Page 1 of Jackson

CHAPTER 1

Ayen

Finally beingable to breathe in the fresh air after being crammed inside of a SAC funded bus had me relaxing almost instantly.

Trees surrounded the training camp in a wide arch, acting as a barrier between us and the rest of the outside world. Not even the cars passing by from the freeway, just a quarter mile from where we’d gotten dropped off, could be heard through the treeline.

After the past two years, this all felt like complete paradise.

“All right, gentlemen! Listen up now,” Barlow, one of the four COs that had come with us today, called out. “You’re going to be taken into the back of the facility for a safety training course. After that, you’re going to be fitted for gear. Donotmake me have to cuff you and put you back on the bus. Let’s be on our best behavior today.”

Next to me, another inmate, Tyson, snickered quietly. “Looks like our Newjack is feeling a little twitchy today.”

As much as I hated to admit it, I found the comment funny even as I actively fought my smile.

There weren’t many COs that came through our unit that didn’t feel like they had something to prove—especially the newbie ones that many of the other inmates, including Tyson, liked to call ‘newjacks’ for some reason.

A lot of insider slang typically went over my head, and back when I’d first gotten sentenced, I’d questioned practically everything, wanting to learn as much as I could about my new home for the next half decade. I’d learned pretty quickly, though, that asking questions got your ass kicked and soon stopped opening my mouth as much.

Officer Barlow was a lot different, though, in the sense that unlike most newbie COs, he had a tendency to baby us. I understood why, but I had a hunch that since all of us—in this program in particular—were the least violent offenders currently in California State Prison, Sacramento aka SAC, and that his preternatural ‘mama bird’ instincts tended to kick in.

Today, though, Tyson was right. Barlow seemed unnaturally twitchy and more harsh than usual.

But honestly, I didn’t really care. I was just happy to be outside of those fifty-foot barbed wired walls for once.

We were ushered to the back of the property, behind the large main cabin where I assumed our COs and the firefighters for this program would be staying. We had our own cabins, quadruple bunked, right across from that—all of which faced directly toward the mess hall.

I never intended on coming with Tyson, my cellmate, on one of those work release programs. But the minute I’d heard it was for six weeksandwe’d be out in the fresh air and not stuck inside of some factory, manufacturing license plates or something, I was all on board.

Six firefighters were standing in a half-circle, waiting for us when we finally got to the training site. All of them were dressed in various forms of their turnout gear, with most of them in the typical navy t-shirt and trousers clipped up over their shoulders with suspenders.

I shifted a little in my spot.

Since getting shipped off to prison over two years ago, it’d been a long time since I’d felt any kind of desire. That had been long-since beaten out of me, not just by the harsh prison system but by the person that’d actually gotten me sentenced in the first place.

But damn, did those guys look good in their uniforms. I did have eyes, after all.

“Welcome, gentlemen.” A man, tall with broad shoulders, a built chest and an easy smile, nodded to us as a group. “The name’s Jackson. I’m going to be your trainer for the next six weeks. We’re going to start on the basics for the next few days and see how you all do. Once you’ve made it past that, then we’ll graduate into actual search and rescue drill training. Sound good?”

He didn’t wait for the murmur of ‘yessir’s from our group to begin moving to one of the small training stations. None of us moved, even as he gestured for us all to come closer with a wave of his hand.

We knew better than that. One step out of line and it was back to SAC.

It seemed to have amused our trainer however, because he soon let out a soft chuckle before turning to Barlow. “You mind?”

Barlow quickly cleared his throat and waved his hand at us. “You heard the man. Go.”

Tyson nudged my shoulder, “Come on, roomie,” and nodded his head to me as he brushed his way to the front of the pack.

I wasn’t so much of a fan of being front and center in a crowd, especially since this jumpsuit already made us all stick out like sore thumbs. But I was also not about to be abandoned by Tyson’s overeagerness to get his front row tickets to whatever demonstration we were about to watch.

He was kind of the only friend I had at the moment.

“Like I said…” Jackson squatted down, his long legs spreading apart to accommodate the thick tree stump in front of him. On top of it were a few tools, a frayed rope, some kind of rock-looking thing, and a dozen smooth pebbles. “We’ll be starting with the basics: how to make a fire. To understand how to fight forest fires, you’re going to need to knowhowthey get started and how easy it is for them to spread.”

Up close like this, I could see the salt and pepper strands in Jackson’s dark hair, with patches of grey accumulated at both temples, along with the slight lines in his face that expressed his age. He was probably twice my age, which historically speaking had always been my type, and was handsome enough to be distracting.

While talking, he rested both of his forearms on top of his thick thighs, which immediately had my gaze darting away from him. Of all times to be attracted to a man the second I laid eyes on them, it just had to benowwhile I was trying to not fuck this up.

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