalty for it? What if he ratted them out and they had to murder him to shut him up?
What if they...
Beth heard a hysterical screech of laughter, and it took a moment for her to realize it had come from her. There was so much danger from so many sides, she'd mentally lumped them all together into one vague, faceless, terrifying They—Butler, Bull, the White Knights, the Nation of Sinners, the other COs. A huge, gray, impenetrable mass of solid dread closing in on all sides, just like Bluebonnet itself. She felt like a single drop of water trying to fight the rest of the ocean.
She took several deep breaths as she stared at her hands, willing them to stop trembling. After a few minutes, they did. Her heart was still twisting and slithering in her chest like a snake, but at least that was on the inside so no one could see it.
Just remember to keep taking breaths, she thought. Slow and steady, one after the other. Keep your eyes blank. Keep your posture stiff and neutral. Keep everyone thinking that this is just a normal miserable day for you at this job—because if there's one thing the monsters in here are good at, it's sensing weakness and exploiting it.
Beth got out of her car, went to the small side door for the guards, swiped her key card, and stepped inside. She changed into her uniform in the locker room, and then came the familiar ritual of walking through a dozen different doors as they opened for her and clanged shut behind her.
Finally, she arrived in cell block G and checked in with Butler. He eyed her with his usual air of mild contempt, then wrote her name down in the log book as he always did.
So far, so good, Beth thought
.
One of the first duties Beth attended to at the start of her shift was transporting prisoners to the shower room. This was done in small groups—usually five convicts at a time—to maintain order and keep things manageable. The same procedure was used when bringing them to the cafeteria, except that three or four guards were used, and the number of prisoners went up to about twenty. The ratio of one guard to every five inmates was strictly maintained at all times.
Too many prisoners plus too few guards could easily equal a riot—a grim equation that too many of the older COs still remembered from what happened fifteen years before.
During her brief time working at Bluebonnet, Beth had largely become indifferent to seeing men naked. Half of the prisoners seemed to walk around the cell block in their underwear most of the time, and she'd seen all of them in the showers at one time or another. With little to do in prison except exercise, many of the men looked like they'd stepped right off the pages of bodybuilding magazines—their pecs, abs, biceps, and glutes bulged and glistened under the running water, and their dicks flopped around as they soaped up their bodies. Some of them tried to provoke Beth by staring at her and pretending to jerk off, and they traded plenty of jokes and idle threats with each other. But for the most part, they just went about the business of cleaning themselves.
The casual nudity shocked Beth a bit when she saw it on her first day, but by her third or fourth, she barely registered it.
The only exception was Hank.
Every time she saw Hank strip down and step into the shower room, she couldn't help but remember how his lithe, muscular body felt pressed against hers. She imagined those powerful arms wrapped around her again, and whenever he turned his back to her, she longed to run her fingernails down his shoulders and kiss the nape of his neck.
But even though it was her favorite part of every shift—the lone bright spot in her day, when she could cherish these memories of being with him—she had to remind herself not to stare, or even appear to look at him casually. Bull may have already known about her prior relationship with Hank, but if any of the other inmates sensed it, they could try to hold it over her. So she had to steal brief glances from the corners of her eyes, and no matter how many times she did, the quick flashes of his nude body just left her hungry for more. Then the shower was over in minutes, Hank let her lead him back to the cell block without a word, and she'd look forward to the next day's shower.
This time, though, before she could start to round up her first five prisoners for the shower, Butler said, “You can skip shower duty today. I'll handle it. The visitors' desk is understaffed, so you can spend the first couple hours of your shift there.”
Beth froze in her tracks. Her initial twinge of disappointment at not being able to see Hank naked that day gave way to something darker within seconds—she'd never seen Butler personally handle a task as menial as shower duty, especially when he could delegate it to the lower-ranking guards instead.
And what did he mean when he said the visitors' desk was “understaffed?” It was the least-demanding job in Bluebonnet, since checking in visitors was fairly mindless work with no real possibility of danger. The same aging CO was assigned to it just about every day—and whenever he called in sick, Butler tended to simply cancel visitation for that day, rather than pulling another guard away from the cell blocks where their skills and training were more urgently needed.
Butler noted her hesitation. “Got a problem with that, D'Amato?”
“No sir,” she replied instantly.
“Good. Then get to it.”
But as she headed toward the exit doors of the cell block, she snuck a peek over her shoulder. Generally, when Beth rounded up five prisoners to take to the showers, she was under standing orders from Bull to make sure that the bikers and Aryans all went together for safety reasons.
