ONE MORE RIDE Page 5

  Speed Bump pointed across the cell block. Hank looked, and saw that Foley was sweating and stammering nervously as a group of Sinners surrounded him, taunting him and shoving him.

  “You go ahead an' make your choice, kid,” Speed Bump said. “I already made mine.” With that, he turned and walked away.

  Hank rubbed his temples, trying to take it all in. But as perplexed as he was by the relationship between the Warriors and the White Knights, it was the thought of Beth working as a guard in Bluebonnet that made his brain vapor-lock.

  He walked into his cell. Ram was still reading in the top bunk.

  A few minutes later, Beth appeared in the doorway of Hank's cell, holding a Wendy's bag and a large cup. “Here's your food,” she said tonelessly. “Before you eat it, though, you'll need to come with me. The warden's secretary wants to go over some of your paperwork with you to make sure everything's accurate.”

  Ram sat up. “What do you mean? What's wrong with his paperwork?”

  Beth rolled her eyes. “Don't ask me. I just do what I'm told, remember? Come on, Hall, let's go.”

  Hank set the bag of food on his bunk and got up. “You want some of my fries, help yourself,” he said to Ram. “You can do the ketchup in the shape of a swastika or something.”

  “Wiseass,” Ram muttered.

  Beth led Hank into an empty stairwell. Once the door shut behind them, her expression relaxed. Now that they were standing so close, Hank saw that even though most of her face looked the same, her eyes made her look like she'd aged ten years since he'd seen her.

  “Beth, what the fuck is happening here?” Hank asked. “Have I stepped into the goddamn Twilight Zone or something? What are you doing in Bluebonnet? Why are you taking orders from that Nazi shitheel?”

  “I know, it's a lot to process at once. Just take a few deep breaths and try to relax, okay? I'll tell you everything.”

  And she did.

  Chapter 9

  Beth

  Becoming a prison guard hadn't exactly been the cakewalk Bib told Beth it would be.

  The initial application was easy, sure. It was simple enough to list members of the Warriors as personal and professional references, and give them fake stories to tell in case they were called—which, it turned out, none of them were.

  Then came the interviews. The first one was conducted by the warden's secretary, an obese, disheveled, mumbling woman in her fifties with thick glasses and thicker orthopedic shoes. The second was with Warden Quayle himself, a gray-faced, professorial-looking man in his early sixties who spent most of the time talking about the home he was having built in Corpus Christi for his retirement. In both interviews, the same bland questions were asked:

  What was her previous job experience? A year sweeping up hair in a salon, a summer doing bookkeeping for a garage, and six months waiting tables in a bar. Yes, she could provide specific dates of employment and phone numbers for her supervisors—although the salon had long since closed down, and she was pretty sure she'd heard that the owner of the garage might have died the previous year.

  Why did she want to work as a corrections officer? The money and benefits, mostly, although she also felt she currently lacked direction and felt a job as a CO would provide her with a more focused career path. Her father had encouraged her to join the Marines—like he had when he was her age—but she felt this was a better option.

  Had she ever been a member or associate of any gang or criminal organization? Not unless she counted her old cheerleading squad from high school, ha ha.

  Did she have any friends or relatives who were currently incarcerated in the state or federal prison system? No.

  Was she willing to submit to drug screenings and strip searches when required to do so? Yes, of course. She had nothing to hide.

  After she was sent to an outside lab to pee in a cup, she was ordered to undergo a psychological examination. The multiple-choice questions they asked were laughable, since it was obvious which answers they were looking for. She received a letter with her official job offer less than a week later.

  Then came basic training.

  Eight hours a day. Five days a week. For three long weeks.

  Four sweaty, aching hours a day spent doing endless push-ups and sit-ups, climbing ropes, running laps, learning self-defense and disarming techniques, and routinely getting her ass kicked by her sparring partners—all while drill instructors screamed and cursed in her face:

  “You call that a push-up, girlie? You just bought yourself ten more, and I'd better see your nose touch the fucking floor on each one! Count 'em off!”

  “You think you're on the way to the fucking prom or something, princess? Get that goddamn hair tied up before someone yanks your head back and cuts your throat!”

  Then—while her face was still red and her muscles were twanging like badly-tuned guitar strings—Beth had to endure four hours of classes a day on prison procedure, with entire books full of rules and codes and statutes to memorize. There were dozens of gangs whose symbols, hand gestures, and tattoos she had to learn. There were first aid classes and drills on how to react to a hundred different emergencies. There were tests almost every day, and every night, she went home with at least three hours of homework to complete. Some nights, she was so exhausted and sore that she cried herself to sleep.

  But through it all, she kept telling herself that it was all worth it. Soon, she'd be able to see Hank again, and she'd be in a position to help him when he needed her the most.

