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Chapter five

Nadia

Present Day

“ N adia, why are you here? You’re supposed to be off the clock,” my shadow asks, good old Zurita. What would I do without him? A lot, like worry about my own business instead of answering his questions.

We have a love-hate type of relationship. I love to hate him and he hates to love me. For the most part, we get along and have the highest safety rates of the entire unit team. He has a few years on me, I think he is 36 or somewhere around there; seems like a lot of officers and inmates range between their 20’s and their 50’s. Pretty wide gap but when the older ones start getting picked off by the new shot callers or losing medical benefits, they tend to die off sooner rather than later. Maybe this is my chance, he’s about to tell me he has some incurable disease and he’s leaving his new gear to me in his will-and-testament.

Looking up from my reports, glaring at Zurita, I shrug. Setting my pen down, my arms cross over my chest and I lean back in my chair. He hates when I do this shit, thinks I’m being disrespectful and uncooperative. But I’m just trying to get comfortable for his tirade.

“I have reports to finish, Zurita. You know, my job.”

“You would have already been done if you didn’t keep fucking around with inmate Patton. You know he hit me with that door; I should have given him an infraction for that, but no, here you come and save the day,” he said, his eyes rolling.

What the hell was with the men in here and rolling their eyes like school girls?

“Oh, give it a rest. I was on escort duty and you know it.”

“Escort duty set by whom, Warden Durden? He damn sure didn’t inform me that my partner would be shadowing one of the quiet ones today.”

I have never been good at masking my thoughts and emotions, so when my ‘go fuck yourself’ expression spread across my face, Zurita was sure to growl.

“Inmate Patton was involved in a physical altercation earlier this morning. It is my job to ensure the safety of all staff and inmates, including the ones that you don’t like. His attacker was placed in solitary while I escorted him to provide medical attention and additional observation. Does this explanation please you, Czar Zurita?”

Pushing away from the little desk, I stood up and adjusted my uniform, avoiding the red-faced glare he now aimed at me. My hands skimmed over my waist, hips, and thighs; taking a mental note of my equipment just to make sure I had everything with me since it was time to go— according to Zurita’s’ watch. We’re not allowed to carry firearms in the prison, for obvious reasons, but we do carry other things such as pepper gel and an expandable baton— which I love. Yet it all remains in my locker per protocol.

Ensuring everything is accounted for, I walk over to the lockers that run along the back wall of the office, open mine, and snatch my backpack out. Making room for my vest, I shrug it off and hang it on the metal hook, followed by my duty belt and weapons. When I leave, I usually put a jacket on because I don’t want people seeing my uniform, but it’s starting to get hot out. Since we are so far up north, it takes a while for the summer temperatures to start kicking in, so I end up throwing it over one of my shoulders to tote it with me.

Unzipping my pack, I attempt to get a sense of where Zurita is standing in the room before trying to take out the contents. Then stash them in my tactical vest— where I hide most of the contraband I scatter out across the prison. Shoving the little baggies in the pockets, I make quick work of my bag and sling it over my shoulder and slam the flimsy door shut.

“Your highness, I’ll be leaving now. You and Clark are on leadership tonight, yeah?” I asked with a petulant little bow.

“Mhm. Now get out, Pierce.”

“Working on it, dickhead.”

I enjoy it when he is curt and I get to leave quickly. Means he isn’t going to pry and make more digs at my behavior, and I can keep running snow in and out of the institute. When I first started, I was all high and mighty, doing everything by the books, but the longer you’re in this place, the more it gets a hold on you.

So, I run drugs now, which puts extra money in my pocket which prevents me from going back to Hazelwood, and keeps the race factions off my case. Women are a commodity in the prison industry and I’d rather not be on the receiving end of a gang bang or a shiv.

Well… a non-consensual one that is. The porn type is nice to look at.

Stepping out of the guard office, I turn to the right and head toward the front of the prison, up to the old stone facade. I think this place was built about a hundred-fifty years ago, and though there have been renovations, the Warden decided to maintain the stone structure that housed the entryway.

It looks nice in a gothic type of way, like you’re walking into a castle that you may never leave. But as soon as you get inside, it’s your typical metal detectors and check-in stations. Just so happens, it’s the only exit for staff which means I run the chance of getting caught with blow every time I take it through the check point— thus why I leave it in my locker.

Thankfully, the office isn’t too far away from the exit. The guards don’t worry about much when you’re leaving; waving and passing off random pleasantries on my way out usually does the trick.

Giving the night shift a tip of my invisible hat, I am out of the doors and in the suffocating humidity outside.

