The Breaking

CHAPTER Four


Cole was escorted down a corridor that took him past an entire section of empty cells to a small freight elevator. Beside it was a booth sealed behind safety glass sandwiched between two metal grates. The floor beneath his feet was dark red. Beyond that, it was gray. The walls deeper within the building were the same colors, all of which had been painted recently enough for fumes to still waft through the air. Without any other prisoners behind the bars of those cells, it seemed almost comical to be going through the motions of being in official custody. Every step of the way his senses absorbed his surroundings to look for any opening that might present itself. He was weaponless, exposed, wounded, surrounded by guards who knew way too much about what he was, and abandoned by the people who were supposed to help him. And just when his prospects couldn’t get any better, the pain in his guts crept back in.

Due to the open layout of the corridor, he could see the bare cement of the two floors beneath him. His best guess was that he was in an abandoned jail or possibly even an old department store. When he was shoved into the freight elevator, Cole wasn’t allowed to turn back around to face the door. Instead, his head was pressed against the wall and pinned there by a baton jammed against the back of his neck. “So,” he grunted while turning so his mouth wasn’t scraping against the wall, “I take it that saving someone from getting fed upon doesn’t count for anything?”

“That thing would have killed you too if we hadn’t come in,” one of the guards said. “That makes us even.”

“What about a phone call? Do I still get one of those? It’s been a while, but I’ve never been allowed to make a phone call.”

“That’s a privilege,” one of the guards said. “Not a right. You lost all of your privileges.”

“So now I’m really in trouble, huh?”

The elevator was slow, which made it easier for Cole to figure out they were headed up. When he was turned around, he spotted the number 3 illuminated above the doors. “What’s G7?” he asked. When he didn’t get a response, he added, “Did I sink someone’s battleship?”

A rough hand slapped against the back of his head to force it down until his chin knocked against the top of his chest. More hands shoved Cole forward as one of the guards stayed behind to press a series of buttons just beyond the elevator doors.

The concrete floor was clean, cold, and gray. Unlike the rest of the prison, Cole could feel eyes upon him from every angle, and when he tried to get a look at who was watching him, his head was viciously turned back toward the floor.

Growing nervous as well as cautious, the guards plodded methodically down the corridor. That gave Cole some time to test his limits in much the same way he’d been taught to constantly move his arms in the event of being tied up with rope. He could turn his head a fraction of an inch in either direction so long as the movement looked like a natural sway. Shifting his eyes in their sockets all the way to one side allowed him to catch a glimpse of the bottom edges of more cells. Some had pairs of feet wrapped in standard-issue canvas slip-ons standing just behind the bars. Others were stained with what could have been vomit, spilled lunch, or dried blood. When he caught sight of markings etched into the bars, Cole realized his captors weren’t just Skinner wannabes.

The markings weren’t anything as simple as manufacturer stamps or graffiti left behind by a prisoner. They were carved very carefully into the iron with too much precision to have been put there by tools that could be smuggled into a cell. Cole’s suspicions were confirmed when he noticed the same markings etched into every bar he passed. They were runes. He’d seen enough of the blocky, arcane shapes on Lancroft’s walls and above the doorways in Ned’s house to recognize the Skinner symbols anywhere. He didn’t know what they said, but it meant there was a lot more going on here than he’d suspected.

One guard hurried to get to one of the cells farther along the line. Although Cole didn’t hear the rattle of keys or the movement of machinery, he could hear the creak of metal hinges grating against each other. After several more paces he was pulled to a stop, turned to the right and shown a set of bars set directly into the floor. An opening three bars wide had been created when a door, only slightly bigger than one built for a dog, was unlocked.

“Get in,” the guard said.

Cole planted his feet and told him, “No.”

“Get in.”

“Not until you tell me what’s going on. Are you guys Skinners or not?”

The silence was thick enough to let him know they weren’t strangers to that term.

He forced his head up, turned around and was taken aback by the presence of four guards instead of the two who had brought him to the third floor. “I’ve seen cells like this before. They were in Jonah Lancroft’s basement. You know who he is, don’t you?”

Slapping the end of a baton against Cole’s chest, the guard shoved him toward the cell. “Shut up and get moving.”

Cole grabbed the stick and moved it aside. “You do know who he is. What about the guy in the suit? I bet he knows plenty.”

“Get into that cell. This is your last warning.” Now that the other guards were closing ranks around him, the man with the baton was rediscovering his courage. His partners brandished weapons ranging from bats to shotguns.

