I’m anxious, I can feel the sweat beading on my forehead and the slight tremor in my hand. Looking around the street before I get out of my car. My wounds are tender and it makes me feel vulnerable. If I see Lisa I want to be prepared for her this time. I’m a grown woman, a parent, and I don’t condone violence but I’m also not going to allow her to touch me again without fighting back.
I swallow the uneasy feeling and make my way to the pharmacy.
I grew up here. My Daddy was the sheriff, for Christ’s sake.
Grabbing some Advil, cotton balls, and antiseptic cream, I ignore the concerned eyes of Mr. Harold behind the counter and don’t make eye contact so I’m unapproachable for conversation. Gulping at the air as I exit, I shove the items in my purse and head next door to the bakery to buy some fresh bread and a pastry to eat on the way home. The mixed scent of fresh bread and sugar from the delicious array of cakes in the glass counter causes my stomach to grumble. When I finish eye-feasting on the goods I’m about to buy, my eyes rest on the huge form in front of me. He’s extremely tall compared to my 5’5 structure. Tattoos cover all exposed skin and I have to admire the art work; it’s intricate, each piece connecting to the next. Stunning. The meek girl serving us can’t be older than eighteen, and her eyes are wide, but she’s playing with her hands as she looks up at the man. He’s counting his money out in his hand, asking how much the all-in-one lunch deal is. She informs him it’s $4.99 in a quiet tone, and he looks again at the money in his hand before asking for a coffee instead.
I don’t know why but I feel bad for him. I’m starving and would hate to only order a coffee knowing how painful my hunger had become, so without thought that I could be offending him, I walk around him and hand the girl a twenty. “I’ll buy his lunch deal and one for myself, with a fresh loaf to go, please.”
“You don’t have to do that.” His deep tone penetrates the small space.
I turn, looking up into deep brown eyes surrounded by thick lashes. He looks almost lost - not in the directional sense - but his eyes hold sorrow and loss.
“I’m starving, and there’s been many a time I’ve forgotten my money, so please let me pay for your lunch. It’s no problem.”
He studies my face, his eyes zoning in on the bruises on my cheek and cut lip. “Maybe I can help you.” He nods to my wounds.
“Are you a doctor?” I ask, surprised, and the side of his mouth lifts slightly, forming a half smile.
He’s beautiful to look at. I know that’s not really a word used for men of his size and appearance, but he is.
“No. I’m referring to the person who inflicted the pain. Maybe I could return the favor?”
My eyes widen and my mouth pops open. I think about that for a moment and smile on the inside before shaking my head. “I just tripped on some trash. I’ll be fine.”
His brows pinch together as he studies me again before nodding his head in acceptance.
The girl behind the counter hands us our orders and I tell him to enjoy before getting out of there and back to my car to scarf down the hot piece of pie from the lunch menu.
“Ten, there’s some guy in the bar asking for you.” Jude’s voice booms through the closed door to my office.
The fact that he doesn’t know the guy asking for me gives me pause. This is a town where everyone knows everyone, especially my family; we make it our business to know.
I smile to myself as I pass Jude and see the swollen eye I gave him yesterday. It wasn’t what he did to Alex, it was where he did it. That shit should be reserved for elsewhere. I’m moving too much money through this place to fuck it up by gaining any more attention from the law. Not that that’s a real problem anymore but there are still some officers loyal to Alex’s dead father and I refuse to be careless. It pisses me off when idiots behave that way. Jude is my second cousin, and trying to learn the trade, but he’s never going to be more than a gopher, running errands. He’s quick tempered for one, and loose-lipped for another.
I enter the bar, wary of who I’ll find. The images of Alex laying on the floor flare up in my mind, and my eyes scan the floor where I find one of the bartenders cleaning a blood stain that came from Alex’s head. As much as I hate myself for it, I haven’t stopped thinking about what happened, and if she’s left town…
Before I can linger on thoughts of her, a real grin bursts onto my face when I see who’s waiting for me. Six! Well, fuck me. His broad frame bumps against mine as he walks over and throws his arms around me, patting me on the back and pulling away as quick as he came in.
