Jose reached over, pulling Scoop’s head from the table and forcing him to look at him.
“Keep your nose out everyone’s business or the next place I’ll shove my cock is in your mouth. Got it?”
He dropped Scoop’s head back onto the table and again, Scoop clenched his eyes closed, blocking out the room around him.
In that moment, something inside me snapped. The room around me took on a red haze, and I felt myself shutting down. I was slipping into something dangerous. Something unknown or unseen, and I became afraid of myself. I was afraid of what I’d do when they finally let me loose, and at some point, they’d have to.
The towel cut into my neck and the floor beneath me was covered in my blood. I wasn’t sure how badly I was bleeding. I was numb. There was no pain. There was no ache. There was only the raw hate and anger that was rotting in my stomach.
Finally, the towel loosened enough for me to get away. I snatched the bloody towel from my capturers and turned on them, tearing into their faces with my fist in a way I never had before. I screamed with my attack like a madman, and my screams echoed through the room and out into the walkway outside the laundry.
I lunged toward Jose, but just as I moved, officers filled the room. They piled in with pepper spray and calling out codes. The alarms sounded, and more COs came pouring in. Soon, they had us all pinned to the floor with their knees in our backs. My eyes met Jose’s from across the room and I promised him without even speaking that as soon as I was loose, I was going to kill him.
I watched as they led Jose and his two half-naked men to the hole. Afterwards, they transported Scoop to the infirmary. His dead eyes flashed my way before he disappeared with the guards out of the laundry room. He’d pulled his pants back up, but they were covered in his blood, showing how badly Jose and his men had ripped him apart. They had violated him in the worse way possible, and I wasn’t sure Scoop was ever going to be able to come back from that.
SCOOP WAS IN the infirmary for three days following their attack. I was more worried about his mental status, though. Not many men could come back from that, and I prayed he’d overcome.
On the third day, I stood at the bars and watched as Reeves and Douglas returned him to his cell. He didn’t look my way. He didn’t blink. He just disappeared behind the cinderblock wall that separated us. The bars to his room clanked as they closed and slammed into place, locking him in.
For days he didn’t speak, not even to me. His eyes became shifty as he walked in the chow line with his head down and his shoulders hunched. He quit eating, spending breakfast, lunch, and dinner poking at his food rather than consuming it.
My friend became a shell of himself, hollow and void of even a glimmer of the old Scoop. I stayed beside him, guarding him and hoping he’d be able to shake it, but every day, there was the same silence.
At night, I’d lay awake and listen to him crying from his cell. He never slept anymore, and it showed. His eyes grew darker and more lifeless, his lids getting heavier as time went by.
As the week after the attack stretched on, I silently planned my attack on Jose and his men when they were finally released from the hole. When I wasn’t planning, I was worrying about Scoop and Lyla. It was a never-ending cycle that I couldn’t manage to break.
Finally, on the fifth night after his attack, Scoop spoke.
“Hey, X,” he whispered from the side of his cell.
“Yeah?”
“I want you promise me something,” he muttered, sadness etched deep in his voice.
I swallowed, not liking the way he sounded. “Anything.” I rolled over, facing the cinderblock wall as if I could see him through it.
“Promise no matter what you’ll take care of yourself. I don’t want anything happening to you.”
I sat up, my eyes scanning the darkness around me. “Come on, bro, you know you don’t have to worry about me,” I said playfully, trying my hardest to sound like him.
He chuckled darkly from his cell, and the weight on my chest lifted a bit. A hush settled over the room, and I assumed he’d fallen asleep.
“X,” he said again.
“Yeah?”
“I miss my family. I miss my wife and my daughter. You know they quit coming to see me?”
“No. I didn’t know that. I’m sorry to hear that.”
“Yeah, I’m sorry, too.”
I’d forgotten that Scoop had a family outside. He knew so much about everyone else, but he rarely mentioned anything about himself.