Cole clenched his fists and tried to draw on whatever strength he could pull from the tendrils inside him. Without a spore at their base, and now blood to replenish what they’d burned up earlier, however, the tendrils were nothing more than remnants that constricted or relaxed out of hunger-driven reflex. “This is a mistake. I know what these runes are. I don’t belong in this cage.”

“That’s what they all say.” Placing the end of the baton once more against Cole’s upper body, the guard said, “Now get in.”

“I want to see the warden. I want to see someone in charge! At least bring me the suit guy! Anyone who can tell me why I’m being moved to this place.”

Before Cole could hit his stride, he was jabbed by something sharp that poked through the front of his jumpsuit to dig into his flesh. The point had emerged from the end of the guard’s baton with a creaking sound that he knew all too well. His suspicions were confirmed when he saw the trickle of blood dripping from between the guard’s fingers.

“You are Skinners,” he said.

The guard held the pointed end of the baton in place. It had barely pierced Cole’s skin, but wouldn’t need much of a push to dig deeper. “You need to stop throwing that word around. Especially after all the damage you’ve caused.”

“I didn’t kill any of those cops.”

“I’m not talking about that. You and the bitch from Chicago practically gave the Nymar the keys to the kingdom. You let them set up shop in one city, allowed a pack of Mongrels to dig into another, and then you killed the one man who had a chance of changing things for the better. If it was up to me, you would’ve been dead about two minutes after we snuck you out of the state pen.”

“Why didn’t you do it, then?”

“Because we follow rules. We respect the chain of command. You won’t be going anywhere. It may even do me some good to see what happens to you after you’ve been locked in here for a year or two.”

“Sounds like a shorter sentence than I would’ve gotten at a real trial.”

“We’ll see how happy you are about it once the testing starts. On your knees.”

Cole had seen a similar little door leading into a cell beneath the Lancroft house in Philadelphia. His guess had been that the small entrance was created to force a prisoner to crawl if they wanted to get in or out. It wasn’t his area of expertise, but there had to be psychological as well as practical reasons for putting a prisoner into such a compromising position while passing through the bars. “I’ll get in once you back up,” he said. “I don’t know how, but I seem to have gotten a little paranoid over the last few weeks.”

Reluctantly, the guard with the weapon took a step back. As he did, the other guards fanned out on either side of him to form a half circle that Cole would have to break if he intended on going anywhere other than the cell. Since the other guards were armed and he had no quick way of telling how many of them had supernatural tricks up their sleeves, he dropped to his hands and knees and backed into the cell. Every inch of floor he scooted across felt like a bad idea. Unfortunately, his only other choice was to attempt getting killed or beaten into unconsciousness, so he would probably just wake up in that cell anyway.

Fighting now would be pointless.

Dying, even more so.

The guards stepped forward, pushed the door closed and turned a key in a lock that was so well-maintained it didn’t even make the sound of metal moving against metal. After that, the guard closest to the bars reached up to touch the wall. Cole knew he was tracing his finger along some of the runes, just as Rico and Ned had done to activate or deactivate the power within the symbols. Since he didn’t know which runes were being touched or what direction the guard’s fingers were moving, he didn’t have a shot at deactivating them himself. Plus, there was the fact that he would need longer arms and a few more joints to reach that section of the wall.

“What about that phone call?” Cole asked as he stood up to face the men in uniform.

The guard with the sharpened club in his bloody hand held the weapon up and willed the spiked end to sink down until it was a simple baton. “I’ll get right on that.”

“You’d better, or my lawyer will hear about it.”

Either missing or ignoring Cole’s sarcasm, the guard said, “The system doesn’t apply to us, Mr. Warnecki. We make our own, and if we’re not careful, ours will be the only system left.”

“Real philosophical,” Cole grunted. “Can we discuss it further over some food? Maybe some water?”

Leaning forward until his face was almost touching the bars, the guard said, “I’m surprised you’re hungry at all, you Nymar piece of shit. If I were you, I’d stop whining before we bring some of those cops’ buddies in here. They won’t care where you’re being held or what’s going on here as long as they get a chance to tear you apart with their bare hands.”

“I didn’t kill those—”

He was cut off by the sharp clang of a baton against the bars. “I saw what you are. Shut your goddamn mouth and pray we don’t kill you just to cut down on the bloodsucker population.”

