Page 33 of I Regret Nothing
“I have a message from Whisper and a request.”
“Whisper gets bonus points for looking out for you. What does she want and what do you need?”
“Whisper says the foxes are running low on their tea, and they didn’t get their panties. No one told me that was an option. Are there extra? Can I get some?”
“Ha!” I yelled, punching Dakarys in the arm. “I fuckingtoldyou. The Vampires are all yours.”
“No way! This doesn’t count. She totally would have hit you if you offered. Since she brought it up herself, the bet is null and void.”
We sat down at our table, and I just grinned at her. I was in a good mood. I got to hug her, and I could give her something she wanted.
“Settle a bet for us, love. I was going to offer you some of our panty haul because it’s a desirable item and everyone in here hates the prison-issued stuff. Dakarys thought it would offend you enough to hit me and want out of our little caper. The loser has to deal with the Vampires.”
She threw back her head and started laughing. Gods, I loved listening to that. She had this musical laugh that just sounded like trouble.
“Before prison, I totally would have broken your nose. It’s creepy to gift panties to coworkers. You’ll get fired so fast, and your employer will end up with a lawsuit. Being in prison, it’s different. What they give us is cruel and unusual punishment. They don’t have anything small enough for me, so I swim in everything. The bra is technically too big, but it still pinches me everywhere and the underwear rides up my butt. How they pulled that off, I have no idea.”
I was flat out beaming and wanted to gloat all up in Dakarys’s face. See, I wasn’t a savage. I didn’t go around gifting panties to girls I’d just met before prison. Creepers and perverts did that. Prison was different. Gifting naughty panties in here earned you respect because they had to be smuggled in carefully.
“See? The bet is still on, and the Vampires are all yours.”
“Fuck you, Rajack. It totally doesn’t count. Whisper told her about the panties, and she’s had time to think about this. If you just sprung it on her, she would have hit you.”
“Um, hello? I’m sitting right here, and I can tell you exactly how I feel and how I would have reacted. As soon as the option for comfortable undergarments was presented to me, I jumped right on it. I wouldn’t have hit Rajack. The bra pinches, and the underwear is constantly creeping up my ass. Do you have my size?”
The only reason I wanted to offer was because we totally did.
“We had an order for a Vampire who is about your size. She filed an appeal. She wasn’t granted her freedom, but she got transferred to a minimum-security prison where they serve the Vampires human blood. We’ll drop it off at your cell when we’re dropping off the rest of them for the foxes.”
Her smile totally lit up her face. Contraband panties always did that in prison.
Someone plopped down at our table. It was a pissed off Astrid and an equally angry Wren.
“I thought we had an understanding,” Astrid hissed. “I told you I was handling Venus. Now, she’s up in medical, and I’ve got a bunch of pissed off witches who weren’t on her side before but want me to do something about it now!”
“I didn’t touch her,” Rei said. “She’s been asking around the other gangs for someone to kill me for her. She asked one of the foxes to shank me in the shower. They took offense. I didn’t know about it until they told me in the showers.”
Astrid glared at Wren.
“How the fuck did you not know about this? You’re supposed to be her shadow.”
“You’ve seen her in the laundry room. She doesn’t pull her weight, and she constantly takes bathroom breaks. I can’t follow her on every single one without blowing my cover. Everyone should be on work duty then. She must be going to all the bathrooms she can and asking anyone she finds on a bathroom break. Honestly, I’m shocked this is the first time she’s gotten jumped if that’s her alternate plan. Why would you even ask a fox to kill another fox?”
“She did it on purpose,” Rei said. “This is what she does. She knew she wasn’t getting enough support from the other witches. She’s been here long enough to see how things work. She knew Candra wouldn’t have taken her up on it. Shewantedthe foxes to beat her up because she knew exactly what kind of support she would get from her coven. She’s going to say I beat her up with the foxes, and she wants everyone upset with Astrid to get rid of her for Venus.”
I’d met some pretty bad people in prison. Between Scorchwood and Silverhold, I’d met prolific serial killers and rapists. Most of them weren’t the least bit sorry for what they did and could admit it was only a matter of time until they got caught. Most of them were totally psycho and would brag about their crimes to make themselves seem more powerful. Some were stupid enough to try to keep committing them while in prison, and they always got killed.
I’d met some stupid criminals and some evil criminals, but Venus took the cake. There were pecking orders in prison. Respect had to be earned. Everyone understood that. If you wanted to insert yourself as a leader, you challenged the one in place in front of everyone, so they knew who to give credit to when one of you ended up dead. Long live the king or queen.
These games Venus was playing was fucked up. You just didn’t do that in prison, and it was going to bite her in the ass. If she had riled up the foxes because she wanted the witches turning on Astrid and coming after Rei, then she’d made an enemy of the foxes. If she was randomly going to bathrooms and trying to arrange a hit, she’d made even more. Every gang had someone or several people who did their killing for them. If you needed someone dead, you went to that person.
You just did not walk around prison asking random people to do your dirty work for you. Some gangs took offense at that like you were looking down your nose at them.
“I’m sorry, Astrid. I know you want to handle this your own way, but that witch is causing drama with more than just your coven now,” Dakarys said.
I totally agreed. She got that beating from the foxes on purpose. She was already down. Someone should get into medical and just put a pillow over her face until she couldn’t cause trouble anymore.
“Why couldn’t you just let her have the amulet?” Astrid asked. “You’re both causing too much drama.”
