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  It was a lot to take in. My worry must have shown on my face because Dr. Giles reached out and laid a hand on my arm. “You’ll get the hang of it.”

  He moved on and continued. I followed.

  “In addition, you’ll be expected to administer doses of medication. Many inmates in the system are on medicine, and we’re responsible for making sure they receive it. Your other duties include coordinating outside services for inmates and overseeing care management for HIV-positive patients. You’ll see a lot of that here. That and Hepatitis C. These men are locked together for most of their lives. You need to understand that certain relationships ensue.”

  I nodded my understanding.

  “Let’s see… what else?” He tapped his pen against his chin. “Oh yes. When it’s time for an inmate to leave, we’ll coordinate with the correctional department to facilitate the patient’s discharge and arrange for continued care and medications outside. There may even be times when you’ll also run a hospice unit.”

  He stopped and turned to take in my reaction. “Lyla, your job here is vital. I know working in a prison infirmary isn’t ideal, but you might be surprised to find that this job is extremely rewarding. We can even play a role in decisions on early releases for ailing inmates. It depends on the inmate and their situation, but we occasionally put a great deal of effort into compassionate releases.” He smiled.

  He loved his job and was proud of it. That was reassuring.

  Turning, he began to talk again. “Lab work is done on-site, and medications are provided by the state pharmacy. With several inmates sometimes crowded into the same cell, and especially with their sexual relationships, infection control is key. If we get a transmissible disease, we’ve got a crisis on our hands.”

  Picking up a folder, he began to thumb through the documents. “Any questions so far?” He peeked up at me over the rims of his reading glasses.

  I shook my head. Truth be told, I had a ton of questions, but I was too nervous to ask. Removing his glasses, he set his folder to the side.

  “Lyla, working in a penitentiary takes some acclimation. We work closely with the officers to ensure our safety in an environment much more regimented than the outside world. We’re prohibited from even bringing a cell phone into the facility, as I’m sure you realized when you were brought in. It’s not necessarily a warm, bright environment. In fact, it tends to be dark. The equipment isn’t state-of-the-art and discussing anything personal inside these walls is considered inappropriate behavior and is not accepted. There are boundaries. If this job is something you don’t think you can do, I’ll understand. Don’t be afraid to walk away. You wouldn’t be the first.”

  I processed all the information I’d received in such a short period. It was a lot, but I knew I could do it. Honestly, I didn’t have much of a choice. With a forced smile and my nerves close to snapping, I nodded. “I can do this,” I said with false positivity.

  He smiled and put his glasses back on. “That’s good to hear.”

  THE FIRST WEEK at my new job consisted of intake screenings. I worked under three corrections officers as I looked over each naked inmate, administered a physical, and asked a multitude of questions to get a grasp on their mental state. I’d never seen so many penises in my life. Big. Small. Short. Long. I could see them when I closed my eyes.

  On top of that, there was so much paperwork that my eyes would blur. By the time I was done, my wrist ached from writing so much and my eyes burned from reading. It was exhausting work.

  When I wasn’t doing intake screenings, I was giving the diabetics their insulin and dispensing hydrochlorothiazide to the inmates with high blood pressure. It was a busy job, and when I went home at night, I fell into my bed and slept like the dead.

  On my second week, I spent most of my time in the infirmary with Dr. Giles. He gave me tour after tour of the prison, thankfully when the inmates were at rec time or eating lunch. When I wasn’t doing that, I was making buy lists for the supply closet and disinfecting the clinical areas.

  I was just returning to the infirmary from five intake screenings when a loud alarm began to ring out. Red lights flashed, illuminating the walls with quick bursts. Fear struck me deep. I’d seen prison movies. Alarms ringing and flashing lights were usually a bad thing.

  Dr. Giles patted my arm. “You’ll get used to it. This happens a lot.”

  I’d had yet to experience a lockdown, but there were two other nurses and a physician’s assistant who worked at Fulton. We took shifts—four on and four off—which meant poor Dr. Giles spent most of his life at the prison.