  At the end of the training period, Beth graduated with mediocre grades and received her certification, along with her new uniform. She took it home and tried it on in front of the mirror, modeling it for herself proudly. She liked how it looked on her. She liked how powerful and authoritative it made her feel, with the baton and pepper spray hanging from the shiny brown belt.

  But most of all, she liked the fact that she'd actually earned it. She hadn't finished high school, and all the jobs she'd ever worked had been easy to get and easier to keep. She'd abandoned piano lessons, she'd dropped out of dance classes, and she'd never even bothered to try out for the cheerleading squad in real life. The path of least resistance had always been the obvious choice for her.

  This was the first time she'd ever really worked hard to achieve anything, and now that she had, it felt exhilarating.

  She reported for duty at Bluebonnet a week later, just a few days before Hank was scheduled to go there. Captain Butler was polite but curt as he showed her around, asking most of the questions she'd already answered during her interviews and nodding tightly at her responses. He told her she'd be assigned to cell block G, and said that if she had any questions or concerns, she should come directly to him for the first week or two.

  Beth's first day was largely uneventful. There were plenty of lewd comments and invitations from the prisoners, but she ignored them, and they soon lost interest. Two inmates got into a shouting match over a game of checkers, but she was able to break it up before it got violent. She saw a pair of Sinners making a drug handoff and enlisted the aid of two other guards to search them, which earned her a tight-lipped “Good work, rookie” from Butler.

  When she saw Speed Bump, she felt a brief flutter of anxiety. He hadn't seen her in over ten years, but would he still recognize her somehow? She walked past him and he looked up, but he didn't seem to know who she was.

  He would soon, though. Once she'd had a chance to settle in and see how things worked at Bluebonnet, she'd be able to tell the Warriors that she was here to help them.

  Especially Hank.

  Toward the end of the day, Beth saw Butler speaking in hushed tones with Bull Packard, the leader of the Aryans. As they talked, Butler handed a cell phone to Bull, even though phones were considered contraband. She was surprised, and quickly walked away before either of them noticed her.

  So Butler was in with the Aryans. So what? She was here to help the Warriors, and she figured other guards were probably bought off by other ga
ngs. At least now she knew she wasn't the only one there with an agenda.

  After her shift, Beth drove to Tucker's Garage to celebrate with her uncle and the other Warriors. They toasted her over a dozen times that night, and every time, her heart glowed in her chest. She knew that Bib loved her and always would, but this was the first time she felt like she'd actually done something to make him proud of her.

  When the night was over and Beth returned to her apartment complex, she found Butler waiting for her.

  “So you run with the Carnage Warriors, huh?” he sneered. “That's funny, because on your employment forms, you stated that you'd never been affiliated with any gang or criminal organization. By signing a legal document which you knew to be false or misleading, you committed perjury. The punishment is up to five years imprisonment.”

  The blood in Beth's veins turned to ice. She felt her hands start to tremble, but she tried to keep her voice calm. “Captain Butler, I don't know what you think you saw, but I can explain—”

  “Save it. You think you're the only one who's ever tried to become a guard so she could bend the rules for the gang she rolls with?” Butler turned his head and spat on the pavement contemptuously. “A word to the wise, lady—just because your shift ends doesn't mean I disappear. What goes around on the inside can easily come around on the outside.”

  “But sir...I mean, with all due respect, I saw you and Packard earlier today...”

  Butler slammed his fist on the hood of Beth's car, silencing her.

  “We've got a special way of doing things at Bluebonnet, and it doesn't include doing favors for bikers. Only Aryans get special treatment in my prison. They decide to let those favors trickle down to the Warriors, that's their business. I catch you doing an end run around them again, you're going to be out on your butt and facing criminal charges.”

  Beth cleared her throat nervously, summoning all of her courage. “If you report me, what's to stop me from reporting you?”

  Butler barked out a harsh laugh. “Try it. I've been through over a dozen disciplinary hearings, and each time, I've come out smelling like a rose. I've run Bluebonnet for going on twelve years now. You're a nobody. Remember that.” He started to walk away, then turned back. “And don't go running to your Warriors with any of this, thinking you can hide behind them. One word from me and you'll find yourself in a dark and lonely part of Bluebonnet, surrounded by a dozen rapers and killers with no backup on the way. Think about it.”

  As soon as Butler was out of eyesight, Beth ran up to her apartment and locked the door. Then she curled up into a ball against it, shivering uncontrollably.

  What had she gotten herself into?

  10.

  “Since then, they've basically been treating me like a waitress,” Beth finished. “Ordering me around, having me bring in food, alcohol, cell phones, anything they want. Bull's even mentioned having me fuck some of the guys, but I'm pretty sure he was just joking since Butler already lets them have 'conjugal visits' with hookers whenever they want.”