So why was Butler leading Hank to the showers with four members of the Nation of Sinners?
Chapter 23
Hank
Hank had gone plenty of nights without sleep before—doing long-distance rides with the Warriors, or partying until the sun came up. Maybe he'd be a little groggy or punchy the next day depending on how much he'd been drinking or watching the lines on the highway, but overall, he was able to shake off the after-effects and do whatever the MC required of him.
But going a whole night without sleep in Bluebonnet was something else entirely.
After Ram's not-so-veiled threat, Hank had spent every minute in his bunk with his back to the wall. Every muscle in his body was tensed, ready to spring into action if Ram tried anything. His mind played out a hundred different possibilities in the event of a confrontation—most of them involving some form of injury, since the odds of escaping a close-quarters fight unscathed when he was unarmed and facing a blade seemed fairly hopeless.
Whenever Ram shifted in the upper bunk, Hank clenched, preparing to defend himself. There were even a couple of times when Ram hopped down from his bunk to piss—and as he did, he leered across the cell, savoring Hank's anxiety before climbing back up. Hank was sure that Ram was even moving around in his bed more than usual, enjoying the knowledge that every creak of the springs set Hank on edge.
And through it all, a part of Hank's brain kept insisting that no matter how much he tried to prepare himself for an attack, it didn't matter. This would be his last night on earth, and there wasn't a goddamn thing he could do about it.
He'd been in plenty of life-threatening situations before and he'd always managed to keep his cool, so he was surprised by the fear that accompanied these thoughts. After a while, he understood that he'd previously been prepared to accept death as long as he'd been living as a free man and a Warrior.
But not like this. Not curled up in a cage with a number instead of a name, wearing prison-issue clothes and lying on prison-issue sheets, staring at drab walls and smelling the sweat and shit of his fellow inmates.
This was no way for a man to die. But in this place, it happened all the time and often went unpunished.
And why? Because he'd let himself get too drunk and too morbid on the anniversary of his family's death, and lost control in what turned out to be the most crucial moment in his life. He silently wished, prayed, begged to take that moment back—just as most of the men in Bluebonnet focused on that one mistake, that one bad decision that put them in here, and swore they'd do anything to erase it.
One moment. One split-second choice made differently, and he'd have been home in bed or riding with the Warriors right now, and Beth wouldn't be putting herself at risk every day.
By the night's final hour, the tension in Hank's shoulders was making his head throb like it was being smacked with a hammer, and he hated absolutely everyone in the world.
He hated Beth for making him care about her, when those feelings had no place in this hellhole. He hated Bib for sending her in here as a guard without knowing the first fucking thing about how this place worked. He hated Speed Bump for forgetting his oath to his fellow Warriors, for being weak enough to let the Aryans piss all over his sworn brothers instead of telling Bib or fighting back.
He hated his parents for abandoning him, alone and defenseless, to spend the rest of his life chasing a new family and a sense of belonging he'd never truly feel like he deserved. He hated his wife and son for dying and leaving him in a bottomless pit of grief and despair.
Most of all, he hated himself. For everything, for his whole life, for every decision that led to him being locked in here.
Finally, the lights in the cell block flickered on and the barred doors slid open. Hank tried to relax his muscles, but painful cramps shot through his whole body. When he moved forward on the bunk, he felt his bare back peel away from the gray paint on the wall—his sweat had dried at some point in the night, causing his skin to stick.
Ram hopped down from his bunk with a big smile, yawning theatrically. “Wow! Nothing like a good night of deep, restful sleep, is there? I don't know about you, but my batteri
es are fully recharged. I feel like a million bucks!”
“I'm so happy for you,” Hank grumbled.
The first part of the daily routine was for the men in cell block G to be taken to the showers a few at a time. Hank hoped the hot water would wake him up a bit.
Also, it was his chance to spend a little time with Beth, even if neither of them could openly acknowledge it.
He saw her trying not to watch him in the showers, and even though part of him hated that she was still being more obvious about it than she should, he had to admit to himself that he enjoyed her attention on some level. He liked the feeling of her eyes on his naked body while he washed himself. It was the closest thing they had to intimacy in here, and it allowed him to fondly remember their brief, passionate encounter in the bathroom before everything went wrong for both of them.
Hank saw Beth enter the cell block, and tried not to look at her too overtly. It wasn't easy. Even in that uniform, she was gorgeous, and the soft curves of her body were still quite visible.