I smiled at the thought of him getting out and hugging his baby girl. He would get to see them again. Unlike me, he wasn’t serving a life sentence.
“You’re halfway there, man. Halfway.” I yawned.
There was silence after that. I drifted to sleep, dreaming of Lyla and her sweet smile.
God, I missed her.
CHAPTER 25
x
SCOOP HUNG HIMSELF with his bed sheets with the words Daddy will always love you painted on the wall in his blood. I guessed it was too much for him to handle. Hell, it was too much for anyone. Rape was rape, and Scoop’s had been brutal.
I stood at my bars and watched as Scoop’s death scene unraveled. The sounds of the camera clicks filled my room as they took pictures of his body. The COs laughed and chatted about their day as if a human being wasn’t hanging dead from his cell window.
They didn’t know him, and they didn’t care. He was nothing but an empty cell now. He was a statistic in some file… a name to be blotted from roll call. Soon, there would be another inmate in his cell. They moved them out and moved them in just as fast.
The coroner came and made a few inquiries. I listen from my cell as he asked questions and took more pictures. He emerged with Scoop in a body bag some time later. I stood at the bars and watched as they rolled him down the block on a stretcher.
Would his family ever find out the reason why he’d taken his own life?
I hated myself for not fighting harder. I should’ve fought harder.
The urge to cry was strong when his body disappeared from sight, but I’d always known the number-one rule of prison.
Never get attached.
It’d gotten attached to Scoop. I trusted him. He was my friend in a friendless place and the only brother I ever knew. And now, because I’d grown weak over time, he was gone. He’d opted out of this life, taking the easy way out rather than reliving the heinous crimes against him over and over.
I was angry with him, but I understood. I’d known from the moment the rape was over that he’d never come back from it, and he hadn’t, not really. Scoop had died on the table in the laundry room a week before he hung himself. I’d seen the light go out in his eyes. I’d watched him leave us.
Everyone left. My mom left. Lyla left, and now Scoop. There was no one. There was no one left.
Even I was gone. I didn’t know who I was anymore. Was I X or had I become Christopher Jacobs again?
I didn’t know much, but I knew the agony that laced my nervous system after Scoop’s death quickly turned into revenge. The monster I’d kept at bay for so long was begging to be released.
I had nothing left to lose, so I let him out.
THE DINING HALL was silent when I entered the following day. Every eye was on me as I strode across the room and got in line for what looked like chicken and rice. I sat down at a table alone and stared off into space as I ate.
The days after Scoop’s death became a blur, and I drifted in and out of a strange state of mind. Hours would go by and I wouldn’t realize it. I would drift into my moments of emptiness and wake up in another part of the prison, unsure of how I got there. Things became dark for me, and I could feel myself shutting down completely.
Jose Alvarez and his boys were found murdered a week later, hanging from the showers. It couldn’t be tied to me, but again, everyone assumed it was me murdering everyone. It just so happened that everyone who was being killed at Fulton was somehow linked to me. I didn’t understand i
t, but I quit questioning it. Someone out there was doing my dirty work, and while I missed the thrill of watching the life leave Jose’s eyes, I appreciated whoever was committing the murders.
Another week went by, and I heard nothing else about my case. Things moved slowly in my world, which meant it could years before I was released. I wasn’t sure I would last that long. Taking the easy way out was starting to sound appealing, but every time I considered it, I’d close my eyes and see Lyla’s face.
She loved me. She was waiting for me. I couldn’t leave her. I wouldn’t leave her.
A few weeks after Scoop’s death, I began to hear the rumors. Whispers of Lyla’s name would skim past my ears, making me think that maybe I’d missed her so much I was hearing people say her name, but that wasn’t the case.
Sitting at the table, shoving an overcooked piece of pork down my throat, I heard an inmate behind me say her name. I spun around and before I realized what I was doing, I had him jerked up by his collar.
“What was that?” I asked through my teeth.
“I didn’t say nothing,” he lied.