Having heard that tone of voice and even similar words from Skinners he knew all too well, Cole realized there was nothing he could do or say at that moment to make any progress. So, rather than waste his breath, he backed up until his shoulders bumped against the smooth cement wall and slid down to sit on the floor. His arms came to a rest upon his knees, and his eyes focused on the guard as though he was staring at him through a sniper’s scope.

The guard had no smart remarks or threats to give. He stepped away from the bars and headed back to the elevator. In a matter of seconds all footsteps were washed out by the rattle of the elevator door and the rumble of machinery that took the car to another floor.

A simple glance to either side was enough for him to see the bunk bed frame with a mattress that was about half an inch thick on one side of the cement room, and a squat metal cylinder that smelled too bad to be anything other than a toilet on the other. The cell across the hall was identical, but contained a skinny little guy who sucked air in through his mouth as if he was trying to consume as much as humanly possible before someone else in the room beat him to his share.

“What’s your name?” the inmate across from him asked.

“Whoever you are,” Cole said, “just leave me alone. I’m sick of introducing myself. I’m sick of this damn place and I’m sick of this whole f*cking world.”

“I hear that, bud.”

Another guard walked down the hall and slowed down just long enough to throw Cole a threadbare towel that was presumably too weak to support his weight if he tried to hang himself and a set of paper-thin stained sheets. “You be good, Lambert,” he said while shooting a quick glance at the cell across from Cole’s. He then turned and walked away while talking to one of his coworkers on a small handheld radio.

Going for the most cover he could get, Cole chose the bottom bunk and started flipping his sheets over the lumpy mattress. He waited for any number of comments regarding the living situation or his space on the inmate sexual pecking order, but all he heard was the steady rasp of Lambert’s breath. Something about the way the skinny guy stared at him from across the hall made Cole less than anxious to turn his back on him. The guy might have been barely wide enough to make a dent in his rumpled jumpsuit, but his eyes were sharper and more alert than some of the inhuman predators topping the Skinner watch list. “So,” Cole said. “Lambert, is it?”

“Yeah,” the other guy breathed.

“You prefer to go by any other name?”

“What the f*ck’s that supposed to mean?”

Cole nodded slowly to himself. Here it comes.

Rather than try to sidestep the confrontation until it snuck back to bite him when the inmates were within easier reach of each other, Cole grabbed his bars and met the glare coming from the occupant of the other cell. “Just making conversation, okay?”

“So you want to talk now, huh?”

“You don’t want any part of it,” Cole said, “that’s fine.”

Lambert pressed his face against the bars as if he meant to shove his head through them. He looked to be a few inches shorter than Cole and would have seemed even smaller if his thick, spiky clump of black hair had been shaved. Wiry fingers curled into fists and then stretched out again to waggle at the end of hands that looked more like knotted collections of veins and faded tattoos. He watched Cole intently while rubbing his bottom lip against the edges of his teeth. “You’re damn right it’s fine,” he said. “Why so nervous?”

Since Cole couldn’t think of an appropriately tough or funny response, he kept quiet.

A scowl eased across Lambert’s face in the same way a piece of bad pork might work its way through his bowels. Judging by the smell coming from the direction of his cell, it seemed to Cole that might have been the case not long before his arrival. Scraggly eyebrows flicked upward and an appraising moan gurgled from the back of Lambert’s throat. “What’s that on your neck?” he asked. “Some kinda tribal? Ain’t from no gang I ever seen.”

Cole looked down, spotted the traces of black stretching from the base of his throat, and pulled up the collar of his jumpsuit to cover more of it. The Nymar tendrils were common among vampires that had an active spore inside them. Black filaments stretched out and made themselves at home within their host’s chests, but Cole’s spore was gone. Although the markings weren’t moving beneath his skin, they were still more visible now than they’d been a few days ago. “It’s nothing,” he said. “Just left over from a bad night.”

“I hear that,” Lambert chuckled while unbuttoning his jumpsuit.

Despite the distance and bars between them, Cole stepped away from the front of his cell. “Uhh, what are you doing?”

The other prisoner grinned widely while continuing to undress. He unbuttoned and peeled away the front of his jumpsuit to reveal a pale sunken chest covered in stringy black hair. Opening the jumpsuit farther, Lambert displayed a set of ribs that looked more like a xylophone covered in skin that had been transplanted from a fish’s belly. “Take a gander at that,” he said.

As much as Cole wanted to resist, he took the gander that had been offered. On Lambert’s ribs, written in a flowing script accented with ladybugs and lip marks, were the words, Sweet Sarah Sunshine.

