Chapter 6

CHAPTER 6

Ayen

I winced as cards were tossed onto the floor.

"You motherfucker!" McMurphy shouted, standing up to hover over the other man. "I saw you sneak in another card! You think this is fucking funny, don't you?"

"Fuck off," Richards snapped back, shoving McMurphy away as he stood. "I didn't sneak fucking shit! You're just shit at the game."

I shuffled back from where they were, slowly inching myself toward the corner of the room that was as far away from them as possible.

The night had started off simple enough—a card game to pass the time after lights out. Richards had apparently snuck in a deck from SAC and stashed it under his bunk mattress until the COs had retired for the night.

We—Tyson and I—had figured, what was the harm in a few rounds of cards?

It wasn't like there was anything to bet that would get anyone heated.

Apparently, that had been dead wrong because halfway through the second game, McMurphy had tossed a few cigarette butts down in the center of our card game while saying he'd swiped them up from the ground after one of the COs, Matthers, had been busy chain smoking behind the mess hall.

To me, it seemed rather nasty to suck on the remnants of a used butt just in the hope that there'd be some nicotine left, but apparently I was in the minority with that opinion.

"Calm down, both of you," Tyson hissed, quickly kicking the butts under one of the bunks before standing, too. "You're going to get us kicked out."

"Fuck you, Asper! You want to fucking fight about it?" McMurphy suddenly turned his rage away from Richards and onto Tyson.

"What the fuck is your problem, man?"

"I don't have a fucking problem." He shoved my cellmate back hard, causing him to stumble.

"Oh, no you fucking didn't," was all Tyson said before he swung.

I scrambled up from the floor right as both Tyson and McMurphy slammed down onto it. My heart pounded hard in my chest as I froze, not knowing what I could do to even help Tyson. I wasn't good at fighting, or hurting anyone for that matter.

They both rolled around on the floor, trading blows with each other hard enough for thuds to be heard as fists smacked against skin and bone. I winced at every single one of them, trying desperately to look for a way to break them up without jumping headfirst into the fray.

Tyson's fist shot up to grab at the sheets on the lower bunk next to me, trying to pull himself up off the floor. Both the top blanket and sheet ripped away from where it had been tucked against the wall and shifted across the bed messily as he tried to stand up.

The give in it wasn't enough, though, and soon sent Tyson flying back down onto McMurphy's chest.

Richards lifted his foot to slam it down onto my cellmate, and instantly, I had my hand wrapped around my pillow and tossed it at him.

It barely had any effect aside from getting him to look up at me when it hit him and turn that scowl into a downright snarl.

"You have something you wanna say, Gonzalez?" he spat out.

My arms flew over my head instinctively, years of this same situation suddenly flashing through my mind, mirrored by what was going on. Soon, I'd be hit in the back or on the arm hard enough to break the protective hold I had over my face. The force of it would stun me enough to pry my arms apart and next a fist would come flying at my face, upper cutting me hard enough to rattle my teeth.

That's how it always went. I'd be back in the damn house with no one but my oblivious neighbors to hear my screaming.

My breaths hitched in and out of my chest hard as I waited for the familiar blows. My entire body shook as I hunched in on myself, praying that it would be over soon.

A crash coming from the front of the cabin had me sinking to my knees instantly, practically curling up in a ball on the floor as panic began to take over.

"What the fuck is going on in here!" someone shouted. "Get the fuck up off each other!"

There was some more arguing and what sounded like a couple of our COs breaking up the fight. I didn't dare to peek, though, afraid that I'd be met with a fist to my eye and a concussion to follow.

"Jesus," someone said over me, a familiar voice, laced with worry.

Worry?

"Gonzalez?"

My entire body was most definitely shaking visibly.

Oh god, was I going to get shipped back to SAC?

Only two days into the goddamn program?

I was never going to get another work program like this if I got sent back. No board was going to look at my record and cut me some slack if they thought I was involved in some fight.

Hands came around to grab at my wrists in a gentle hold, pulling at them. "Hey, come here."

I was frozen solid, stuck in the protective position while I rode through my panic attack. That was the shitty thing about having PTSD, it came at the worst fucking times.

The hands let go of me and instead, I felt a pair of arms wrapping around my body and quickly plucking me up from the floor. Instinctively, my fingers latched onto the hard muscles of the shoulder I was thrown up onto, holding me tight to the person that was carrying me.

"Hey, it's okay," he said, patting my back. "You're all right."

A soft noise escaped my lips.

I was carried through the cabin and out into the cool night air. Breathing in deeply, I caught a familiar spicy scent that had me relaxing almost instantly. Back inside the cabin, I could hear the COs yelling, something about illegal gambling.

"Gonzalez." I was carefully swung back down onto my feet and Jackson's face suddenly appeared in front of me. "What happened?"

"I... um..." I tucked my arms tight around my body, holding myself while I shook.

