Page 20 of Capturing Hearts

Chapter Sixteen

Tommy

Incarcerated a few months ago. For life. Me: not happy.

“They’re comin’ for ya, Tommy!” whispers Dinon from the cell next to mine. He’s always watching. He sees things before everyone. Me? I don’t care to watch. I like to keep to myself. Keep my head down. Maintain my virginity. And aside from that, stay out of the game. And there’s a deadly serious game in jail, just like in the movies and T.V., only it’s worse because it’s real.

I gotta get out of here.

“Who’s coming, D? Santa Claus?”

“Listen,” he hisses.

I straighten up on my elbows on the bed. Then I hear them. Multiple pairs of methodically advancing footsteps. They could belong to anyone. It’s the not knowing that’s got my teeth on edge and goosebumps rising slowly. I keep to myself in here. But I knew that couldn’t last forever.

“Shit,” I mutter under my breath, jumping down from the top bunk. The second I hit the cement, The Chain Gang appears in my doorway, a group of Italians I’ve carefully avoided. Until now.

“Well, well, well. Pretty Boy. If it ain’t the pretty boy who missed,” smiles Antonio who controls the gang as well as most of the Caucasian inmate population. He’s got a scar sliced across his neck from a near fatal knife fight in here last year. The other guy missed the near and went straight to the fatal. But what’s creepier is he doesn’t blink.

I ask with measured caution, “How’s it goin’ Antonio?”

“We were wonderin’ why you don’t sit with us? We noticed you keep to yourself and we were wonderin’ if you might be lonely. Maybe you need some friends.”

I blink. He doesn’t. I glance at the three guys flanking him. I look at Antonio again. I know this little speech of his means he’s got a job for me. If I don’t do it, I’ll be headed to the infirmary the second after I close my eyes to sleep. That’s what happened to the last guy. He didn’t make it back on his own two legs.

The truth is, I’ve got no one to turn to in here, and I need a friend. He’s offering me what he considers friendship, which is really thinly veiled indentured servitude. But if I take it and join them, I might have some protection. Either way, it’s a horrible life.

“What do you want me to do?”

“Can we talk in private?” he asks, pretending like there is such a thing as privacy in here.

“Sure.” I back into the cell and he walks in, but his ghouls stay back and turn around as though faced away they can’t hear us.

Antonio lowers his voice and his chin, looking at me from underneath his eyebrows. “There’s a guy who’s not treated me with the respect I deserve.”

My chest tightens. “Yeah?”

He stares at me. After a few charged seconds, he finally says, “Yeah.”

My knuckles itch, ready to defend myself as best I can. I'm beginning to sweat and I hope he can't see. But I’d lay odds he can. “Well, this guy must be a fuckin’ moron, then.”

At this, Antonio’s eyes dance with amusement, but that could mean anything from he thinks I’m funny to he thinks I’m dead. He nods a couple times–just short, slow jerks of his head.

“He is.” It seems like hours go by before he adds, “You know Morales?”

I blink again, which pisses me off. “Lenny Morales? Yeah.”

“You know how you missed with that gun of yours?”

I don’t bother to tell him I didn’t miss, I just didn’t kill Brendan when I shot him. “Yeah.”

“Don’t miss again.” He holds my eyes with meaning, and turns to walk out, casual as can be.

“I don’t have a…” I start to say gun but he stops me.

His hand goes up and he looks at me around the over-developed mound of his shoulder. “Get creative.”

“Hey Tony, guards are comin’ this way,” one of his ghouls whispers.

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