  “He'd goddamn well better be joking about that,” Hank growled.

  Hearing the gruff, protective edge in Hank's voice made Beth feel better than she had in days. Even though he was a prisoner and she was a guard, she still safer somehow, knowing that he was here with her now.

  “But Jesus, Beth, now that you know this is how it is here, why the fuck are you still here?” he demanded. “Why didn't you just quit?”

  “If I quit, I've got no guarantee that Butler won't use my paperwork against me. Or that Bull won't somehow take it out on the Warriors in here. It seems like I'm as trapped here as you are.”

  There was another reason too, one Beth couldn't bring herself to say out loud—she hadn't quit because she'd wanted to see Hank again. Now that she knew how the Warriors were getting leaned on by the Aryans, she felt like she had to stick around for his sake, if only so he wouldn't feel so alone. It seemed silly to care about him so much, since they'd still only had one rushed encounter in a bathroom with no time to process it before Hank was hauled off in handcuffs. But she couldn't help it.

  Hank sighed angrily. “Well, I guess we'd better think of something—either a way to get you out of here, or a way to let Bib know what the hell is going on, or both. The good news is, I've got plenty of time on my hands to come up with an idea. Come on, you should probably take me back to the block before people start to get suspicious.”

  Beth knew he was right, but after the days she'd spent waiting to see him, she couldn't bear the thought of ending their private time together so soon. “Hank? I know things are awful here, and it's not what either of us expected, but...aren't you glad to see me? Just a little? I'm glad to see you. I've missed you.”

  He scowled at her. “I still can't believe you thought it was a good idea to become a guard here. Even without the bullshit with the Aryans, how the fuck did you think this whole thing was going to play out when I got here? Some kind of big, tearful, romantic reunion? It was one night, Beth. Hell, it was barely twenty minutes. I was depressed and drunk off my ass. When I got arrested, you should have done the smart thing and stayed the fuck away from me. Instead you follow me all the way to prison, and now you're one more goddamn thing I need to worry about while I'm in here. It's not enough that I have to watch my back—now I need to watch yours too. This was a shitty thing to do to both of us.”

  Beth tried to keep her expression neutral, but tears stung her eyes. She knew he was right, and she hated him for it. His words had made her feel like some stupid schoolgirl with a crush.

  “I just thought I could make things easier for you while you were here,” she whispered. “That's all. Bib thought so too.”

  “Yeah, and I'll be having that discussion with Bib if I ever get out of here. Meanwhile, you need to keep your head down and do your job. No more pulling me aside on flimsy excuses, no more secret stairwell rendezvous. They'll see through that shit real quick, and then we'll both be screwed. Understand?”

  Beth nodded briskly. “Fine. Let's get you back, then.” She hoped her words would sound cold when they came out, but instead they just sounded petulant.

  She led Hank back to cell block G, her heart sinking lower with every step. Even after Butler had showed up at her apartment complex to scare her, she'd still spent almost every waking moment thinking about how good it would feel to be reunited with Hank.

  Now she didn't even have that.

  Chapter 11

  Hank

  Hank spent the next few days working out in the gym—jumping rope, doing sit-ups and push-ups, and relentlessly hammering the heavy bag and the speed bag with the ferocity that had earned him his nickname.

  As he did, groups of Warriors and Aryans would assemble nearby to cheer him on, and groups of Sinners would inevitably appear to jeer and curse at him. He tuned it all out, trying to focus on the sound of his breath entering and exiting his body, or his fists connecting with their targets.

  But instead, all he could think about was Beth.

  He knew how much his words in the stairwell had hurt her. That had been the point. The truth was, he had been happy to see her. He'd thought about their night together a lot—no matter how much he'd tried not to—and his feelings about her reasons for being there were more complicated than he wanted to admit to himself.

  He should have felt weird about how willing she was to become a CO just so they could see each other. That wasn't normal behavior for someone who'd only had sex with him once, was it? Yet instead of being creeped out by it, he was surprised to discover that he liked the idea of someone caring about him that deeply. He hadn't felt that from anyone since Elena had died. What he saw in Beth's eyes when she looked at him—the affection, the compassion, the desire—made him wonder if he might be able to find that kind of happiness again someday.

  Which was why he'd had to shut it down so definitively.

  Caring about anyone or anything in this place was a mistake. Sooner or later, someone—a guard, another
inmate—would learn about it and find a way to take it away.

  So Hank knew that if Beth had a hope in hell of surviving this, it would require her to do more than just put on an act. The men in here were predators, with absolutely nothing else to fill the minutes and hours of each day than sniffing out weaknesses in the guards and exploiting them. The warmth in her eyes when she looked at Hank needed to be snuffed out quickly and decisively, for her own good.