  He moved across the room and began setting up a few beds. “It won’t be long now until a few of these beds are filled. The alarms usually mean a fight. These boys fight dirty, so be prepared for blood.”

  Nodding, I swallowed. I’d already been there two weeks, but I wasn’t ready for this part of the job.

  The alarm silenced, and the bars began to click and clank. The room filled with raucous noise as the COs pulled in three inmates. Like Dr. Giles said they would be, their khaki uniforms were covered in blood. One of them was out cold.

  The room became busy, and I assisted Dr. Giles as he stitched and patched up the inmates. Apparently, getting shanked in prison was a real possibility.

  “It doesn’t matter how many times the COs toss the cells; they always find ways to hide their weapons.”

  Uneasily, I kept to my task without responding. I didn’t even want to think about where they hid their weapons. Diana, a friend of mine, swore they shoved things like that up their asses. Just thinking about it made me shiver.

  The inmate Dr. Giles was currently working on pulled at his restraints and cursed in rage. I stood to the side as a needle was jabbed into his arm, making him relax and lie back.

  Dr. Giles smiled up at me. “Scared you, huh?”

  “A little.”

  “Don’t worry. When they’re rowdy like this, the officers keep watch.”

  My eyes moved around the room. When I saw three officers waiting by the door, I felt safer.

  “Besides, this guy’s not one you have to worry about,” he said, pulling his suture tighter.

  “Oh? And which inmates should I worry about?”

  “Hmmm, good question. I guess the most dangerous inmate on the block is a guy named X. He’s been here ten years for two counts of murder. Slaughtered his girlfriend and her friend, and I do mean slaughtered. I saw the crime-scene photos.” He shook his head. “Anyway, he gets in a lot of trouble around here. He doesn’t talk much, but you’ll see him often. When you do, just patch him up and move him out as quickly as you can.”

  “X? What kind of a name is that?”

  “It’s a name given by other inmates. The lifers like to forget the life they used to have. You’ll find a lot of them go by nicknames. The boys named him X because his cell is lined with X marks. No one knows why he does it. He’s a strange one. Like I said, he’s a scary guy. Just keep an eye out.”

  And as if he’d somehow summoned them, the alarms went off again. I covered my ears and clenched my eyes closed. This was really happening. It was like an extremely bad movie, and it was my life.

  The room lit up with red. Soon, the noises stopped and the lights dimmed until they were out completely. The officers moved quickly, bringing in a fresh batch of inmates.

  “Looks like it’s going to be a busy day,” an officer said with a smile. I didn’t know his name, and it was the first time I had seen him.

  When my eyes moved from the officer to the inmate he had cuffed at his side, everything and everyone in the room disappeared.

  Breathless, chest heaving, I stared at the giant who enveloped the room around us. My heart slammed against my ribs as I took in his large frame. The sheer size of him was overwhelming. His sweat-drenched uniform clung to the tapered V of his torso, displaying every curve and cave of his muscles.

  He stood rigid; his six-foot-four frame and wide shoulders filling the doorway behind h
im. His thick chest and shoulders demanded to be released from his khaki uniform, which was stretched tightly over his tanned skin. His head was down, and I stared at his shaved head while taking in the many jailhouse tattoos that moved up his neck and down his exposed forearms.

  As he raised his head, he looked up and raked me with the ice-cold stare of a sinner. His eyes were royal blue, a strange contrast to his bronzed skin. They stood out as he peered at me beneath thick, ebony brows. His shadowy eyes moved across my face, and his expression darkened.

  His nose was long and arrow-shaped, his nostrils flaring angrily with each breath. With a squared jaw and thick, moist lips, he was beautiful and treacherous. Evil radiated from him, even though he had a face that was obviously chiseled by angels.

  His glare blazed into me, stopping my breath and paralyzing me where I stood. He was gorgeous, he was dangerous, and I’d never been so taken aback by my hormones as they went wild through my body in thanks to my rapidly beating heart.

  “Well, speak of the devil,” Dr. Giles said, taking my attention away from the dark angel who was staring me down. “What did you do this time, X?”