Lambert nodded and waggled his eyebrows as if he’d just shown Cole the lost pieces of an ancient text. “Wanna hear about a bad night? I met this lady when I was baked off my ass. I smoked so much weed and drank so much Jim Beam that I got convinced a bunch of blinkin’ streetlights were transmitting code to me. Seriously.”

“That sounds a bit more than just being drunk,” Cole said.

“All I can tell you is it was f*ckin’ weird. Anyway, I met her that f*ckin’ weird night and we got along real nice. Gave her a ride home.”

“Sounds like you were in great shape to drive.”

“Oh yeah. I went between not knowin’ where I was headed and not knowin’ where I came from. Could’ve been worse, though. I’ve driven when I didn’t know either. Anyhoo, I made it to her place and she repaid me with the best head I ever got.”

“That’s not something I’d expect to hear from a guy in maximum security prison,” Cole mused as he inched closer to the bars so he could get a better look at Lambert’s tattoo. The lettering was done to look like it had been written in ribbon held up by the ladybugs. After what he’d just heard, he had a pretty good idea why the lip marks were there.

Suddenly, Lambert pulled his jumpsuit back up. “Why wouldn’t you expect to hear that from me?” he asked indignantly. “You think just because I’m locked up, I want some dude to suck my dick instead of a woman?”

“No. I meant I didn’t think I’d ever hear a maximum security prisoner say the word ‘anyhoo.’ ”

When Lambert laughed, he followed it up with a dry, hacking cough that rocked his entire upper body. He let his hands fall away from his jumpsuit as he headed back to his bunk and sat on the edge of the mattress. “That bitch went down on me right there in my car in front of her apartment building. Hot damn, she was good.”

Cole gave him a moment to reflect while pressing his cheek against his bars. Keeping Lambert inside his peripheral vision, he surveyed as much as he could of the area beyond his cell. There wasn’t much to see. Directly in front of him was the walkway that led all the way down the row to the elevator. From what he could see, the other cells had the same look as his and Lambert’s. Something might have been moving in one of the other nearby cages, but the one next to Lambert was definitely empty. Guards were posted at the end of the hall with the elevator, and the opposite end led straight into a solid concrete wall.

“Damn, she could work some magic with that tongue of hers,” Lambert continued. “I knew she’d be able to make my dick sing. I could read it on her face, hear it in her head, that she loved givin’ head. At least I could tell she was good at it anyway.”

“What? Oh yeah. Sweet Sarah.” Cole looked between his feet. There was something on the concrete that looked as if a shadow had dripped from the ceiling to stain the floor. When he wasn’t able to rub away the dusty grime caked onto the floor, he licked his thumb and tried again. This time he managed to confirm that the stain was another marking taken from the same runic alphabet as the ones etched into the bars. “Sounds like that wasn’t such a bad night.”

“Hell no. The bad night came later. I was still buzzin’ after that bj in the car when I took her out for a night on the town.” Lambert’s sunken features brightened as he said, “Big thick burger with all the toppings. Ice cream shakes at a drive-in. Snuck into a movie.”

Cole felt a warm rumble in his stomach, and his fingers scraped against the floor a little harder. “Sounds classic.”

“It was, man. It really was. We topped it off with her blowin’ me again in the alley next to a tattoo shop.”

So much for classic.

“Does your cell have markings on the floor?” Cole asked.

“Uh-huh. Walls and ceiling too. Ain’t very good reading, though.”

“Do you know what they mean?”

“Probably left by someone that was here before.” Lambert craned his neck to look above him and all around. “I think maybe this prison’s been here a long time. At least the building has. Dunno if it was a prison the whole time. Think these marks are some kind of writing. Could just be graffiti for all I know. Some of these gangs tag with dragons and others use Chinese letters. I bet that guard with the stick put some of them there. Or maybe Waylon. They mean something to him. Touches them every time he opens or closes the door.”

Cole had revealed half of the symbol on the floor by now. He hadn’t learned enough to decipher it completely, but it was definitely similar to the ones carved into the wall on the main floor of Lancroft’s house. He ran his fingers along the rune but didn’t get his hopes up. As suspected, nothing happened. Most of the runes were put down like a circuit designed for protection or defense, and only a few were activators. If he had time, he might be able to remember enough to figure something out. He winced at the notion that he might have all the time he could ever want. Anxious to distract himself, he asked, “Who’s Waylon?”

“Dude who runs G7.”

