"Wh-who are you? What do you want?"
And then I know he—whoever this man is—isn't here to answer questions because in that instance it feels as if someone has taken a baseball bat to the back of my head and there's an explosion inside of my brain.
My legs buckle and everything is black.
Lucien
The chicken tastes like shit. The mashed potatoes taste even worse.
But who am I kidding? The entire prison is a piece of shit place. It’s peeling, crumbling, dirty, dank, infested, and full of fucking misery.
I can’t believe I used to be happy in this dump.
But that’s when she was here.
I know what you’re thinking. You probably hate my fucking guts. More than when you first met me.
But I had to do it. You saw what Grinder said. You saw what they did to me.
I’ve been around places like this a lot in my fucking life. I know when shit’s serious and when it’s just people talking. And there's no way they were just talking with empty fucking threats there.
I couldn’t take the fucking chance. Not when I love her. Not when she’s carrying my baby.
So, I do the only thing that I can do in this situation. I close my eyes and scoop mashed potatoes into my mouth.
It tastes like fucking garbage.
“If you’re not going to eat your food, I’ll have some,” a voice says and I sigh because I would recognize that fucking voice anywhere. The guy who started all this.
“What the fuck do you want, Spider?” I ask not even bothering to open my eyes. “She’s gone, ain’t nothing I can do for you no more.”
There’s a long pause on the other side of the table and then Spider sighs.
“See, I already knew that, amigo,” he says in his nasally voice and if my eyes were open and looking at him, I’d be fucking rolling them at him right now. “That’s kind of why I’m here actually. You snitched to the Warden so she’d be safe. I understand that. The problem is she’s not.”
Now my eyes are open and I’m looking straight at the motherfucker. If something’s happened to Kerri….
I clutch my tray, ready to use it as a weapon in case I need to. Spider sees this and backs away in his seat a little bit.
“Now, hear me out before you do anything crazy, man,” Spider says hurriedly with nervous fear coating his words. “You don’t want to do anything drastic.”
It seriously takes all my mental strength to keep from flinging the food off the tray and grabbing Spider by the shirt with one hand while I use the tray as a blade, swiping at his neck. I could kill that rascally motherfucker right now if I needed to.
But what would happen to Kerri?
Is he even telling the truth about her being in danger? Or is this just another big laugh that he’s having?
“Where is she?” I ask, trying to keep my voice even.
Spider takes a big sigh, as if he’s doing this against his will.
“So, Grinder thought that there was a chance after our last…meeting…that you might try to do something to get that bitch out of the prison,” Spider says, trying to affect an air of nonchalance. “So he had her watched. If she left the prison for whatever reason, it would probably be because of you. Looks like he was right.”
“What’s happened to her?” I ask Spider and without waiting for an answer I start to warn him, “If you’ve done something to her, I swear to fucking God that I will…”
I don’t get a chance to answer.
“Hold up, man, she’s fine,” Spider says, trying to quiet me down from getting worked up. “At least she will be if you cooperate.”
I’m still seeing red, but at this point if Spider is telling me she’s fine, I’m at least calming down a bit. Can I trust him? Not one bit. But it’s not in his interest to lie to me right now. He knows that I know him too and can tell when he’s lying.
“What do you want?” I ask. It’s a simple question but its clear that she’s being held so that I can do something for them.
“Well, actually, now that you mention it,” Spider says as he takes out a folded piece of paper from the front pocket of his prison jumpsuit. “There are a few things that Grinder would like you to do to ensure her safety.”
Why the fuck am I not surprised? I hold my tongue until Spider unfolds the paper and hands it to me. I start reading.
“Grinder wants you to take Kerri hostage when she comes to see you,” Spider says. “And don’t worry, she will come to see you. You can see for yourself that she hasn’t been harmed at that time, man.”
I keep reading.
The instructions on the paper are quite clear and in simple bullet points. First, I take Kerri hostage. That part is actually doable, now that I think about it. There’s only one guard in the area watching the conversations. And while it is true that we are divided and have to talk by phone, it’s not that difficult to overpower the guard and use the door that separates the two of us.