Page 30 of The Sharpest Edges

“If they come in here, run for that window. You got it?” He’s not looking at her when he says it, but she can feel the gravity of his words in her bones. “No matter what happens to me, you just go.”

He’ll try to hold them off while she vaults out that damn window. The very idea of abandoning Dean makes her sick. The concept of being weak one more time isn’t something she’s willing to allow. “No, I’m not leaving you.”

For the first time since she met him, he speaks to her with a bite in his voice, but it isn’t anger she sees on his face, only fear for her life. “Don’t you dare stay for me. Don’t you fucking dare! I ain’t worth you getting hurt over so you’re gonna climb out that window and run, you hear me?”

Ava nods on instinct alone, some deep, hidden part of her well-trained on how to be agreeable. She hates herself for it the moment it happens, but by then it’s too late to take back. Whether she actually plans on following through on that promise is still up for debate.

Her palm finds the round of his bicep as he turns toward the door again, seeking reassurance. His muscles twitch with every bang, curse, and holler from the hall, but a brief sense of calm overtakes her when he covers her hand with his own and gives it the barest squeeze.

She is absolutely terrified…and more aroused than she’s ever been in her life.

Acknowledging that feels wrong, but she can still taste him on her tongue and feel the firm length of him pressing into her lower belly. The desire to trace the waistband of his pants with her fingertips, to let him lift her onto the bed and welcome him into the vee of her legs, was overwhelming, and that’s a confusing place to be for someone certain that she neverwanted another man to touch her. Her brain is short-circuiting at the moment. A tangled mix of fear, adrenaline, and leftover arousal spins in her veins like a potent cocktail. Good thing she doesn’t have any disposable time right now to over-analyze what they’ve done. That’ll come later.

“It stopped,” he says.

The commotion outside the room has gone silent enough to hear her heart beating in her eardrums. “Maybe the guards got them.”

Dean frowns, his arm lifting in her hand in a shrug, and she slides it down and off again.

She’s about to grab her bag and fish out her phone to call for help, and why didn’t she think of that before? She’d been so carried away that it didn’t occur to her to call up to the front desk and tell them that the infirmary was on the receiving end of an escape attempt. Fear fried her brain, making common sense a little less common for the last few minutes. Of course, Dean didn’t suggest it either. He knows she has access to a phone and never mentioned it once, so she shouldn’t be so hard on herself.

The rattling of keys outside the door is a promise of salvation that makes her relax a fraction, but Dean only tenses further, giving her a wary look over his shoulder before the guards bust through the threshold, decked out in riot gear.

Ava tries to tell them that he isn’t a threat, but they barely spare her a glance except to ask if she’s hurt. Dean is pinned to the floor with a knee on his lower back while the cuffs snap in place, and then he’s dragged up again with enough force to make her wince. He doesn’t resist but the tension in his body is evident in the way he flinches when they grab him, even though he sees it coming. They are rougher than they have tobe, as if he attempted to rush right past them.

She can’t do anything but watch as they walk him out and her mind races with possibilities of where he’ll end up next.

A holding cell at first, then solitary after that if they deem him a participant in the riot.

He cranes his neck to find her, mouthing the words “It’s okay” before he’s jerked out of sight.

It doesn’t feel okay in the slightest. She can’t shake the worry that he’s about to get years added to his short sentence. The moment she’s informed that the halls are clear and everyone is back in their respective cells again, she wastes no time in heading straight toward the warden’s office.

Someone has to tell him what happened here, and she’s not about to let people make their own assumptions about why Dean was in that room with her. She won’t let him catch even more time if there’s anything she can do to stop it.

* * *

‘I’ll take it under advisement’.

That’s what the warden said when she told him matter-of-factly that Dean protected her. He kept the others out of the infirmary and stopped the escape attempt. She could have been injured, raped, or killed if he hadn’t shown up when he did, and she makes that clear in her poorly practiced speech.

‘I’ll take it under advisement’ is all she got in return from someone far too busy with other details of this ordeal to give her words much weight yet.

Now, she sinks onto the sofa in her empty, cold house and tries not to let the silence completely envelop her. It’s moreweighty and persistent than usual tonight. She hasn’t felt this uneasy in her own home since the accident was a fresh memory and Charlotte occupied her every waking thought.

She still does. A day doesn’t go by when she doesn’t think of her daughter, but she’s gotten used to the quiet of the house and doesn’t expect her little girl to come running down the hall anymore. Acceptance doesn’t equal healing, but Ava has finally gained acceptance of the quiet solitude of this place. Except tonight it’s too easy to get lost in her head and stress about Dean when there’s nothing she can do and nothing to distract her. Too tense to eat, too nervous, and unfocused to watch TV. The highlight reel from the day’s events already plays on repeat in her head.

He’s fine, she tells herself. They wouldn’t put him back with the others now. A few nights in a holding cell is probably like a vacation.

Not for the first time, she wonders what it might feel like to have him here with her. To lean into the circle of his arms instead of bracing on the cushions, to listen to his heart thumping under her ear and feel his fingers running through her hair. Fuck. She is so far gone, and it’s not lost on her that there are a hundred different problems with how she feels about this man. That doesn’t stop her from missing him, though, from worrying about him or wishing things could be different. Wishing that she met him on the outside instead.

It’ll be months before Dean is free and they can even entertain a relationship outside the prison walls. If that’s something they want once it’s all said and done. She knows that time won’t dim her feelings, but without visits, it’s possible he could change his mind, move on…forget her. On the off chance he feels the same by then, would it even be fair toexpect him to take things slow once they aren’t separated by cuffs and bars? He’ll want more from her and she isn’t sure she can give it, especially not yet. She may want him, but her past could easily crawl into their bed, rendering her skittish and untouchable, afraid to take that step.

She runs a fingertip over her lower lip, the ghost of his kiss tingling like a bee sting. She doesn’t regret it, but coming to terms with her behavior that contradicts what she thought she knew about herself isn’t something she’ll figure out today.

Maybe she should take one of those cats after all, she thinks. A pet isn’t a replacement for human companionship, but it might be nice to have someone, something to come home to.

She has a feeling that she won’t be able to show Dean any photos from now on. Whatever happens with him will end with another nurse on a different floor taking over his care, should he need it. The powers that be won’t chance her safety with an inmate who locked himself inside her infirmary during a riot, no matter how often or how sincerely she tells them he was only there to help. The rules may be lax, but that’s a lawsuit waiting to happen and they are nothing if not cheap.

---