I hate the summer.

Staff parking is off to the left while Warden and Deputy parking is to the right outside the doors, then visitor parking is in the furthest lot ahead of me. This is the best part of my shift, the walk. Whether I am coming or going, I appreciate the clean air since the facility is so far outside of city limits.

When I moved out of my dad’s, he was nice enough, and I mean that very loosely, to give me the truck while he opted for a new SUV. At least that was one thing I didn’t have to pay for on an officer’s salary. Now I just put my money towards rent and utilities at my apartment, scraping by like everyone else while secretly stashing part of my paychecks and hoping to get further away from here one day. That was mine and Rey’s dream, even if we didn’t plan on ever being together when we ran, we still wanted out of the area.

I miss him so much.

Unlocking the door to the truck, I quickly climb in and shut it behind me. Locking it shortly after, can’t be too careful, you know? There are criminals out there; the thought makes me laugh. I’m good at the physical aspect of my job, but the mental one, not so much. I can thank my childhood and my past trauma for that. I mean, we all have some sort of trauma, and I am sure others have it far worse but nothing gets me going like remembering what I went through as a teenager and letting it ruin my entire day.

Some days are worse, some not so bad. The terrible ones are the days where I fuck with Kace the hardest; today was one of those times. I know what I did was wrong, technically breaking a federal law—the good ol’ Prison Rape Elimination Act of 2003. To detect, prevent, and respond to inner facility sexual abuse of inmates. The poor guy hasn’t deserved a single thing I have done to him in the past three years outside of our initial interaction. I just keep doing it because… well, I’m bored and I want to.

Sighing, I sit in my truck for God knows how long. Staring at the only thing I managed to snag from Rey’s apartment in town before his parents emptied it and terminated the lease, a silver chain that now hangs from my rear-view mirror. Seated here, I keep thinking about how Kace felt in my hand. That man is something else. I never flocked to his kind when I was in school; he seems like the closed off, use my looks to get what I want, and always in the classroom type. He’s quiet, with a smart-assed mouth that I can’t stop thinking about. He can be kind of funny at times too, so I give him that. It makes up for being such a dipstick.

Honestly, I think it’s because he sticks out so much. Not just by his looks, but by his behavior and how being a criminal isn’t his entire identity like the rest of the inmates in there. He was, unfortunately, dropped in here when he could have been sent to a minimum-security prison instead. Nonetheless, he’s the object of my daily focus, and sometimes, he consumes my nights as well. Everything about him, and anything I have ever fathomed, is illegal.

My first week at Darkwater I ran into him, literally. The fucker had the prettiest eyes I have ever seen. His five o’clock shadow paired with his white-blonde hair, he was just so attractive. I quickly schooled my expression that day and put him in his place. Why you ask? When I was going through my guard training, our instructor stated that there will be times where inmates attempt to test you as a guard, to see if you’re going to be weak or not, and that you needed to establish dominance immediately.

As others watched the interaction between us, I did just that, he went down on the floor, but not without a bit of a scuffle. With how much I use to scrap when I was in high school, it pissed me off when he started getting the upper hand so out came my baton and I beat the snot out of him with it. I likely wasn’t the first person to send him to the medical bay, but I did that day.

What was once confusion and apologies is now sarcastic retorts and the insistent need to goad me, at least that’s how I see it. I reminisce about that day all the time, the way he looked at me over his shoulder and the look of hatred filled those pretty blue eyes. So, now I keep him on edge.

I damn sure did today, and not in a way I had ever anticipated. I just… it was wrong. I should really apologize to him for what happened. Yet the longer I sit here and think about the power I felt, the more my own past comes back to haunt me. He deserved it, every man in that building is entitled to the poor treatment they received based solely on the way they have regarded other people.

So, fuck him, fuck all the insignificant men inside DWCI. Kace is incarcerated for a fucking reason. Does that mean he deserves to be assaulted? I’m not the one to make that sort of call, obviously, but I’m not going to feel sorry for the guy. He killed someone, he deserves to tough it out, even if he did not sound like he was suffering when he was moaning.

Is that what I sounded like when someone assaulted me? Did I sound like I wanted it?

Fuck, I think I’m going to vomit. I need to stop thinking about this.

Slamming the key into the ignition, I started the truck and waited for the radio to come alive; The Devil in I by Slipknot now blaring through the speakers. With my belt on, I put the truck in reverse and push on the gas, turning to look out the back window to make sure I don’t run into anyone’s car or end up in a cell because some moron decides to walk behind a moving vehicle.

