Blood to Dust (19 page)

I brush my fingertips against a row of pots and pans hung neatly beside the stovetops as I stride toward him wordlessly, my eyes dead.

“Don’t do anything you’ll regret.” He sniffs, still scrubbing the sink clean. “I got brothers inside and out.”

My hand that’s traveling through the pans stops and yanks out a heavy metal tray.

“You killed Frank.”

“He ain’t dead,” he spits. Swallows. Stops what he’s doing.

Scared, scared, scared.

“He’s as good as dead,” I correct, “and so are you.”

I smack him in the face with the tray. He stumbles backward, his back hitting the wall. I shove the tray against his middle, creating a gap between two of his ribs. They snap and break like twigs, the sound sending chills down my back.

Hefner collapses on the floor, tipping over a full bucket of lard.

I kick him in the middle twice, letting him roll over the greasy ground as my Converse sneaker targets his sensitive spots. Spots that bleed easily. Mouth. Nose. The less meaty parts of the legs, ankles and arms. After I’m done assaulting him, when he’s red and purple and swollen, I bend down, baring my teeth next to his ear. “Next time, it’ll be your dick I snap in two. Just to give you a heads-up. Now, get back to cleaning, little bitch.”

Hefner offers a bloodied smile, looking like the Joker. He didn’t yell or scream once I’d beaten him up. Never tried to fight back either.

“He set you up,” he mumbles through broken teeth, collapsed against a wall, his head rolling from side to side. “God told me to kill Frank. Frank worked for him on the outside. There was a contract on Frank’s head before you even arrived in here, you stupid little shit,” He throws his head against the wall and laughs manically. “He was always dead meat. Oh, man, you’re so fucked.”

Crashing the tray against his head, I speed out of the kitchen, leaving Hefner injured, yet very much alive. I skip over the pool of blood under him, anger and fury rattling my chest. Rage detonates in my gut, nausea washing through me.

I’m sick.

I’m seething.

I’m fucked.

The next morning, I find out that Hefner was beaten to death. Not by me, but killed nonetheless.

Lockdown.

Big mess.

And back to ad-seg until further notice.

People don’t get offed too often in prison, let alone at one that’s as high-security as San Dimas, and especially when there are no traces of a murder weapon in sight. Fortunately, I figured shit like this might happen and ran straight into the arms of correction officer Beth Bouscher after the Hefner incident. I have an airtight alibi, but that doesn’t stop people from suspecting.

The death of the Aryan brother sparks a prison riot. Word is I sought retaliation after Frank.

I have a motive. I was seen by the security cameras, walking into the dark corner of the kitchen. Snitches get stitches, so no one’s going to say a word even if Hefner’s killer was seen doing the deed.

Words are weapons, and the ammo on me is being spread by the correction officers who are on Godfrey’s payroll. In cells, hallways, canteens and on the outside, where the real life I hold grudges against is awaiting my return. Jabbers with mouths working overtime, and the good-souls of San Dimas are all too happy to let the rumor loose.

A rumor that Godfrey himself put in everyone’s mouth.

Godfrey knows that now, I need his help more than ever.

Hefner was a dick, but he was also right. My so-called “fatherly figure” set me up.

And now? All I’m left to do is wait and see what plans God has for me next.

NOVEMBER 8
TH
, 2014

“THE QUICKEST WAY OF ENDING A WAR IS TO LOSE IT” (GEORGE ORWELL)

My release day is in two weeks. Godfrey’s sentence was cut. He’s been pardoned, let go with nothing but a slap on the wrist. Will be out in a month. The governor, no less, pulled some strings to make it happen. Godfrey told me Irv’s already waiting for me on the outside and that I can crash at his until I figure shit out.

The outside world is bad, but Godfrey is worse. He harvests on oppressing people, a powerhouse of corruption. To tell you that I hate him would be an understatement. He put me in a debt that would chain me to his good graces forever. There’s nothing I’d like more than to see him and his right-hand man, Sebastian, losing their lives in an unfortunate accident involving a hazardous waste truck, gasoline, fire and a fucking missile for good measure.

Whatever wicked plans he has, I’m sure my spilled blood will be a part of them. I’m a pawn, a soldier, a slave at his mercy. If I don’t comply, he’ll unleash the Aryan Brotherhood and let them feast on me alive.

For now, I obey, bow down and submit to living under the same roof as Irvin the tattooist. As I wait for my fate to be sealed, I know one thing for sure—whatever mess I landed myself in, in prison, it’s about to get a whole lot messier in the real world.

Nate hasn’t come down in three days, and fear’s most loyal companion, panic, oozes into me. Getting into Irv’s good graces is a task that’s as equally impossible as sneezing with eyes wide open. Scientifically, it’s bound to fail. He is about as compassionate as a brick wall and holds the exact same amount of brain cells.

Godfrey was right. Time is precious. Yet, I spend my days doing nothing. I’ve already read
Dreams from Bunker Hill
a thousand times. My stress ball is all torn, most of it scattered on the floor like sad snowflakes. I have no fingernails left, they’ve all snapped out of my skin during my attempts to try and peel off the wood on the boarded windows.

My future depends on Nate’s goodwill, and even if under the rough interior and cheap ink hides a compassionate soul, he is a man first. A man who proved to be just like the others. He took, then he left.

If Nate won’t come to his senses, I will lose mine. What will happen then? I’ll attack Irvin with my bare hands and try to make a run for it.