Cole nodded, pulled himself up from where he’d been squatting, and grunted at the pain of his insides shifting within the constricting tendrils wrapped around them. His stitched incision wasn’t exactly tickling either. “Serious looking guy who dresses like a high school principal?”

“That’s the one. Usually carries a clipboard. Anyway, this gal with the sweet mouth I was tellin’ you about was wearin’ a tight little skirt,” Lambert mused. “Know what I did after I blew my load?”

“Nope.”

“I set her up on some boxes, stepped up and . . . What are you doin’ over there?”

Cole had stood up and walked over to the wall on the left side of his cell. The solid sheet of rock was smooth and covered with runes that were so faded they could barely be seen. Scratches marred the wall’s surface, but the runes were either too deeply imprinted to be broken or simply unable to be interrupted by something as ordinary as a set of claws or sharpened piece of metal. He thought about the symbols he’d seen in Henry’s room at the Lancroft Reformatory, which had remained intact even after a werewolf scratched at them. Plus, there was no reason to think any activators would be inside the cell with a prisoner. More than likely, the runes were meant to seal the cell, strengthen it, or whatever the hell else a witch doctor might do to keep his subjects in line.

Since Lambert had drifted away from Memory Lane for a moment, Cole tried to steer him back on course by asking, “Did you tell Sweet Lips you loved her?”

“Nah. I hiked up that skirt, pulled them hot little panties aside and ate her out right then and there.”

Nodding while forcing half a smile onto his face, Cole said, “Nice one.”

“It sure was. She didn’t even need to ask me to go downtown or nothin’. That’s how I knew it was love. You got anyone like that on the outside?”

Even if he’d known the guy well enough, he truly didn’t want to talk about Paige. Just thinking of the last time he’d seen her caused him to twitch. She insisted he hand himself over to the authorities so they could help him. Apparently, the plan had been for those men to try and remove the Nymar tendrils, but that went real bad real quick, and Paige was nowhere to be found. Perhaps she truly didn’t know what had happened, but that didn’t make him feel much better.

Anxious to divert his attention, if only for a moment, Cole leaned against a wall, crossed his arms over his chest and asked, “So you and Sweet Lips had some breath mints and lived happily ever after?”

“Even better, man. I took her by the hand and led her into that tattoo shop. She said somethin’ somewhere along the line about likin’ ladybugs, so I got them inked on me. And since I already kissed her in all the right spots, I thought I’d commemorate that too.”

Cole realized that his guess about the lip marks hadn’t been exactly right, but it was close enough.

“That’s some good work on your neck,” Lambert said.

Cole took another look down at the markings. They were the same as last time and still hadn’t moved. That was a little bit of good news.

“You got any ink on yer ribs?”

“No,” Cole replied. “At least, not since the last time I checked.”

“Ha! Gettin’ inked there ain’t easy, I can tell you that much. The buzz I was on lasted for about the first five minutes or so and then it was just me and that prick with the electric needle in his hand. I got it done, blazed through a chunk of credit I had on my Visa, and then went out to show my new lady with the magic mouth. Know what she said?”

A slight young man in hospital scrubs approached the pair of guards at the far end of the hall without a word of acknowledgment and then stepped into the elevator. “What did she say?” Cole asked.

“She told me that Sarah ain’t spelled with an H. You ever hear of that? All that hell I went through, all that ink I got drilled into me, all that lickin’ I did outside the shop, and she tells me I spelled Sarah the wrong way. I demanded that bitch show me her driver’s license just to make sure she wasn’t giving me a hard time.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah!” Tracing his hands along the ribbon lettering, Lambert finally slapped his ribs and winced as though the ink was still fresh. “She was right. Damnedest thing I ever saw. Sara. Right there in black and white. No H.”

“Did you try to get the tattoo fixed?”

“Nah. I stole the bitch’s purse and ran like hell.” Grinning from ear-to-ear as he situated his jumpsuit and sealed it up, he added, “Made it all the way to the mountains.”

“Is that how you wound up here?”

“Hell no! I was dragged away after reading the minds of some rich folks in Aspen.”

“Were they thinking anything interesting?”

“Don’t recall,” Lambert said with a shrug.

“More weed and Jim Beam?”

“Nah. I just don’t remember. This night, though,” he said, while patting the side where his Sweet Sarah Sunshine resided, “is one I won’t never forget. I dream about those lips of hers. So what about you? What’s your story?”

“I killed a building full of vampires in Denver. They framed me for killing cops and made sure I was caught for it.”

