“What?” I had no idea what Maris had to do with this.
“Didn’t your warden dick tell you she wasn’t coming back?” Evangelina cackled and her minions echoed.
“Maris?”
“Bitch was a word whore spreading her lips to the warden.” Shock coursed through me. What? That meant that all this time Cohen had someone working for him on the inside. He knew. He knew about Maris. He knew Maris was the snitch and she was the one who must have gotten Hector in trouble.
I stepped back, my ass against the wall while they stood their ground taunting me. “What does that have to do with me?”
“Grant was supposed to get rid of you. Dumb shit couldn’t do that right.” She spit at my feet the fluid hitting my thigh making me cringe. It was disgusting. I didn’t know anything about Grant or his plans except that somehow I got fucked by getting his unwanted attention twice now.
“Well Grant’s dead, so fat lot of good it did him after all.” I sneered. I was done being their punching bag.
Evangelina stepped forward with menace in her eyes when one of her gang-girls spoke. “And now Hector is in custody no thanks to this rat.” She poked me in the shoulder with her sharp nail nearly breaking the skin.
“I’m not a rat.” My shoulders hunched, I focused on doing what I needed to do to get out of here. My heart and head pounded blocking out the dripping faucets and the cool air that puckered my skin like chicken leather.
“Eye for an eye, don’t you think?” She snickered and her bitches moved in, hitting, punching, and
kicking me to the hard floor. Everything hurt as I curled up in a ball trying to protect myself. I screamed. I cried. I tried to fight to back but I was no match against hardened girls with a vendetta.
Banging on the door made them pause for a second. They would kill me, given half the chance.
“Shit, those guards are supposed to be changing shifts right now.” Evangelina hissed.
“Didn’t you pay that female guard enough?” One yelled.
The banging on the door became louder, like someone or something was trying to break it down. All I could focus on was keeping myself conscious so I could tell whoever was coming what happened.
“The south entrance at the laundry isn’t supposed to be monitored right now. Fuck the shipment.” Evangeline scoffed.
“I thought they had the laundry van coming?” I had no idea what her goons were yelling about because each word seemed to be punctuated by a kick or a hit to my body with a heavy sock filled with whatever they could use to hit me with. I covered my head and face while they concentrated their blows on the rest of my body.
I wanted to ask questions, I wanted to coax them, taunt them if I must into dropping more information. I was already on the floor now broken and bloodied, I figured I ought to make it worth it.
The door banged again, and pandemonium filtered into the shower area as guards rushed in to subdue the fight. I lay where I was, unmoving.
Evangelina shouted, feet stomping and slipping in the puddles of water when another guard put her down, handcuffing her. “God damn that Garcia. He screwed us over.”
My last thought before oblivion was that maybe, just maybe that’s what Cohen wanted to know. The rat wasn’t an inmate, it was a guard, that pervert Garcia.
Twelve
Cohen
“Baby…” I winced pulling back the curtain. She was more colorful than the aurora borealis. By the time I had been given the news of the lockdown in the shower unit, an ambulance had her racing for the hospital ten miles away from the women’s correctional unit in Colby, TX. I’d been here once before when they brought Maris. I hoped that this was the last of these visits.
The fault lay on me for this happening. I didn’t protect her. I didn’t do my job as the warden.
Nene curled up protectively on her side wearing a sallow green hospital gown that made her look even worse. Bruises vividly colored her face and shoulders. Those crazy violent gang-girls tried stomping on her. They would have succeeded too had Raina not heard the yelling from inside the showers on her way back from changing Julius. Her hair was matted against her cheeks and stained dark with blood from a seeping head wound and stitches. I’d seen a lot of things in my career, but this sight was gruesome, turning my stomach. Pretty Nene looked more like a sewn up rag doll than a human being. Her lip cut and one eye swollen.
No sounds came from her except a few wheezing breaths followed by whimpers of pain. I pushed a chair next to the bed. The metal legs scraped against the cracked tiles in the floor with a jarring sound that made her wince. Nene may have been one of the strongest women I knew, but god, I’d have to handle her with kid gloves. She’d been damaged enough by the system, by those vicious women, and lastly me.
“Sweetheart.” I tried coaxing her by laying my hand gently against the sheet covering her hip but she didn’t stir.
I attempted again stroking her leg above the sheet.
“Nene, why did they beat you in the shower?” A sniffle followed a cry, and Nene tugged the sheet closer around her. The doctor said she hadn’t been raped. I thanked God for that small miracle. I didn’t know whether to be relieved or worried if something worse happened. He said that nothing penetrated her, as if that was supposed to magically make being attacked better or less violating. She had been badly beaten. The doctor took photos thinking they would need evidence. I already saw them. Shoe prints bruised her body with dark, concentrated splotches where fists had hit her. Her soul had been violated and humiliated; wasn’t that enough?