I could get killed.

But at least it won’t be
them
who kill me.

“Come on, Nate. Come back to me,” I murmur as I hug my knees to my chest.

No, he is not like those men who took. Because he also gives.

Nate gave me the one thing I almost forgot how to feel.

He gave me hope.

Turn around and walk away.

That’s what I’ve been telling myself for the past ten minutes. I’m standing in the middle of Draeger’s, a preppy, uppity, expensive-as-fuck supermarket in Blackhawk Plaza. I’ve been here twice before. Mrs. Hathaway sent me to buy her groceries while she was hiding at home after a neck-lifting surgery, and both times, I wanted to crawl out of my body and run for my life, leaving a crust of epidermis on the floor, like a snake who molted its own skin.

I stand out here like a good idea in congress.

I’m surprised I haven’t been arrested merely for walking in here yet.

Towering at least ten inches above everyone else, my full sleeve of black, morbid ink sticks out of my black tank top just as much as my unconventional haircut and muddy leather boots. Everybody around me is wearing pastel cardigans and sharp suits. There’s even an elderly man with suspenders and a bowtie.

But I don’t need to make friends with these assholes. I just need to use the ATM here, withdraw some money, go back home, give Prescott a ride and take off.

No. I can withdraw money somewhere else. Doesn’t have to be here, where I’m looked at like a circus freak.

I turn around and walk toward the automatic doors, my legs trying to buckle under the strain of working under the sun all day in Mrs. H’s garden.

My foot already touching the sidewalk, I hear the old man with the suspenders behind me, saying, “Why, look who it is! Howard Burlington-Smyth. Haven’t seen you here in a while.”

I spin back on instinct. I see the asshole approaching Bowtie gingerly, a small green basket tucked under his arm, looking sheepishly in all directions.

Hate.
It froths within me, consuming every cell in my body. I hate him so much, it takes me long seconds to register what he looks like through the mist of disgust.

Howard Burlington-Smyth looks nothing like his daughter. She has blonde hair, pouty lips and a curvy body that was designed to be played with. Her father, on the other hand, is tall, fat and has dark brown hair, speckled with patches of silver.

I look down to his basket and see a simple loaf of bread, butter and some canned food. Then I remember what Mrs. Hathaway told me about him.
Broke
. Pea’s family is considered virtually penniless in these parts.

“How’ve you been?” Bowtie asks my captive’s father. But Howard continues wiping his sweaty forehead, looking left and right. His shapeless figure is clad in a cheap suite. He looks like a waiter at Olive Garden who just pissed into someone’s dish and is afraid to get caught. What the fuck is he so scared about? Maybe he senses the presence of someone who’d gladly nail his head to one of the decorative spikes in his iron gate.

“It’s going great.” Howard clears his throat. “My wife and I are looking into buying somewhere in the Hamptons. Get away from all the hustle and bustle around here.”

Liar.
Prescott’s mom’s gone.

“Is that right? But aren’t your kids living around here?”

I watch Howard, maybe too intently. He waves his hand, his face plastered with an insincere grin.

“Preston is studying in Boston. . .”

Preston is fucking missing.

“And Prescott. . .well, God knows where that wild-child is these days. She never picks up the phone, you know. Kids.”

This much is true. God
does
know where she is. But in about an hour and a half, he’ll have no fucking clue.

A shot of fury runs from my throat down my arm, making my fist choke the wallet in my hand.

“She has always been a bit of a free spirit. Shame about her,” Bowtie tsks.
Fuck you, old man.

“It is indeed, but we did what we could.” Yeah, like setting her up.

Loser dads are a touchy subject for me.

I killed mine for less than disowning me—oh, mine owned me, all right. So much so that he beat me up every time I said the wrong word or acted the wrong way.

I march straight to Burlington-Smyth and the man’s eyes widen in terror with every step I take. I love the way his face drains of blood as my shoulder brushes against his, and I feel his body tensing against mine. I continue moving slowly without looking back. This was a threat. I wanted him to shut up, and he did.

Nobody cares about Prescott Burlington-Smyth.

But that’s about to change.

The minute I get back home, I jump out of the car and head to the basement without even taking a shower, pulling on the Guy Fawkes mask Irv retrieved from the basement and adjusting it on my face as I descend the stairs.

I’ve never had a girlfriend. Before prison, I had sex. Booty calls. One-night stands in cars and bathroom stalls and national fucking parks on crisp nights. But I don’t know how to grovel. Never needed to before, and the only reason I need to now is because I want to switch teams.

I’m a switcher, after all.

I find Pea trying to tear the wood on the windows down, her movements listless and desperate at the same time. Blood runs down her arms, no doubt from her busted, nail-less fingers. Her head turns around at the sound of the squeaky door and that’s when I notice her eyes are nothing but swollen slits. Doubt she can see through them at all.

“Stop it, Country Club. You’ll never succeed.”

She physically winces at my words.

This girl’s walking out of here alive and well, out of an open door. She’ll give me money to run away, and I’ll give her a life to run back to.

Pea looks at me like I’ve just murdered her whole family, biting her lips to contain whatever it is she really wants to say to me.

“Why are you here?”

“Because it’s probably where I belong.”

“Is it?” Her voice is hoarse.

“You’re crazy, uncalculated and lethal for me.” I take a step in her direction. “So yeah. Being by your side is exactly where I should be.”