He was scrawny. In his late forties, he had patchy facial hair and rotting teeth. And to top it off, he stunk like he hadn’t washed in months.
“Don’t fucking lie to me. I heard you say her name. You said Lyla Evans. What about her?” I hissed in his face, my fist tightening in his collar.
“She’s been green-lighted,” he said around my chokehold.
My fist loosened. “That’s old news. She doesn’t work here anymore anyway.”
“No. The green-light’s been extended past the prison walls. She’s fair game no matter where she is. Some mob boss wants her pretty little head on a plate.”
I dropped him to the ground with a thump.
Was he telling the truth?
What the fuck was going on, and was the mob involved somehow?
There had been a lot of deaths lately. Starting with Carlos and ending with Jose and his boys. Maybe the Mexican Mafia was affiliated somehow?
Ideas flowed through my head like water, but nothing stuck. Nothing made sense.
The dynamics of Fulton had shifted once again, and I had a feeling that an outside source was to blame. People were acting afraid. Gangs stuck closely to themselves, and everyone was being quiet. It was totally fucked up, but something was definitely going down.
FIRST THING, I needed to get the fuck out of Fulton. If the green-light had been extended past the prison walls, then she was no longer safe. I couldn’t sit there and wait without knowing what was happening to her.
I’d already lost Scoop; I wasn’t about to lose Lyla, too. I couldn’t make it without her. Wouldn’t even try to make without her. I had to get to her before anyone else did, and I needed to do that fast.
I paced my cell for two days before an idea struck me. Without hesitation, I slammed my fist as hard as I could into the cinderblock wall. My knuckles cracked against the cement, sending my blood splattering to the floor by my feet. Pain shot up my air, but I held it in, gripping my fist until I could get an officer’s attention and get hauled off to the infirmary.
Once my escort came and the doors to the infirmary were opening, I knew there was no going back. Something inside me shifted, and instinct had me looking around for her face. I closed my eyes, wishing I could see her, touch her soft skin and kiss her sweet lips.
Dr. Giles came in, his eyes dropping to my hands as he pulled on a pair of latex gloves. He shook his head and sighed. “Put him in there.” He motioned to an open bed.
He followed me into a curtained space and then shook his head again. “What did you do this time?” he asked as he began to clean my battered hand. He eyed my suspiciously.
“I got mad,” I said honestly.
“Mad about what?”
“Scoop,” I muttered. His name burned my tongue like hot sauce.
Giles lowered his eyes and glanced over his shoulder to see if the COs were watching from across the room. They stood, leaning against the desk and talking among themselves. “I’m sorry for your loss. I know he was your friend.”
I jerked and hissed as he poured straight alcohol over my knuckles.
“I also know you two were trying to set up Lyla.”
His eyes found mine, and I didn’t even try to hide my surprise. How had he found out?
He grinned as I searched his face for an answer to my unasked question.
“I’m not stupid, son. I’ve been around long enough to know what you guys were up to. I knew about her being green-lighted, and I actually was relieved when she quit. It was getting way too dangerous around here for her.”
“Agreed,” I said through gritted teeth.
Dr. Giles had no qualms about bringing the pain. It was more than obvious he was getting off on it since he kept pouring alcohol into my cut.
“She’s still in danger,” I said, finally putting my plan into place. His eyes moved from my knuckles and searched my face. “I’m telling the truth. Someone on the outside is trying to get to her now.”
His face paled. “How do you know?” he asked while he bandaged my knuckles.
“I shook it out of another inmate. I need to get to her, Doc.
“Leave it to the authorities.”
I shook my head. Surely, he wasn’t serious. The authorities couldn’t protect their own. What the fuck could they do for Lyla now? Especially since half the cops were in the pockets of someone.
“Seriously?” I looked at him incredulously. He couldn’t be that daft.
He sighed deeply, coming to the same conclusion I had this whole time.
“Can you help me get out of here?” I took a risk and asked.
