by Susanne Beck
I was deep in my thoughts when Sonny approached, laying a compassionate hand on my shoulder. "Are you alright, Angel? Was Digger bothering you?"
Swallowing back the tears in my throat, I pasted a semblance of a smile on my face and turned to her. "I’m ok. And no, Digger wasn’t bothering me. She just had some news to share with me."
"Was it about Ice? I saw her coming in from the warden’s office looking like she was ready to kill someone."
Not trusting myself to speak, I nodded in affirmation.
"Shit. Is there anything I can do to help? Maybe get together with the others?"
"No. Thank you though. This is something I need to work out with Ice."
"Are you sure?"
"Positive."
Sonny squeezed my shoulder, smiling slightly. "Alright then. You know where to look if you want to talk, right?"
Covering her hand with my own, I returned her smile. "I do. That means a lot to me, Sonny. Thanks."
"You mean a lot to us, Angel. Don’t forget that, alright?"
"I won’t."
Despite the gravity of the situation, or perhaps because of it, her words made me feel a little better. I hadn’t been as close to Sonny as I had been to Pony and Critter. But after the stabbing, we became friends. Beneath her somewhat rough and tumble exterior, she was a sweet, kind and caring woman who was always available to help someone in need.
Of course, she was also an armed robber, the only female in a bank and armored car robbery ring who met their demise during a botched bank hold-up. Everyone in the band was killed by the SWAT team except for her. She said that the only reason she remained alive is that at first the police thought she was a hostage and not one of the robbers. She almost got away with it too, until one of the actual hostages pointed her out as she was leaving the building.
Giving me a final pat on the back, Sonny turned and walked back to the weight area where the rest of the Amazons were congregated. As I looked out onto the black parking lot, part of me damned my insatiable curiosity, for it was what led me out to this very spot those months ago to see what Ice was looking at. If I had not walked up to this very fence, I would not have seen the warden and Ice’s betrayer, and perhaps none of this would have ever happened.
But another part of me jumped all over that maudlin thought. If I hadn’t seen what had happened in the parking lot, Ice most likely would never have taken me down to the chop shop that fateful evening when she bared her soul to me. We might never have made love in that very room.
Had I destroyed the trust she had so painstakingly given me with my zealotry? In my quest to right an injustice, had I ruined everything between us that I had fought so hard to build? I took a deep breath and mustered my courage.
There was only one way to find out.
* * *
Ice was sitting on her bed, back ramrod straight, her hands resting lightly on her thighs. Her feet were flat to the floor and her eyes were closed as if in meditation. The air was still around her. Even the always present hum of the fluorescents seemed subdued in her presence.
I stood there, watching her for long moments in silence, knowing somehow that she was aware of me, yet not wanting to shatter the seemingly peaceful scene. I worried at my lower lip with my teeth as I tried to stand against the signals my body was sending me to leave and not look back.
Just as I was about to give in to my panic, her eyes snapped open, bathing me in their pale blue fire. "Is there something you need?" she asked, her voice calm and uninflected.
I stayed outside the boundaries of her cell, not sure where I stood with her. The feeling was uncomfortable for me as I had considered this place a haven of sorts. What could I say to make her understand? What words could I use to make everything better? There seemed to be none adequate enough. The two secrets I held within burned me like a brand.
"Well?"
I decided to wait and hear what I was going to say with my own ears. The dam broke. "I just wanted to tell you that I heard . . .about what happened with the warden. And that . . . ." I trailed off as Ice rose to her feet, her face a mask of rage.
"I’ll kill that bastard!"
"No! Ice, wait!" Moving to block the door, I held my hands up. "It wasn’t the warden. It was . . . it was Digger. She was in the office when he called you in. She overheard some of the conversation. She was worried and so she came to talk to me about it. Honestly!"
To her credit, and my utter relief, Ice didn’t try to come through me. Instead, she narrowed her eyes. "What did she say." It wasn’t a question.
