Page 18 of The Sharpest Edges

The fear of being thrown into the basement and left there for days.

The crack of the bathroom tiles in the old shack he grew up in when his father shoved him into the wall during one of his benders.

Hard hands closing over his wrists and dragging him out into the woods, a drunken voice telling him to fend for himself until he learned some respect.

He’s not outside right now, doesn’t hear birds in the woods, can’t smell the liquor on his father’s breath, but despite the passage of time, he is right back there again, throwing out submissive signals to his old man.

Only it’s not his old man in front of him, and one thing Jaxson doesn’t deserve at all is Dean’s submission.

“Strip him.”

The words come out matter-of-fact as Jaxson steps back and the others rush forward, pinning him to the floor, where he can smell the remnants of the last sewer back up as he struggles and fails to keep his clothes. He’s naked and shivering, curled up into the disgusting stall before he can blink or think and the next person to touch him is going to pull back a stump, even if he has to chew it off.

He knows what happens here. He’s not stupid or sheltered enough to be ignorant of how inmates show dominance over each other. That won’t be him.

“Hey, hey, hey, don’t look at me like I’m about to stick my dick down your throat, or anywhere else. That ain’t my thing, and you are not my type.” Jaxson squats down in front of Dean to deliver his next words laced with a shit-eating grin. “You should get real comfortable though, because this is your home for a while. Until you say yes, or I get bored. Whichever comes first and really, it could go either way. Gonna be fun to find out.”

Dean stays quiet, though the urge to spit in this man’s face nearly wins.

“Now, I know you only got a few months left, and usually I wouldn’t bother with someone that won’t be around a while, but what the fuck else I got to do? Am I right? This shit hole is boring so even if you never come around,this’ll be time well spent. Gotta get my entertainment where I can and if you do say yes, well hell, the difficult ones are my favorite. Gotta get all that fight out right from the start. Walt, when’s the thing?”

Walt perks up from behind him in response. “Two days from now, the usual appointment is at Noon.”

“That means you got two days in this part of town before they whisk you away for your session with that pretty nurse. What’s her name….Carly? Karen? Ava? Yeah, that’s it. Ava.” He pauses, bending closer, his southern drawl breathing hot on Dean’s face. “Been in there a few times. It’s a damn tease to put a woman like that in front of a shackled man. Like showing a starving dog a T-Bone steak. But I do enjoy the view in that infirmary.”

Dean’s eyes darken at the mention of Ava. This fucker shouldn’t be within a football field of her.

“Now, whether you head back here to this shit-infested stall again after your little visit, that’s your choice. All of this, it’s your choice. Don’t forget how easy things can get for you. Ponder it some. Be back to check on you periodically, bring you your meals and whatnot. If you can stomach eating in here.”

As quickly as he’s dropped on the floor, stripped and taunted, he is alone again.

The shower room is quiet. The stall door is gone, but there are panels up on either side of him, giving an illusion of privacy that evaporates when he focuses on the fact that he’s naked as the day is long. He has to hunch up against the wall with his legs bent and his bad toe pressing into the ground to cover himself.

Every time he closes his eyes he’s both here and not here, whisked back to a dozen different times when he was half thesize he is now and the tears fell at will. He’s spent most of his adult life forgetting his childhood, but fuck if it doesn’t all come back now like he never left that house.

He breathes through the panic until his body stops trembling and he can rest the side of his head on the cold wall, staring at the mold in the grout lines. When someone comes in to use the toilet the flush sends a back up of sewer water curling around his feet. If he presses himself far enough into the corner he can escape it, so that’s what he does, keeping his skin a few inches from the waste and trying to imagine he’s somewhere else.

Back home again, where he can eat what he wants and shower when he wants.

On the outside with Ava, her sweet smile making his heart squeeze and her soft lips pressed against his. He imagines her like a fantasy come to life and it’s the only thing that keeps him going for the next two days.

* * *

Dean’s clothes smack him in the face just before the guard appears to drag him out of his cell and toward the infirmary.

Every step aches, every breath still shakes, and he’s only too glad that he made use of the shower stall he was in and took a damn shower today. He wasn’t about to show up in front of Ava smelling like the backed-up water he sat inches away from.

Nick hadn’t said a damn thing when he found him. No, that’s not right. He did mumble out a confused “The fuck you doin’ in here?” before he cuffed him and proceeded as usual.

Dean never had much idea of what prison would be like before he arrived, but he assumed that the guards would have some sort of control. That couldn’t be further from the truth. They don’t care and the vast majority of the guard’s tasks are taken over by the trustees, what they call the inmates who have gained enough trust in the system to do what none of the staff wants to deal with.

They serve meals in the lunch line, mop the floors, and report the headcount to a guard who may or may not double-check himself. They press the emergency button by the door if there’s a fight, except no one ever presses that until a fight is over and the losing end is bloody, miserable, and defeated.

It’s no coincidence that the trustees he’s seen going about their daily routine are all a part of Jaxson’s gang.

Dean wonders how no one has escaped yet. The opportunity would be there, ripe for the taking if the motivation and desire burned bright enough. The only time a guard shows up is when over-the-counter meds are dispensed or an inmate needs moving to the infirmary, to the warden’s office, or to the front where they can check out.

No, the guards don’t run this place, the prisoners do. The fact that no one intervened or even noticed that Dean was missing for two days, stuffed into the back of a shower stall, proves that much. At least he’s not hungry. They brought him his meals like they said they would, having given up on starving his complacency out of him and likely trying to avoid a murder charge should he drop dead one day.

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