Page 30 of Fragments

Velle snatches it, pressing the button with his fingers over hers. “Bring a stretcher. Can’t guarantee this bitch will be able to walk in a minute.”

I’m worried about Dash… I know he wouldn’t have just attacked Velle for no reason, and it’s safe to assume Velle was probably pulling thatpreying on the new meatbullshit, as he does. But all I can hear are the lingering soft groans coming from inside the showers, and my brain is aching too much to focus on anything else.

Joy peeks at me, then turns and shouts into the room, “Get dressed, assholes! Everyone out of there right now!”

“Joy,” I whine, silently begging her to take me first so I don’t have to walk back with Kang and Ren in a bubble of awkward tension.

She glances at Velle. “You good?”

“Oh, yea,” Velle sneers at Dash, tilting his head. “Fuckin peachy.”

“Alright, 35,” Joy sighs, grabbing me by the arm. “Let’s go.”

I cast one last look at Dash, who clearly doesn’t want to be left alone with Velle. Velle cracks his knuckles.

“Wait…” I hesitate. But Joy just keeps pulling me along, around the corner, as Officer Peters storms past us.

Well, Dash is fucked.

And he’s not the only one.

Days later…

The mood in this room is gloomy as shit, and it’s bumming me out.

I don’t necessarily care that Kieran’s been gone for over a week, and none of us know whether he’s dead or alive. It doesn’t bother me that Dash is rotting in solitary because of his own pride and newbie stubbornness.

The only reason I’m even noticing the tension is because Lex is upset.

I’ve always been able to sense his moods. I can feel his sadness, and yes, most of the time it’s directly related to something I did. But that doesn’t mean I’m impervious to it.

In fact, he’s the only person I’ve ever felt direct empathy for, and for the life of me, I still don’t truly understand it. From the moment we met, it was like my soul reached out and grabbed onto him, clutching with desperate, greedy fingers, trying frantically to smoosh him in and make him a part of me.

I used to think the reason I was so drawn to Lexington Deon was because of how uninterested he was in fucking me. At first, it was refreshing. He was the only man who looked at me and saw something more than an object to devour for his own amusement. Instead, he saw me for what I am…

A damaged, destructive mess of emotional issues, not worth the time or effort.

And you know how it goes with us spoiled, brats… Pay us no attention and we’ll go feral trying to get it.

He’s just so aloof, and the real kicker is that he’s not even trying to be. He isn’t playing some game, like a cocky asshole who knows he’ll eventually get what he wants, in the form of me begging on hands and knees. Lexingtonsincerelyhas never made an active attempt to fuck me.

I know he wants it. Probably more now than he did back then, though he’d never admit it. But he’s just not that type of guy.You know, the sex-crazed kind.

He’s a four-leaf clover. A one-in-a-million,let’s wait until we’re marriedtype of delicious virgin. Sweet, decadent innocence you just wanna lick. And he’ll never let me close enough to try again.

Not after he ran away from yet another of my shameless attempts to lure him in.

Glancing to my right, I watch the friend who fucked me raw in Lex’s place as he picks apart a sandwich, visibly lost in his thoughts. Byron is a quiet one. It’s just the way he is. I’ve known him for years, and I still barely ever know what’s going on in his head.

Right now, I’m sure he’s worried about Kieran. It was hard on all of us when Parker got sick and disappeared, and he’s probably concerned that the same thing could be happening to Kieran.Except that Kieran would totally deserve it.

The Warden’s had his eye on Kieran O’Malley for a while, because he’s an obvious sociopath with a lot of issues. He’s been here a year, still going buck wild on a regular basis, which is the perfect way to get your ass sent to the place where prisoners become test subjects, and the already fleeting notion ofhumanityin this shithole goes completely out the windows we don’t have…

The East Wing.

A memory flickers in my mind…of being strapped to an exam chair and cooked like a Toaster Strudel.

It gives me chills, and I rub the goosebumps off my arms.