Taking a deep breath, I replayed the conversation for her as best I could, trying not to put my own spin on things in case I was wrong. As I spoke, I could see the tension gather in the long lines of her body until she fairly radiated it as if from her pores. My heart picked up in response. When my voice finally trailed off to silence, she simply stared at me, though I knew it wasn’t me she was seeing. Her hands were fisted so tightly that I could see the white of her bone pressed against the tan of her flesh.
"Ice?" I asked tentatively.
She blinked once, slowly coming back from wherever she’d gone in her rage. Her shoulders slumped slightly. "You weren’t supposed to know," she half-whispered.
I smiled a little. "I’m glad I do."
"I’m not."
Chancing it, I took a half-step closer to her, reaching out and laying a hand on her muscle-knotted forearm. "I am. I think I have a right to know when I’m being used as a Sword of Damocles to hang over your head."
That got a small smile out of her. "Only one of many swords, Angel."
I grinned back. "Maybe, but I’m just egotistical enough to believe that I’m one of the bigger ones," I teased.
"The biggest." She tipped me a ghost of a wink as the tension began to release from her body, easily felt through my fingertips.
Becoming serious once again, I gripped her arm with more fervor. "Ice, I need you to know that I’ll willingly go to Hell’s Kitchen if it means you can continue your fight to get out of this the right way."
"Your right way, Angel. Not mine. And no. I will not let that happen. As I’ve told you before, I’ll deal with Morrison in my own way and in my own time. You just concentrate on getting yourself out of this slag heap the ‘right’ way, alright?"
"Ice . . . ."
She laid a finger over my lips. "No, Angel. No more. I asked you to stop and I meant it. This is my problem. Let me deal with it. Please." Removing her finger from my lips, she gently pried away from my tight grasp on her arm, then turned back toward her bed. "I just wish I knew how he learned about it."
I felt myself color. "Um . . .about that . . . ."
She turned back to face me ever so slowly. "Yes?"
My blushed deepened, me ears burning hot with embarrassment. "Well, it was just that I was so frustrated and Corinne was so persistent and . . . .:"
"Corinne?" Her face was becoming dangerous once again.
"It wasn’t her fault!" I interjected, raising my hand again. "It was mine. I take full responsibility here."
"Spit it out, Angel. What’s going on?"
Scratching the back of my neck, I sighed, giving in to the inevitable. "Well, I was tired of getting the run around from those bureaucrats at the Hall of Records. Everywhere I looked, every letter I sent, every call I made, it was always the same thing. Nothing. I finally got so frustrated that I okayed Corinne’s suggestion about her reporter friend . . . ."
"Her what?"
"Her reporter friend?"
Her fists clenched again. "Damn it, Angel!"
"I know, Ice. I know. It was stupid. And I shouldn’t have done it. But I was just about to tell her to call it off when you walked into the library today. It’s all taken care of now. I promise."
Shaking her head in amazement, she snorted out a breath of air. "What am I gonna do with you?"
I winced. "Forgive me?"
"Do I have to?"
"It would be nice. I promise I won’t d
o anything like this again without speaking to you first."
She smirked. "Don’t make promises you’re not sure you can keep, my little crusader. C’mere."
I gratefully walked into her open arms, grinning widely as she wrapped herself around me in a warm hug. "You’re lucky I love you, Angel," she said against my hair.
"Yeah," I sighed. "I sure am."
* * *
The winter rolled along and brought a flu epidemic with it. It raced through the Bog like a lightening-sparked wildfire, leaving almost no one standing in its wake. While all the hospitals in the area were full to overcrowding, the only place the inmates were allowed to be treated, the County hospital, had shut its doors tight to all but the most severely afflicted. And that didn’t include any of us.
In the space of days, the entire prison became an infirmary. The guards had also been hit hard and were operating at half staff. If there was any time to have a replay of the riot of last year, this would have been it. Fortunately for everyone involved, any potential troublemakers were too busy puking their guts up to plan or take part in such a venture.
