I watched until I couldn’t see them anymore, and then went into my office to get some work done.
It took another ten minutes before the representative with the state came in, made me sign off on some paperwork, and then told me to keep my nose clean until next year.
The feeling of relief as I watched her leave the lot, and then the grounds altogether, was exhilarating.
Once I saw the last of her taillights, I went back to work, trying to play catch up on some work that never seemed to end.
That lasted for all of ten minutes before the warning sirens indicating an altercation of some sort sounded throughout the alarm system.
I was up and looping my utility belt around my waist in about five seconds flat.
It took me three minutes and thirty-two seconds to get to the area where the riot had broken out—the family visiting area.
I cursed and took in a quick glance of the room.
There were fourteen men in the room, all cuffed and chained, and six guards. Two men were going at it on the ground while the guards tried to break up the fight.
Normally we’d just let them duke it out seeing as it was only two men, but with this being in the visiting area with about a hundred people looking on, some that were talking to the inmates, and others that were sitting in chairs behind them waiting their turn, we needed to step in.
On the inmate side, the majority of the men were all backed away from the fight lining the walls. They wanted to visit with their family, and they knew that if I arrived and saw a riot, or what I thought would be a riot, I’d be issuing orders that would soon have them in their cells for the next few days.
Something in which they certainly didn’t want.
“All right, you two,” I barked loudly as I waded into the fight. “That’s enough.”
The younger of the two men, a white male in his late twenties, stiffened and immediately stopped fighting.
“Nope. No. Nuh-uh,” the man said. “I refuse to be a part of this. I don’t want those damn drugs that bad.”
I frowned and looked at the man with a new understanding. “What are you talking about?”
His eyes went wide when he realized that he was the one with my attention now, and not the man currently under my boot.
“I…” he squeaked. “I don’t know. I’m, well, what?”
“Take this one to the infirmary.” I pointed at the man under my boot.
Derringer, who’d come up to hear the talking, nodded his head once and hefted inmate #3567, better known as Ben O’Rourke, the man who liked to kill his girlfriends when they moved on.
“After you, O’Rourke.” Derringer pushed/carried O’Rourke to the first guard station where they cuffed him.
Once they were gone, I turned to inmate #5535 and said, “Get him up and take him to the infirmary, too. Let’s get his bleeding stopped.”
My orders were followed instantly by another guard, this one a young guard named Jonesy that had been here for a little over a month.
Once Jonesy had him started in the infirmary’s direction, I turned to the remaining guards. “Go get the other two guards that are on break and have them get settled in here for the time being. Let’s get this wave of visitors through, then shut it down. Understand?”
The oldest and most senior guard nodded. “Will do.”
With that, I was giving each inmate a look that clearly said, ‘disobey me and face the consequences.’
They all got the point, and I left the room to head to the infirmary.
Twenty minutes later, we were all in the same room, and I was pissed.
O’Rourke had Derringer on him still. I was on the new kid, Kickey, inmate #5535 and Rome was standing next to Phoebe with his feet planted wide and his arms crossed over his chest, ready for anything.
Then there was Diane, flitting around like she hadn’t a care in the world.
I turned to Kickey and glared. “Explain.”
The man swallowed hard. His eyes turned to O’Rourke, then Diane of all people, and then he started to spill.
“We were to start fights while she did her thing,” Kickey said, looking like he was a caged animal. “She smuggled in the drugs in her clothes, and then we paid her by doing things for her, like kick a certain guy’s ass. Or get some information that she wanted.”
My brows rose. “Really?”
Diane looked like she was about to be sick.
“Yeah,” he said. “That’s what the fight was about with ol’ O’Rourke. I wanted some shit that would take me away from this place for a while. She said she could give it to me…for a price.” He swallowed hard. “All I had to do was deliver a message in the form of an ass kicking and she’d give me my stuff when I visited the infirmary.”