Page 31 of The Sharpest Edges

Three months. Maybe three and a half. That’s what he has left, provided they don’t tack on more.

Just as she’s about to drift off into a fitful sleep, her phone rings, shrill and jarring, Lori’s name lighting up the screen. Ava doesn’t want to talk. Rehashing the details of today’s ordeal sounds like a nightmare, but her friend is worried and she can only imagine what stories Greg has filled her head with about what happened today.

Reluctantly, she slides her finger across the screen.

“Are you okay? Is everything okay? I heard about the riot, that this guy locked himself in the infirmary with you…that he attacked you. Oh my God, Ava. Talk to me. I told you not to go back there after the first time. I said it was a terrible idea back then. I know you think you belong in that place like it’s some sort of punishment, but you can’t keep doing this.”

Lori’s voice is high-pitched and scared but all Ava can hear is the part about how Dean attacked her, which is so far from the truth, it’s laughable. “That’s not what happened. Who told you that?”

“Greg told me. He heard from one of the others. Are you ok? Did he hurt you?”

“I’m fine. No one hurt me. There was an escape attempt, they tried to come through the infirmary to get to the window but the inmate in there with me stopped them. The grapevine in that place is like a goddamn game of telephone. He was protecting me.”

She’s so irritated that any drowsiness she felt a moment ago has vanished in favor of jittery anxiety again. She wonders if the story of Dean trying to hurt her has made it far enough to do any damage yet.

Lori seems calmer when she speaks again, her words softer. “Do you want me to come over? I can be there in ten.”

Wasn’t she thinking that it’s lonely as hell in here? So why is she ready to tell Lori no and cart herself up the steps to her bedroom to collapse into a sad little heap alone? She should take her up on the offer. The company would be welcome once it’s here, but she shakes her head to herself anyway, never eager to impose, even on her best friend. “No, I’m okay, really. I’ll call you in the morning?”

“Okay. If you need me, just text. Get some rest.”

She tosses her phone on the sofa with a sigh, leaning forward to brace her forehead in her hands while worry blooms deepin her chest. There’ll be an investigation soon. People asking her questions and ignoring the answers, and she isn’t looking forward to that one bit.

When she wakes up the next morning, she has two messages from the warden and Dean’s court-appointed attorney blinking on her phone.

14

Chapter 14

Week One In Solitary

Dean knows how many cinder blocks form the walls of his tiny cell. How they divide, multiply, their sum total and he might lose his damn mind if he has to look at them for one more day. Only he has more than a day left, he has another month in here. It’s good news, though, because after that he’s free. He can leave this place behind and get back to his shitty life, which somehow seems far less shitty now, compared to when he got here.

He had three months left before the riot, but his lawyer, who isn’t as much of an asshole as he previously thought, fought for him to get a reduction in his sentence and succeeded.

Ava sticking up for him didn’t hurt, either.

He hasn’t seen her since that day when they were barricaded in the infirmary, terrified and wrapped up in each other, her lips soft against his chapped ones and her waist firm under his hands, but he knew she told the warden what happened. She left out the R-rated bits, of course, and the fact that they’ve been crossing every line in the book like it was their job.

Somehow, it had been enough, combined with evidence from the cameras and the discovery of the rookie guard’s involvement in the riot plans. His lawyer told him he deserved to get out now, maybe get a fucking medal for saving the nurse and stopping an escape, but to him two months less still feels like a gift.

Only thirty days left until he might get what he’s been afraid to hope for, time with Ava outside these walls.

He stares into the darkness of his holding cell that looks a lot like solitary confinement, trying to shove back the voice in his head that tells him he’s naive to assume she wouldn’t have moved on by then. A month is a long time, and she’s more than a catch. Kind and caring, with the prettiest face and best set of hips he’s ever seen in his life. She might find someone else, or come to her senses about him.

Seven days in this little square cell and he’s already letting self-doubt get the best of him.

Week 2 1/2 In Solitary

Dean’s never jerked off this much in his life. Not even as a teenager, when his dick was the most fascinating thing he’d ever seen or felt.

This whole cell smells like sex now and he doesn’t even care.

There is nothing to do in here. He gets magazines, something from Cosmo, probably a joke at his expense, and Fisherman’s Weekly as if he fishes. That’s all the entertainment he’s allowed aside from the one hour a day of supervised exercise outside in the yard. He walks alone around a fenced-in box with barbed wire shining above his head. Sometimes he sits on the concrete and stares at those little purple flowers woven through the far fence, wondering if Ava is looking at them too.

It’s for his own protection that he’s not allowed back in the pod. Jaxson was transferred to a different prison several hours away, but he has men left behind. The moment Dean steps foot back in there he may as well submit for his daily beating, strip himself naked, and take up residence in that shower stall all by himself, and that would be getting off easy.

He’s had a lot of time to think, and Jaxson is a topic he can’t quite shake. He wonders if the original plan was to get him to break and then plan their escape during one of his infirmary visits, where he could somehow open the door for them or steal the window keys. Or, if they never expected him to break at all and he’d be offered that task as a way out of his torture. His only chance to be left alone again.

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