The infirmary overflowed by day two of the epidemic and most of the prisoners were left to fend for themselves as best they could, some even spending hours in pools of their own body fluids when fever made them too weak to make their way to the commode. The guards put in repeated requests for help, but all were ignored by a warden who believed that sickness was God’s vengeful wrath upon sinners.
I was one of the lucky ones. I had myself a tall, dark and absolutely gorgeous nurse who attended to my every need. Granted, my needs at the time weren’t as stimulating as they might have been normally, but I’ve never been one to look a gift horse in the mouth, and having Ice treat me with such loving tenderness in my so called hour of need wasn’t going to make me start anytime soon.
Ice kept me clean, warm and dry when the drenching sweats of night-time fevers alternated with the bone wracking chills that came with the rising of the sun. She sat with me and held me when the spasms of coughing stole the breath from my lungs and the will from my body. Her strong fingers were gentle on my skin as she massaged the wrenching gut cramps that hit with unpredictable and vengeful force.
Even within the terrifying depths of my feverish delirium, I knew she was there and took strength and comfort from her solid presence. I felt surrounded by a blanket of love and caring; no more so than when the sound of her humming an old lullaby would soothe me into a dreamless sleep.
It was a week later when my fever finally broke, leaving me weak and shaky as a newborn. I awoke to find my head pillowed in Ice’s lap, her fingers brushing through my sweat-drenched hair in a hypnotic and pleasurable rhythm. My scalp tingled to her gentle touch.
I blinked my eyes open, wincing at the over-bright glare of the glowing lights. A second later, her hand left my hair and instead shaded my eyes. Her smile was crooked and sweet. "Hey, stranger. How ya feeling?"
"Like that heavy bag out in the yard must feel after going a few rounds with you," I managed to croak out through an aching throat and cracked lips.
"That good huh?"
I just groaned.
"Do you think you can sit up if I help you?"
"Do I have to?"
"You’re pretty dehydrated. You need to drink some water at least."
"I don’t think I could hold it down. My stomach feels like it’s been dragged behind a horse or something."
Ice shifted behind me, gently pulling me up so that my head rested against her chest. When she had me settled, she reached over and grabbed a styrofoam cup filled with water and held it to my lips. "C’mon. Just a sip."
Wincing, I took a small sip into my mouth. It was cool against my parched lips and soothing to my scorched throat and I swallowed it eagerly. My stomach stayed quiet, so I took another sip, and then another until I’d finished half the cup.
Pulling the cup away and resting it on the communal nightstand, Ice dried my lips with a soft cloth, then smoothed my hair from my forehead before wrapping me in an embrace and resting her chin on the crown of my head. "Is it staying down alright?"
"No trouble yet," I replied, reveling in the feeling of her arms around me. Looking around, I noticed that the bed next to mine, usually occupied by my new roommate of one month, was empty. "Where’s Edie?"
"She was a bad asthmatic. The flu hit her hard and they didn’t get her to treatment fast enough. She didn’t make it."
"What?" I stiffened in Ice’s embrace. "She’s dead?"
"I’m afraid so."
If I had any moisture in my body to spare, I would have cried. I hadn’t know Edie all that well, but she seemed like a nice, quiet, well-spoken woman who, like many of the rest of us, simply wanted to do her time in peace. Because she roomed with me, she was spared some of the almost ritualistic hazing that befell all new inmates, and for that I was happy. And now she was dead. A young woman taken down in the prime of her life by the flu of all things. I sighed, then thought of my other friends, particularly the elderly librarian. "How’s Corinne," I asked, inwardly dreading the answer.
Ice snorted against my hair. "That old battle axe? She’s fine. Down for two days and then right back up again. She’s got the constitution of an ox."
I laughed, weakly elbowing her in the side. "Sounds like someone else I know. Were you sick?"
I could feel her shrug against my back. "Nah. Couple days. No big deal." I came to find out later that she had been horribly sick for almost four days, yet came down to care for me each and every day, despite her illness.
