"Sutter's gotta go jerk it to his blondes," Lovedicks said.
I ignored him, motioning for Wills to play his hand or fold.
"Blondes?" Wills asked. "He got more than one?"
"Yeah, you haven't seen the other one?" Lovedicks asked. "Blonde, sweet-looking thing, barely-legal pussy. She's come by a couple times, trying to sneak in and see him."
Every muscle in my body locked up. I didn't even think her name, didn't picture her so they couldn't read my thoughts. She'd come around? Looking for me? I didn't want her within a hundred miles of this place. The card under my thumb creased down the middle.
"Tsk, tsk," Wills said to me. "You been holding out on us, Sutter?"
My pulse pounded against my temples. She's seventeen. Seventeen. I would've told them that to shut them up except that it'd only make things worse. These fuckers would have no problem beating off to a seventeen-year-old and some of them were probably pedophiles like my dad.
Pedophile.
It was the first time I'd associated him with the word. What made me different from him? From them? I'd put my hands on Lake when she was sixteen, and I'd wanted to do a hell of a lot more than that. Her face flashed across my mind, and I squeezed my eyes shut, trying to erase her from this shithole.
"Legs for miles," Lovedicks continued. "Blonde hair past her tits. Just like Manning's girl, but younger. Sweeter."
"Shut-" I wheezed, my chest too tight. "Shut the fuck up."
"What're you gonna do, make me? You can't do shit." Lovedicks rounded the table, prodding the middle of my back with his baton. "Pussy that good can't be off limits. The little bitch is straight from heaven."
My hands shook so hard imagining Lake in the same room as Ludwig, I dropped my cards. She was too good to be talked about that way. "Stop." I wasn't sure if I was commanding myself or him. "Stop."
Jameson had moved away to watch the fight, but she looked over. "Let up, CO."
"Don't you know?" Wills said. "Manning don't like pussy. He's a closet fag."
"Come on, Sutter," Hendricks said. "Plenty of us were in your shoes once. Trust me, the sooner you give in, the sooner we'll get you loosened up."
Wills knew I'd never turn, but some days, out of boredom, he went on benders, trying to get me to explode. "I told you a thousand times-my girl's off limits."
"I'm not talking about your girl," Lovedicks said. "Talking about the other one. What's it, her little sister? When's the last time you saw her? Skinny little thing, but I'll bet she didn't have any tits back when you knew her."
Time slowed. The fluorescent lights above flooded the room, turning the walls that'd held me inside for months blindingly white. Words, not truths. They want you to crack. Words meant to instigate. That was what I told myself when the guys dug in, but still, I found myself standing, my rage too big to sit on.
"You ever tasted that sweet, young cunt?" he asked.
My self-control slipped. Images that'd haunted me for days flooded in. My dad alone in the house with Madison. Lake stripping off her shirt in the lake. I hadn't told her to stop, because I'd liked it. I'd been weak. Lake floating on her back, all breasts, pink mouth, and hair. Who knew how many nights I'd slept in the room next to Madison's while he'd been in there?
"You should've seen her crying and begging the guards to let her in," Ludwig went on. "She nearly got on her knees. Maybe if she had, they would've-"
When I grabbed one end of the baton, Ludwig's mouth and eyes popped open. Instinctively, he pulled back, but I was stronger. I yanked it away from him and vaulted toward him. This wasn't some girl they were talking about-it was Lake, my Lake who'd never be mine, an angel who'd never look over the likes of me. I saw red, and my dad's revolting face, and then I saw black, nothing but rage. I threw the baton, and it hit a wall with a sickening thud. I'd kill this sick fuck with my bare hands.
"Holy shit," someone said.
"Stand down, inmate," Jameson called.
I had Ludwig by the neck. "You like little girls?" I slammed him up against the wall. "You think you're untouchable?" I squeezed with all my strength. People pulled at my shoulders but my grip tightened and tightened, Ludwig's blubbery face flushing purple as his eyes bulged out of their sockets.
Any will to fight drained out of him. There was just fear there, and it spurred me on. He deserved to be shitting himself for calling her what he had, for being a monster, for thinking he could get away with it, for having the nerve to ask forgiveness.