Lambert’s eyes grew wide. “Seriously? Now that sounds like a helluva good day!”

“Not really, but maybe you should put a good word in for me at my parole hearing.”

“Parole hearing?” Lambert grunted. “What’s that? Nobody on this floor gets to see the outside again unless it’s by an act of God. Come to think of it,” he added while rolling his eyes up to look at the low ceiling, “maybe that’s what the G in G7 stands for.”

“How long have you been here?”

“Can’t remember. The more mind readin’ I try to do, the more of my own crap up here gets wiped clean,” the other prisoner said while tapping his forehead.

“That sucks.”

Footsteps slapped against the concrete floor outside of the cell, announcing the arrival of Waylon and one other guard. He looked inside at Cole, scribbled a few notes onto his clipboard and said, “On your knees and approach the bars.”

After the guard opened the cell door, Cole was allowed to crawl through. Before he was clear of the bars, a foot slammed between his shoulders and pinned him to the floor. Waylon tugged at the collar of Cole’s jumpsuit so he could see the tendril markings and then stepped back while saying, “You’re getting a roommate.”

Cole tried to lift himself up, but was forced back down again so harshly that his face cracked against the floor. Looking up with blood trickling from his nose and lip, he asked, “Am I supposed to shine his shoes while I’m down here?”

Lambert chuckled.

Waylon scribbled.

The guard motioned to someone farther down the hall while drawing a stun gun from his belt. More interesting than that, Cole spotted a bulky figure in the cell beside his. The prisoner there barely made a sound as he moved his wide, leathery body away from the bars and out of sight.

The elevator door rattled open and two more guards escorted another prisoner down the hall. He was Cole’s height, had lighter skin, dark eyes, and about a quarter of his teeth. Instead of the jumpsuits worn by Cole and Lambert, he wore light gray sweatpants and a white T-shirt that was missing its sleeves. The tattoos on his arms, knuckles, and neck looked as if they’d been smeared on with a toothpick after his skin was sliced away and then steamed back into place.

“Put him through his paces,” Waylon said as Cole was forced to back into his cell. “And remember what happens. I’ll want to know everything.”

The stocky prisoner knew the drill of getting into Cole’s cell, but wasn’t happy about it. He dropped to his knees and lowered his head only as long as it took for him to crawl through the low opening. When he looked up again, he glared at Cole as looking at the man who’d molested his baby sister. Climbing back to his feet, the prisoner tugged at the bottom of his shirt and hiked up his pants. “Anything I should know about him?” he asked.

Waylon checked his notes. “Just that he needs to be kept alive. Other than that . . . put him through his paces.”

“This isn’t right,” Cole said. “I didn’t hurt any of those cops. I already told that to everyone that had ahold of me since that night. Jesus Christ, when is someone gonna check the security cameras at that warehouse? There were cameras! There was a damn news helicopter! Someone will—”

His cellmate drove his shin into his groin, forcing Cole to buckle as all of the breath was swept from his lungs and expelled through his gaping mouth. It would take a second or two for the pain to really sink in, so he rushed the bigger prisoner and slammed his shoulder into the guy’s chest and pushed him against the bars. Waylon and all of the guards walked away amidst the knocking of hard soles upon a harder floor.

When Cole felt an elbow drop onto his back, he rammed his shoulder once again into the slab of beef that was his new cellmate. He kept his head down and delivered short hooking punches to the other man’s ribs as if chopping down a tree from two angles. The prisoner weathered the storm while twisting his body to wedge an arm between Cole’s shoulder and his own chest. As soon as Cole was shoved back, he delivered an uppercut that knocked the back of the other man’s head against the bars. The prisoner barely even twitched before driving an elbow into Cole’s face.

Not only did that elbow hit him like a club, but Cole’s groin now felt like it had been hit by a flaming jackhammer. Two hooking punches barely caught the other prisoner’s attention. A sharp jab to the nose took the smile off the other man’s face, but only until the prisoner thumped his fist against a portion of Cole’s jumpsuit that was already soaked through with blood. The moment those knuckles hit his incision, Cole was done. The prisoner shoved him toward the toilet and walked over to lay his bulky frame on the freshly made bottom bunk.

Since Cole could barely move, he sat on the toilet and prayed for death.

“Hey, friend,” Lambert said from across the hall. “I didn’t catch your name.”

“Cole.”

“You got some balls, Cole.”

“Yeah. Too bad they’re up near the back of my throat right now.”

Both of the other inmates laughed at that one.