  X.

  This beautiful creature was the madman named X?

  He was the slaughterer of men—the taker of life—the killer. A sinner with the body of a God and the face of a fallen angel, he was beautiful death—gorgeous hell. He was everything I was afraid of, and luckily for me, since I was new and Dr. Giles was busy, I was the one to provide him with care.

  CHAPTER 2

  CHRISTOPHER JACOBS

  AKA-X

  I SPENT TOO much time in medical. It wasn’t by choice. It was either the infirmary or the hole. Neither offered any sort of reprieve, but seeing her standing there with her bright, innocent eyes and long, red hair, I could almost forget I was stuck in hell.

  Before I murdered Sarah, and Michael Welch, the guy who I later found out during my trial was a friend of hers from high school, in a psychotic rage, I had never used my fists. I was a lover, not a fighter. A nineteen-year-old momma’s boy—a rack of bones with unmarred skin and a bright, welcoming expression. Life was filled with tantalizing, exciting possibilities, and no one was more excited to embark on discovering those possibilities than me.

  And then I snapped.

  I went fucking crazy… mental. Apparently, I lost my mind, torturing and killing the girl I loved. I ripped their flesh apart with a kitchen knife and pulled their insides out.

  My stomach rolled just thinking about it.

  I could still smell them—the scent of their rotting guts on my fingers. Could still remember the look of absolute fear and death painted on their faces. All the blood that streaked the room. The memories weren’t sweet. They were catastrophic. The images broke me down every day and haunted me with terrible nightmares every night.

  There was no relief. Not ever.

  I wasn’t sure what caused my break. Hell, I didn’t even remember it, but since then, I’d spent the last ten years of my life fighting to survive—for balance in a place that was completely unbalanced—unhinged from reality and decent people.

  There was more crime inside the walls of a penitentiary than outside. More drugs. More murder. More rape. There was more of everything, yet there was so much less. More than just your freedom was taken away. Your values were snatched from you. The ability to distinguish right from wrong was obliterated. It was all tossed into the trash with your belongings and anything you had left of the life you used to live.

  Life without the chance of parole. That was what they gave me. However, not a day went by that I actually felt alive. It was if I’d been given the death penalty. My heart had stopped beating, and my brains turned to mush. I was nothing but a number in a building full them, but the minute I laid eyes on the new nurse, life filled me—bright and breathless—salvation.

  She was life. I wasn’t.

  The only reason I didn’t get the death penalty was because I pled guilty to all counts. My public defender pushed me to do that even though I had no memory of the murders. He said there was too much evidence against me. If I didn’t plead guilty, I’d be sentenced to death. Most days I wished I were. I wished someone would take me away from everything and everyone. I had nothing. I was nothing.

  I lost everyone. My mother, the person who was supposed to love me no matter what, disowned me. She wouldn’t even look at me in the courtroom. Finally, she stopped coming to my trial. Two years later, the warden came to my cell and informed me that she’d died from a massive heart attack. She’d died alone in our home. I wasn’t there for her.

  I missed her funeral because of bad behavior. After receiving the news, I’d flipped my shit. I barely remember bashing in the head of one of the COs. The last threads of myself were pulled away that day.

  My home, the one I grew up in, was sold six months later, effectively killing any memories of the boy I used to be. Christopher Jacobs died in the room with Sarah and Michael—I’d murdered him, too—slaughtered him just as I slaughtered the others. All that was left was X—an enigma that even I didn’t understand, a murderer, a dangerous, wild man without emotion or regard—a killer of all things.

  That was all I was anymore, and the inmates around me thought it was a feat to conquer me. Lord knew they tried constantly, especially the newbies. They wanted to assert themselves—show dominance and earn a place in the high ranks of the prison. In their search for the top, they had to go through me. Not because I wanted them to fuck with me, but because those in the higher ranks forced it.

