I blinked my eyes innocently at him. “I would never…”
***
Three hours later I was on some man’s back, choking him, and trying to pull him off of the female doctor.
The security guard was trying to unlatch the man’s hands from the doctor’s wrists, and everyone was screaming.
My adrenaline was going nuts, coursing through my veins, and I wanted nothing more than to rip this man’s head off.
Headache my ass.
This man didn’t have a headache. He’d planned this, knowingly putting his hands on that woman.
“Let go!” the guard bellowed, digging his fingers into a pressure point that I would think would almost force the man to let go.
Apparently, though, I was wrong, because the guy was still hanging on.
Though, he wasn’t yanking the poor doctor around any longer.
Not with me choking the life out of him, and the guard protecting the doctor from being thrashed about like a predator going in for the kill.
And then, one man arrived, and everything stopped.
Just like that, it stopped.
Bayou stalked in, in uniform today, unlike yesterday, like an avenging angel.
He didn’t seem to be in a rush, but all of a sudden, he was at our sides and squeezing down on the man’s jaw with his big, huge hand.
The guy screamed as I heard something crunch—yeah, he’d have to have that fixed—and the inmate let the good doctor go.
I slid off of his back and slowly backed away, as did the guard—who still had a hold of the doctor.
The doctor, although surprised and a little bit hurt, didn’t look like she was going to pass out like I might have.
She was used to it, though.
She and I had a lot of time to talk over the long morning.
Her name was Diane, and she was rather abrupt and unapproachable at first, but once you got past the prickly exterior, she was actually quite a lot of fun to talk to.
And she’d told me all kinds of stories about working here, and how she loved it. How it was never predictable.
I now believed her.
The moment we were all backed away, Bayou removed his hand from the man’s jaw, and the inmate slumped to the floor, holding his face.
Bayou stared down at him like he was an irritating bug.
Today he was wearing black pants like the highway patrol wore with a gold stripe down the outside legs. He had on a black pair of biker boots—I liked to call them ass-kicking shoes—that looked like they were massive and could stomp a guy into the ground. His shirt was a darker shade of gray with gold buttons, and ‘WARDEN’ was embroidered on the front in gold block capital letters. The shirt was long-sleeved and covered Bayou’s arms all the way down to mid forearm where he’d rolled them up at some point during the day to just below his elbows.
The collar was buttoned up all the way to his throat, and dear God. The man was wearing gold aviator sunglasses.
It was almost as if he’d come straight from outside, or he’d been about to go outside.
I wasn’t really sure.
But whew, boy, did he look good in uniform.
Not that the dress pants and nice button-down shirt hadn’t looked good on him yesterday, but today? Well, let’s just say it was good that I was getting off in an hour and could go to my place and take care of myself.
Seriously, the man was delicious.
I’d seen his guards walking around all day in much the same outfit, but Bayou in that uniform? Yeah, I was a goner.
“I told you last time that you weren’t going to come into this infirmary and pull a stunt like you did before ever again, didn’t I?” Bayou looked down at the now weeping man.
“Y-yes,” the man mumble-cried.
I was fairly sure his jaw had to be causing him pain.
I’d heard the crunch. Whether it was bone or cartilage, tendons or muscle, I didn’t know. But the man had something wrong with him.
“Crockett, take him to the pit,” Bayou growled.
Crockett, who I finally realized was the guard, did just that.
“Uhh,” I hesitated. “Are we not going to treat him?”
Are we not going to fix whatever you just broke? went unsaid.
“It’ll heal,” Bayou replied unflinchingly.
I bit my lip and tried not to laugh.
“Yeah,” I agreed, walking over to where Diane was standing.
She was holding her elbows close to herself but didn’t look too worse for the wear.
“Are you okay?” I asked.
Bayou’s attention turned to Diane, and his eyes softened.
Diane was a pretty lady. She was in her mid to late thirties and was obviously attracted to Bayou based on the looks she sent his way.
“Anything broken?” Bayou asked, eyes flicking to me and not to Diane.
I shrugged. “I don’t know.”
“No,” Diane’s soft, melodic voice interrupted us. “I’m fine. I’m just scared.”
Bayou didn’t try to comfort her. In fact, he didn’t even try to go near her. He kept his distance and was closer to my back than he was to Diane.