He shrugged off his jacket and draped it over my shoulders. The inside of it was warm and had his scent practically melted into the seams. I nuzzled my face against the collar, letting the spicy smell of him soak into my bones and bring me back down.

"Were you guys gambling or something?" he asked.

I shook my head.

He didn't seem like he was judging me, at least from the tone of his question.

Well, I guessed that was kind of a lie, though. Just because I wasn't directly involved in the gambling didn't mean it wasn't going on and that I wasn't exactly participating in it. I wasn't after the prize but I was still slapping down my cards in order to up the pot's stakes. I personally wasn't playing to bet on a couple of used up cigarettes, but that didn't mean the other three weren't.

By association, I was guilty, too.

The one thing about prison life was that we were an all-for-one society, even if none of us believed in it. Privileges were either given or revoked due to other inmates behavior and when one of us fucked up, the rest suffered.

That was why the violence rates could get pretty bad. If there was one bad apple that was making life unbearable for everyone else, he needed to be taken care of.

By all intents and purposes, whatever happened to McMurphy, Richards, and Tyson in there was going to become my fate, too.

"Gonzalez?" Jackson asked again."

"Ayen," I said quietly, mumbling it into the fabric of his jacket.

"What?"

" Ayen. My name."

His eyes widened briefly.

After tonight, I would never see this man again. Might as well leave him with a little piece of me. Not that he'd really care. All I was to him was a number and a vaguely familiar face.

Before he could say anything back, one of the COs, Stinner, came stomping out the front door of the cabin. "Gonzalez!"

I winced and quickly hid behind Jackson.

To my surprise, the man shifted just enough to block me entirely from the COs view.

"He wasn't doing anything," Jackson said. "You know that, right?"

"He was fucking gambling! That's against the rules."

"He was cowering in the corner trying not to get hit. My bet is that he was probably asleep when all of that went down."

My gaze shot up to stare at the back of Jackson's head.

Why was he defending me?

To a CO no less?

What could he possibly be getting out of it?

"Go look at how messy the bed he was next to was," Jackson went on. "The sheets were pulled back and everything."

Stinner let out a loud scoff but didn't argue. "Whatever. We need to separate all of these guys for the night. The bus won't be able to get out to us until morning."

"I've got a spare staff cabin. One of them can bunk with me, there's an extra bed. I'll take Gonzalez since he had nothing to do with this."

My jaw dropped open.

Wait, was he serious?

"We're going to have to discuss that with the other COs," Stinner was saying, but Jackson was already reaching back to grab my arm.

"That's fine. I need to go open up the medic station so we can get those other two checked out. Unless you want to call an ambulance?"

I bit the inside of my cheek to keep from grinning.

The dreaded ‘A'-word. Every CO's worst nightmare.

Not only would the prison be held responsible for the inmates' care while there, they'd also have to ship out a few COs in order to guard the doors to make sure no one got the bright idea of slipping out of their room and getting out onto the streets.

And literally no one wanted guard duty in a hospital. Not only was it boring as all hell to wait outside of a patient's room twiddling your thumbs, but I doubted any of them would be getting overtime.

Not with the way our Warden worked.

"Yeah. Sure. We'll meet you over at the station with them," Stinner said. "He needs to be handcuffed, though."

Jackson sighed, dropping my hand. "All right."

I held out my still shaking hands to Stinner, who slapped a pair of cuffs on them, wrenching them tight enough to hurt when I moved my arms around. He was one of the COs that was known to be in a pissy mood if things like inmate fighting cut into his ‘me time' away from all of us.

Jackson finally took me by the wrist again and led me away from the cabins.

The lights coming off of the buildings we passed by gave us just enough illumination to see where we were going but not enough to look like we'd stepped out onto the center of the sun.

As we grew farther and farther away from the cabins, my heart began to slow and I could breathe again.

Jesus, I hadn't been that up close and personal to a fight since I first came to SAC. My first week there had been quite the initiation into prison life, with a guy in my unit being stabbed and another one being dragged out and beaten up in the yard during our rec period while I'd been standing close by.

After everything that had happened leading up to me being arrested and going to jail, I'd never had a good track record with being met face-to-face with aggression or imminent threat.

The one time I'd defended myself had landed me in prison. So...

"You okay?" Jackson turned back to look at me right as we reached the medic station.

I swallowed thickly. "Yeah. I, uh... I hope you don't think I was involved in any of that."

Why did I say it like that?

And why would Jackson even care?

Did I want him to care?

It wasn't like his opinion of me should matter. If it did… well, it'd just complicate things.

Right?

"Oh…" He lifted a hand and very gently dragged his fingers through my hair, brushing it back away from my face. "No, not at all. You're far too sweet to be involved in any of that."

My entire body flushed with heat as the air in my lungs caught in my throat. I was so glad it was dark out there because I was sure my face was bright red with how hard I was blushing.

What the hell did that even mean?

His thumb traced along my forehead before dropping back down to his side. "Let's get you cleaned up."