“Missed me?”
“You should have told me you were getting out. I would have come to get you, brother!”
He nods, knowing it’s the truth. “I had someone to check up on first.”
I slam my hand down on the bar, causing Parker, our new waitress, to jump and drop a glass. She might not work out here. She’s like a fucking mouse, scared of her own shadow. If she didn’t look so good in a skirt I would never have hired her but the locals like the innocent shit she has going on, and getting to stare at her means they spend more time at the bar, spending their money. It’s good business.
“Parker, this is Six, and he needs the best bourbon from the top shelf. It’s on the house, and don’t stop it flowing.”
She nods and blushes as she looks at Six, quickly averting her eyes. I’d laugh but that isn’t something I ever do. Six is built like a tank, covered in tats with a shaved head that reads, “Vengeance comes to us all” circled round from ear to ear.
He would look scary as fuck if you met him in a dark alley, and rightly so. He harbors a darkness inside him that’s thirsty for blood, but to me, he’s my brother.
He saved my sanity inside those cell walls. That’s where I met him; he’s the one who named me Ten, for the ten year sentence I got for someone else’s sins. He said it would remind me every day that I was a new person, and that I was owed those ten years. He called himself Six, for the six men he killed, revenging his girlfriend who was gang raped by a rival gang.
I know there’s a lot more to his story but he goes to a dark place whenever he speaks about her, and almost becomes a different person, so I refrained from pushing him on details. Everyone is entitled to keep their demons. God knows I keep mine.
He only served time for one of those murders as they didn’t have enough evidence to link the others to him, and with gang crime, there aren’t many cops looking for answers so evidence gets missed or tampered with. Six went down for second degree murder, which carried a fifteen year sentence without parole. He’d been in five years when I got there. I was his eighth cell mate and the only one he bonded with. It’s hard to form real relationships in prison, but when you do, it’s for life. Six is like a brother to me and I’d do anything for him.
People who haven’t been inside can’t understand how it feels to spend one night in prison, let alone years, or even decades.
It makes you different, leaves an imprint on you that’s forever binding.
Prison is a lonely place. I woke up every day feeling that loneliness, and it would have defeated me if I didn’t have Six.
There’s no one to trust, to share your inner chaos with.
It took a long time before I earned Six’s trust, and he mine.
Life outside keeps moving forward, but in prison it’s about repetitiveness. You wake up for years in the same position on a tiny mattress, at the same time, knowing what’s for breakfast because it’s the same menu from week to week.
It’s the same walls, the same tiny room.
Food is tasteless slop, and the water is warm to drink but cold to shower. You lose everything you considered personal before… crapping in private, showering without having your junk on display, or seeing twenty other cocks in the shower with you.
Nothing is yours. Letters sent to you are opened and read first, calls recorded.
And we were the lucky ones. We were offered some freedom that involved getting to go outside and walk in a circle for half an hour. I could tell you how many cracks there are on the track, or how many times the yard could be lapped within a half hour.
I had to keep my mind from wandering into the dark corners of my head. It’s easy to let the depression in, but once you do, it drags you further and further until you can’t take it anymore.
The guy in the cell next to ours was twenty-three, and smuggling drugs over the border to earn money for his Mom’s hospital bills. He lasted five weeks before they found him hanging from the cot blanket, attached to the bars on his window. They said he went slow and was more than likely hanging there for hours, slowly suffocating. No one should go out like that.
I used my time in there. I gained valuable insights into my father’s life and character. I took these insights and applied them to the rest of my family on the outside. I’d never been able to process their mentality. I always felt like I didn’t belong with them, but I could teach myself to be one of them. No, not just one of them - I’d run the whole fucking show.
The kid who stepped into this mess would have never thought we’d end up here, but when your life blows up in your face, you either burn to ashes or you rise from them a new person.