Back in drive, and pulling off the property, I set into my decent drive home. The road to the prison carves through a forest that lines the southern side of the mountains. Making it difficult for prisoners to escape; they would likely get lost and killed by some wild animal, die of starvation, get hurt, or freeze to death if it was winter. Every day I drive through this area, before the road finally opens into a four-lane highway, thinking of the ones who have attempted to flee. The ‘State Prison Ahead Do Not Pick Up Hitchhikers’ sign fueling those thoughts every time it comes into view.

I mean, if they die during an escape then perhaps, they deserve that too. Michigan doesn’t have the death penalty but there are plenty of inmates that warrant it. Maybe they’re doing the rest of us a favor by escaping and never making it out of the woods.

Months into my employment, I saw so much shit it created this dark void within me and an underlying hatred for the men I was supposed to supervise. They are dreadful, speak ill of anyone around them, violent to the point they kill their own, manipulative, unapologetic, and hygienically disgusting. Dismembered bodies, heads smashed on the floor, broomsticks shoved into places that should never be voyaged, prisoners burnt alive. Hell, even the officers and staff were assaulted. One of the last female officers that started after me was raped, obviously she is no longer at this facility, and I hate that something like that happened to her. She just didn’t get enough time to figure out the roles officers needed to play to be safe.

Imprisoned criminals are still criminals, they don’t stop because you slap them on the back of the hand. In fact, they can become worse. They develop hatred, malice, and a thirst for pain in some instances.

They are animals.

Everyone merits their karma, like my dad deserves the cancer he now has for the way he treated me. My mom, wherever that bitch is, earned what she has coming. What comes around, goes around, and I know my time is coming too. Not only do I treat inmates like trash, but now I have sexually assaulted one.

I’m still beat up about it and a bit of me probably will be for a long time. I know what it’s like to be taken advantage of; therefore, I don’t know what came over me or why I thought it was acceptable. When he started getting into it, I couldn’t stop. It made me eager to keep going, to see what else I could get out of him. Listening to Kace groan, feeling him thrust into my hand even though there wasn’t any sort of skin-to-skin contact, it was so erotic. He took what I gave him, begging for the scraps of some sort of human contact.

Maybe that’s what I needed, true connection with someone. Other than my friends and my job, Kace is the only constant in my life that hasn’t done me wrong. Maybe my trauma is influencing the way I approach him. I mean, that makes a lot of sense when you think about it. I tease and taunt, belittle, treat him as if he were less than I am; just like my dad use to do. Now that I have assaulted him, it’s like I’ve turned into the man that took advantage of me.

Feeling a wave of nausea hit me, I yanked the steering wheel until the tires were rolling over the gravel on the side of the road. Shoving at the door, I almost didn’t get out fast enough before I was retching. Dropping to my hands and knees into the green grass that I now clench in my fists. The very ones that harmed Kace, hands I can’t stop staring out. Wishing they would fall the hell off.

Fuck, I’m just like them.

What have I done, what the fuck do I do now? How do I come back from something like this?

Situating myself, I put my ass on the gravel and gaze out into the tree line. Listening to the road noise as other drivers travel past me without so much of a concern. I didn’t mean to push things as far as I did but now that things were said and done, I feel disgusted with myself. Why is it other people don’t feel this way when they harm others? I’m fucked up enough as it is, I can’t fathom why they choose to repeat the same behavior, if given the chance.

Maybe I’m not like them after all.

I don’t know if I can truly come back from this, or if Kace would be willing to forgive me but what I do know is that I need to keep my distance for a bit. Let him have some breathing space, and if I end up in the interrogation room with IA then I know where I stand with him.

With a slow and deep breath, I push myself up from the ground and climb back into my truck. My face felt like it’s throbbing from how hard I was retching; thankfully, I didn’t actually vomit. Reaching up, I flip the visor down and flick up the little plastic covering to see if I look as terrible as I feel.

The haunted silver eyes that peer back at me are mine, that I know, but they’re now blood shot and a few tears left briny trails down my cheeks. There is empathy and regret deep in there, I just know it. I can feel it in my heart.

With both hands, I wipe my face free of the salt left behind by my tears. Hooking loose strands of dark hair behind my ears I then flip the visor back up, drawing in a deep breath to calm myself.

I need to get home. I don’t want to be out on the road too late, especially when a box of cold pizza and my couch are screaming my name. Tomorrow, I have the chance to do the right thing and stay away from Kace. He may be a prisoner but he still a human, which justifies respect too.