  Their climb to the top in a place where rank was important was the reason for my visit to the infirmary. I was minding my business, locked away in my own thoughts as I collected the wash from the industrial dryer. It wasn’t that I hated working in the laundry, but it was hot and strenuous. However, it was a good workout on the days when I didn’t get yard time for a run.

  I should’ve known it was too convenient that I was in the laundry alone. After being in the pen for ten years, I knew how things worked. Rarely were you ever alone, and when you were, it was because someone had paid off a CO.

  Chills ran up my spine, warning me that I was no longer alone in the laundry. I sensed him behind me before I felt his fist on the back of my head.

  What kind of pussy hit a man from behind?

  I leaned forward from the exertion of his hit before turning around to face the coward. The room behind him filled with the familiar faces of the Mexican Mafia, one of the most dangerous gangs in the joint. They were mostly known for drug trafficking, extortion, and murder, but I’d seen it all from this particular gang. Nothing was beneath them, and they played dirty.

  They were identifiable by the number thirteen that was tattooed on their cheeks—the number thirteen because it represented the thirteenth letter in the alphabet—the letter M.

  Carlos Perez, their leader, stood in the middle with crossed arms and waited for me to retaliate, but I didn’t hit the coward back yet. I always gave them at least one. A freebie so to speak. He could still walk away, and I wanted to convey that with my expression.

  He wasn’t familiar. He was a newbie, a dumbass trying to gain entrance into one of the most lethal gangs on the block. I fought a lot of newbies for this reason. Apparently, it took balls to find the biggest motherfucker behind bars and take him down. Luckily for me, I was that man. It gave me an excuse to rip fuckers apart whenever they were stupid enough to run up on me.

  Gaining access into a gang in prison gave you a certain level of protection. For the smaller guys with no fighting skills, a gang was a smart move. You might get your ass kicked for entry, but with a band of brothers behind you, you weren’t likely to get your ass kicked again. For them, it was worth it.

  Most of the gangs stuck to their own. The Mexican Mafia and La Nuestra Familia preferred Latinos. La Nuestra Familia, which was Spanish for ‘the family’, wasn’t as dangerous as the Mexican Mafia. Instead of dabbling in the hardcore stuff, they were more known for their wor
k in sex trade. They communicated with their members on the outside, ordered hits, and organized one hell of a smuggling ring.

  Not to mention that becoming a part of the Familia took years, versus a quick initiation fight into the Mafia. Ernesto Gonzalez, the leader of the Familia, required a complex initiation process where the recruit was responsible for demonstrating their potential and righteousness.

  The Black Guerillas and the 803 were mostly black, although there would be the occasional white guy who thought he was a brother. They ran the right side of the yard. That crew mostly played dice and made Jump, or prison wine. They’d gather shit from the cafeteria and brew it in their cells. It was nasty as fuck, but it packed a punch.

  The Black Guerilla Family, also known as the BGF, required a life pledge. Once you were in, the only way out was death. The prospective members were nominated by existing ones. They were identified by their tattoos as well, which was a dragon wound around a prison tower while holding an officer in its clutches.

  The 803 consisted of the outcast black boys that were never nominated by a BGF member, and they were the least dangerous on the block. More than anything, they stuck together and watched each other’s backs.

  The whites stuck to their own as well, branching into multiple gangs from the Aryan Brotherhood to the Skulls.

  The Aryan Brotherhood, or the AB, was a supremacist group. They walked their side of the yard with bald heads and racial tats, waiting for a fight. They were a ruthless gang who regularly murdered and grew out of control at times—so out of control, in fact, that even their own ranking members couldn’t consider themselves safe.

  And the skulls were the equivalent of the 803, just a group of white boys who needed someone to watch their backs. It was all political shit that led to death or the hole. Basically, Fulton Penn was one big cluster fuck of race wars, and I had no desire to be a part of any of their bullshit.

  The newbies learned quickly that they were just sport for the high rankers. They would never gain an actual spot in the gangs. Instead, they were used for amusement. Like the poor punk who’d sucker punched me from behind. He didn’t stand a chance. He was too weak. Still, that didn’t stop the Mexicans from having a little fun watching me kick his ass.