My eyelids grew heavy as I snuggled into her, though, like a sleepy child on Christmas Eve, I struggled to stay awake.
"Sleep," she whispered, pulling me in close against her. "Your body needs to heal."
"I’ve slept too much already," I complained. "I wanna try and stay awake for a little while. Please?"
My head warmed as she chuckled against it. "I’m not your mother."
"Wish you were sometimes," I mumbled before succumbing to the demands of my body and falling into sleep once again.
* * *
When I next awoke, I found myself propped on my side, facing Ice who was sitting on the other bed, reading quietly. I tried to sit up, but quickly gave that effort up as futile as my body decided to shout out its protests quite loudly. Ice looked up quickly and put her book down, coming to kneel beside my bed. "Good morning."
"Morning."
"Sleep well?"
"Well, it wasn’t bad. For a nap."
She laughed. "Awful long nap, Angel. You’ve been out since yesterday afternoon."
My eyes widened. "Yesterday afternoon?"
"Yup. Told you your body needed the rest."
"And you were right. Again," I grumped.
"How do you feel?"
I took stock of my body, realizing that Ice was, indeed, right. "A whole lot better than I did yesterday."
"Good. You look better too. Your cheeks have a little more color to them," she replied, gently stroking the bodyparts in question, to my immense pleasure. "You have the softest skin."
Of course, I blushed in response to that, which no doubt increased the color to my face; a fact which Ice noted with an amused smirk and one raised eyebrow. Which, of course, only caused me to blush that much harder.
"Thirsty?"
"Yeah. My tongue feels like sandpaper."
Raising up to sit on the bed, she gently lifted me up beside her and we repeated the same process as the day before. This time I managed to drink the whole cup without my stomach rebelling in the slightest. It seemed I was well on my way to recovery.
Ice nodded in satisfaction. "Later we’ll try some broth and tea, courtesy of Corinne."
"Alright." Much as I hated to admit it, I was worn out even by that weak attempt at sitting. But this time, I was determined to remain awake and enjoy Ice’s tender companionship. "How about telling me a story?"
Her voice was doubtful. "I don’t know any stories, Angel.
At least not any nice ones."
Sick I might have been, but not too muddled not to recognize a perfect opportunity when it was resting in my lap, as it were. "Then tell me a not nice one. Maybe about some of the times when you were out on your own?"
She stiffened against me. "Those aren’t nice at all, Angel."
"I know, Ice. But I’d like to know more about you. And how can I if you won’t share them with me?"
"Some things are better left up to the imagination."
I kept quiet, acknowledging her position, determined not to push against her inflexible barriers this time. My headstrong nature had caused enough problems between us already.
"This really means something to you, huh?"
"Yes. It really does. But not enough to make you upset, Ice. Never enough for that."
When she started speaking again, her voice was so soft I thought I was hallucinating it at first. "When my parents died, the only one left to care for me was my grandmother. I was twelve at the time and she just didn’t have the energy needed to raise a young girl. She was pretty frail. I overheard some of the lawyers talking to my grandmother during the funeral. They were going to make me a ward of the state and put me in an orphanage."
"Oh, Ice . . . ."
"Yeah. I might not have known much at that age, but I did know that I wasn’t about to let myself get stuffed into a home."
"What did you do?"
"I ran. I waited until everyone was caught up in other things and I took off. The funeral home wasn’t too far from my house, and my parents had given me a key when I was five, so I bolted for home. I went inside, grabbed some clothes, stuffed ‘em in a backpack, took my mother’s ‘fun’ money from her hiding place, grabbed Boomer, and left."
"Where did you go?" I shifted a little to get more comfortable against her chest. My arms, neck and shoulders were aching from residual fever and days of enforced inactivity.
I felt a moment of weightlessness as I was borne up easily in Ice’s arms, then settled down to sit between her legs, my back once again against her chest. The sheet was tucked around my breasts and warm hands lowered themselves onto my shoulders, beginning a truly wonderful massage.
