Page 3 of The Sharpest Edges

Dean watches her like she’s the only person he can trust in a sea full of sharks. Even as they usher him painfully into a wheelchair, his eyes rarely leave hers and she offers him a consoling smile. He’ll be fine, the hospital staff are good at their jobs and they won’t treat him differently due to his…situation.

She can only imagine how difficult it must be, especially for someone so alone, new to all of this, and injured as badly as he is.

“They’ll take good care of you there,” she says as they wheel him out, cuffed to the armrests of the chair.

He’ll be fine, she tells herself again. She grabs her cold coffee off the counter and turns away, cleaning up the area and getting her supplies in order so she can finally go home and not think about Dean one second longer.

She only succeeds at one of those goals.

2

Chapter 2

His head hurts. His stomach hurts. His toe really, really hurts, and both fractured ribs hurt like a bitch.

He will never eat another tiny chocolate donut again in his entire life. That much he knows for certain.

Dean’s back in his cell, staring up at the coiled springs of the bunk above him after a free trip to the hospital earlier in the day. Cuffed to a stretcher the entire time, on the off chance he might decide to jump up and murder everyone in sight. Pain ripples through his muscles and wets his eyes more often than not, leaving him largely incapacitated, but he supposes precautions are important, especially considering half his peers in the cell block, otherwise known as “C pod” are murderers and rapists.

The city lumps everyone together here. The floors are isolated from each other, but petty crimes like weed possession and writing bad checks are housed right along with the guy who slit his sister’s throat in her sleep.

One thing his pod doesn’t have, though, is his brother. That’s for the best because Boone got him in this mess in the firstplace and Dean’s sure he’d only make it worse if they were in the same space. If he never sees him again it’ll be too soon. Last he heard, Boone is one floor up, likely running the damn place, and Dean is laid up after his first day in. The ability to assimilate into prison life isn’t coming as easily for him as it has for every other Dawson male.

He lets out a groan, shifts around on the too-thin mattress, and wishes for a pillow. His mind wanders to earlier that day, when his world shifted on its axis in a matter of seconds. One moment he’d been walking toward his cell, under a set of stairs that he now knows block the surveillance camera, and the next he was on the ground getting the shit beat out of him.

He’d fought back at first, clocking one of them in the jaw and another in the stomach, fight-or-flight kicking in and encouraging him to struggle like his life depended on it. For all he knew, it did. One of the few things Boone offered him when he was growing up were the skills to fight dirty, and he was only too happy to use them, but he was outnumbered and it didn’t take long to end up curled into himself, trying to block the hits that kept coming.

It was hard not to feel like the last few decades had been stripped away, transporting him back in time to his bedroom floor, lying on the dirty carpet while his father tore into him with the buckle of his favorite belt. Unable to do more than lie there and take it, counting the lashes until it was over and he could lick his wounds. Dean isn’t in the habit of getting into random altercations on the outside, so this was the first time since his old man kicked the bucket that he experienced the kind of violence he’d grown used to as a child.

Walt, the one who’d given him that damn package of donuts in the first place, had announced that he’d paid off his debt now.He left Dean shaking and holding back vomit, half convinced he was somewhere else while memories and shock overlapped to blur the lines of reality.

That feeling followed him all the way to the infirmary where he’d snapped at the nurse, flinched from the guard, and wished the bed would swallow him up whole.

The creaking of a cell door down the hall makes him wince, his headache worsening as he holds down his mattress, trying to think of anything other than his behavior in front of her. Ava. She probably thinks he’s pathetic. Not that he should even care, and he doesn’t, except that he’ll be seeing her a few times a week to check his injuries and get prescription meds they can’t deliver on the floor.

She is pretty too, something he really, really wishes he hadn’t noticed. Hard not to when she had been standing there like a diamond in the dirt. All long dark hair and delicate features, the barest hint of silver streaks in her strands, making him wonder if the stress of this place is turning her gray too early. It suits her, though. Her touch was slow and gentle, exactly what he needed at the time to feel a little less like he was coming out of his skin.

None of this matters because he can’t do a damn thing about it. Not that he’s thinking of doing anything about it. He isn’t. Even if they were on the outside, a woman like her would sooner cross the street than look at him.

And she wouldn’t be wrong.

Above him, Clyde peeks his head over the edge of the top bunk and Dean scowls through the cracks in his fingers that cover his eyes. “What?”

“Just told ya not to take shit from no one. Can’t trust people in here. Gonna find a way to get ya in a corner and show youwhere ya stand. You get some good drugs at the hospital, at least?”

“Didn’t wanna take it. Worse to be rude, right? Except now I know it’s not.” Dean doesn’t want to be reminded of his stupid life choices. He’s only recently learned that in here there’s no right option for someone new to the game. He’s damned if he does and damned if he doesn’t. “Pain meds are decent.”

“You get any extras? Some you wanna share with the class?” Clyde says hopefully, like Dean has any intention whatsoever of offering him pills, even if he was allowed to keep them on his person, which he isn’t.

“‘Fuck no,” is all he says, confident enough in his ability to tell Clyde off because at least he could take this one if he got out of line. He’s a decent roommate so far, aside from his drug habit and constant tendency to run off at the mouth.

“Alright, alright. Just checkin’. Hard to get the good shit unless you wanna take something that’s been shoved up some guy’s ass to get it in here.”

Dean wrinkles his nose at the thought. He heard from Boone a long time ago that people smuggle drugs in that way, but he still can’t stomach the idea of anyone ingesting or snorting drugs that had been shoved up some random man’s hole. Plastic baggie or not.

For all his addiction, Clyde seems just as disgusted, a point in his favor as far as Dean’s concerned, and he could really use the points.

“You see that pretty nurse before they took ya across town? She is quite the lady.” He leans further over the edge of the bunk, wanting to shoot the shit like they’re friends.

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