Caught by the Convicts

“I think he likes you,” chuckles the guard.

“I’m glad you’re amused by …”

My sentence hangs in the air when two men come into view just ahead to my right.

Prisoners.

They are in a cell, side by side. And they couldn’t be more different.

One of them flat out doesn’t seem to belong in this setting. He’s…gorgeous.

Tall, fit, square jawed and handsome, his whiskey-colored hair casually tousled. He winks a blue eye at me as I pass. An honest-to-God flutter in my belly catches me off guard. I can’t help but look back over my shoulder, and this time, my attention settles on the second man. Now he looks like a prisoner. Unshaven, black hair hanging down in curtains around his face, tattoos rioting across his thick, prison yard muscles. His intensity settles on me and inflicts a very different kind of flutter than his counterpart.

These men are night and day. One terrifyingly masculine. Dangerous. One devastatingly sexy, a twinkle of charm in his eye. Who are these men?

Why can’t I seem to tear my attention off them?

“See something you like?” drawls the guard.

My face flames and I keep moving, doing my best to refocus on the task ahead. I’m not here to study the prisoners or wonder what heinous deed landed them behind bars. I’m here to finally confront my father. To strip away his power over me once and for all, so I can move on with my life. So I can trust that he’s locked up forever and maybe, just maybe, I can attempt to be happy. Perhaps I can even have a healthy relationship someday built on trust, something I’ve always found extremely difficult.

I’ve just about regained my determination when the prisoners start to grow rowdy.

Beyond rowdy, really. There’s a surge of energy around me, a cacophony of sound. Excited hollering, the shaking of bars, the slamming of metal on metal.

“What’s happening?” I ask the guard.

“I don’t know.” He unclips the radio from his shoulder and speaks directly into the static, his eyes slightly nervous as he scans the rows of cells. “Control center, I’m going to need some backup in concourse three. I thought it was the hot blonde making them extra rowdy, but it appears to be something else.” When there is no response from the radio, he looks down at the device in confusion. “Control center, do you copy? Come in, control center.”

A layer of ice is forming on my skin.

Something is wrong.

For some odd reason, my gaze shoots to the cell holding Night and Day.

The scary one. The beautiful one.

When I walked past a few moments ago, they didn’t look worried, but they do now.

Night paces behind Day, his mouth moving with words I cannot hear.

There is a smile on Day’s face, but his brow is pinched, his long fingers drumming on the bars of their cell. Without taking his attention off of me, he says something to his cellmate over his shoulder and the man nods, shoulders firming with purpose.

A deafening buzz rents the air, followed by a sequence of loud clicks.

And that’s when the cell doors—all of them—spring open.

A sea of orange jumpsuits floods the concourse. Men overturning the picnic tables, fights breaking out, shouts echoing off the high ceiling. It all happens so fast, I barely have a chance to piece together what’s taking place. This is a jailbreak. An actual jailbreak. We’re in the midst of hundreds of violent offenders. I turn toward my escort with wide eyes and his helpless fear unleashes my own. His gun can’t protect us from this many prisoners.

This is a death sentence.

As soon as those words settle in my mind, an inmate comes up behind the guard and buries a sharp object in the side of his neck. With a choked sound, my escort goes down, thick, red blood burbling from the fresh wound and soaking his uniform top.

It’s only seconds before the light goes out of his eyes.

Dead. He’s dead.

With my heart slamming into my ear drums, I go into survival mode. I turn in a circle, looking for somewhere to hide. But there’s nowhere. Nowhere. And now the man with the shank is stalking toward me with an insidious smile curving his lips. Oh God. Oh God. Is this a bad dream or am I actually at the mercy of hundreds of incarcerated men? I won’t live to see this evening, let alone tomorrow’s sunrise.

A voice comes over a loud speaker ordering the prisoners back into their cells. But I don’t have to turn around to know they’re ignoring the warning, continuing to wreak havoc behind me. The man with the sharp, bloody object has almost reached me when I’m picked up and tossed over a large shoulder—and carted off into the fray.

Chapter 2

I close my eyes and inhale through my nose, repeating the mantra that got me through a youth of poverty and violence and instability. You can survive anything. You can survive anything. Unfortunately, those four words don’t seem to ring as true today, since I’m currently being ferried away by a prisoner, hands ripping at my clothing, fists closing around my ankles and attempting to pull me away from whoever has taken me.