Asking someone to help break you out of prison was a huge violation. It meant permanent isolation, but I was willing to risk it.
“I know you care about her, too, Giles. She’s like a daughter to you. Please, let me save her. You know I’m right about this. You know it.”
Reluctantly, he nodded, his eyes studying me intensely. “You’re allergic to Penicillin, right?”
I nodded, knowing exactly where he was going with his question.
“I think those knuckles are deep. I’m worried about infection. I think you might need a dose of Penicillin.”
He winked at me before he left my side, coming back shortly with a syringe. Pulling the curtain, his eyes moved over my face once more.
“You’re sure about this?” he asked.
I set my jaw and closed my eyes. Lyla’s face popped into my memory. “Yes. Just do it.”
He pulled the cap off the syringe and injected it into me. Within minutes, its effects began closing up my throat. As I began to swing into full anaphylaxis, Giles leaned over me and grinned.
“Remember, X, I had nothing to do with this.”
I nodded and shut my eyes, focusing on my shallow breathing. Dr. Giles waited a few seconds before finally calling out for help.
“Call for an emergency transport!”
He ran from the room. The COs jumped to attention, pulling at the phones and speaking into their walkies. My mind was spinning, but I could make out Giles filling them in and letting them know I was having an allergic reaction.
Soon, he ran back into my space, plunging another needle into my arm. Immediately, I could feel relief. My throat was scratchy, but I could breathe again.
Minutes later, I was loaded into an ambulance. Dr. Giles followed me out and pressed a hand into my shoulder to reassure me. As his hand slipped away, he pushed something into my palm and I closed my fist around it.
My symptoms were slowly diminishing, and I was beginning to feel strong again. I knew I only had one shot at my escape, and for the sake of Lyla, I had to make it good.
Reeves sat in the seat beside me, jotting down something on a clipboard, and my eyes roamed over his body, landing on the gun at his side. COs weren’t allowed to be armed until they were transporting an inmate.
Feeling what Giles had pressed into my pa
lm, I felt the coldness of a paperclip. I pulled at it, careful to not draw attention to myself, and I slowly worked at the lock on my handcuffs.
Once they were loose, I quietly began unbuckling my seatbelts, letting the last one click to the floor. Both the medic and Reeves looked up at me, but before he could pull his weapon, I lunged at him. Knocking him to the floor, I went for his gun and pulled it from his side.
I had the upper hand then.
“What’s going on back there?” the driver called to the back.
“Nobody move,” I whispered, holding the gun up and directly at Reeves.
With pinched lips and angry, red cheeks, he stared up at me from his place on the floor.
The ambulance began to slow. I quickly snatched the key from Reeves and unlocked my leg shackles.
Once the ambulance came to a stop, I didn’t waste any time. I slung the back door open and hopped out into the middle of traffic. Making a run for the tree line, I held the gun at my side. I ran until my legs ached, until I was sure there was no one following me.
I didn’t stop until I was swallowed by the darkness with only the moon to light my way. Tilting my head back, I breathed in the air of the free. It was then I remembered that Giles had put two things in my hand. Opening my fist, I stared down at the sweaty piece of paper sticking to my palm.
Opening it, I read it. It was an address—Lyla’s address to be exact. I knew where I was, having grown up only a few blocks away, and I knew I wasn’t far from her place. Gathering my bearings, I turned and started in her direction. I needed to get to her as soon as possible, and I could only hope I wasn’t too late.
CHAPTER 26
LYLA
HAVING SPENT THE night out with Diana, I was more than happy to finally be home. I didn’t have the money to go out, since I was only working part time at a doctor’s office close to my apartment, so instead, we’d stayed in at her place, watching movies and drinking wine.
I put my key in the door, turned the lock, and stepped into my dark apartment. Patting at the wall to my side, I tried to find the light switch until finally I found it and flipped it. My living room lit up and I sighed, tossing my purse onto the couch.
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