Page 43 of Freshman

“He didn’t do anything to you, did he?”

Alfie shook his head. “No…”

Henry rubbed at his chin. “It’s just the thought though, just knowing you can’t see what he’s doing, that he might catch you unawares.”

It wasn’t that at all, but Alfie nodded anyway.

“You handled that well. I wouldn’t have liked being close to him when the lights went out.”

Alfie scratched the back of his head. “Do you think maybe Glen can do the top level at roll call?”

Henry bobbed his head. “I think that’s a good idea. You could do with a break from him.”

11

At roll call, Nate didn’t start bashing the door, much to Alfie’s relief.

He didn’t want to hear Nate’s purring voice. He needed to gather his thoughts about what had happened, or about what had almost happened. He spent another shift staring at Nate on the computer screen but didn’t get up the courage to scroll down.

When Marie offered him a lift home, he didn’t refuse her despite the odd look Glen gave him, and as soon as he set foot in the house, he rushed to the curtains and drew them to block out the sign for Larkwood.

Lying on the sofa, sleep refused to come. It denied him in bed too, and he ended up staring at his panic-blown reflection in the bathroom mirror. His hair was ruffled, his skin was clammy, and half moons of grey were forming under his eyes.

Him and Nate were playing a game, a game he’d thought he was on top of, but he was wrong.

Alfie tilted his head back and clutched at his throat. No marks from Nate’s teeth, just pale skin under his fingertips, but it didn’t feel the same. Nate had infected him; his skin didn’t just tingle at his voice, but at his touch and his scent. Nate had started to take over Alfie’s body, and he didn’t know how it had happened or how to stop it.

He had surrendered his throat to Nate, wouldn’t have fought him off whether he kissed or bit. Instead, Nate had nipped, and Alfie had moved his body into the path of more. If that had been in the darkness of a club, it would’ve been fine, but at Larkwood, with a violent prisoner, it couldn’t get farther from fine. Nate Mathews, triple murderer with the details of his crime so grotesque it made the staff shudder.

He stared in the mirror and questioned why his body betrayed him, but there was no answer, just a face full of confusion staring back.

Alfie ducked down suddenly and braced himself over the sink. He didn’t vomit, but his stomach clenched, and the vice didn’t loosen, no matter how much he rubbed to soothe it.

He couldn’t do the roll call. He couldn’t risk bumping into Nate after his skype call. He had to leave. That was the only option. The staff were unprofessional, worn down by years of the same old thing, but Alfie was new, thought he was a good worker, an efficient one, and it was him stepping over an unforgivable line, not them.

He wondered what would’ve happened if the lights had stayed off, if it had been just him and Nate in the darkness of his cell. His heart sped up beneath his ribs, and he balled his hand into a fist and hit himself like an ape drumming its chest. His heart was not supposed to act that way. It was supposed to freeze in terror, not throb with anticipation. Blood wasn’t meant to flow south, and he wasn’t supposed to lick his lips imagining Nate’s mouth pressed to his.

Alfie had heard of others who had fallen for prisoners, and they weren’t regarded in a good light. They were considered worse than those who smuggled drugs, worse than those who accepted bribes. Getting involved with a prisoner was traitorous, moving from the side of the light to that of the dark. Henry told him both men and women had been caught up in the tumbling ball of lust, and it never ended well.

The only option was quitting. Alfie could leave, barely clinging to his dignity before he lost it all together. He would lose the house, his stable job, but at least he wouldn’t lose his mind.

He lifted his head, stared into his determined eyes, then nodded.

Alfie sighed for the fiftieth time on the way to the prison. He tightened his hand around his scrawled letter of resignation. He had thought about emailing it, but he knew Ryan would scoff and call him pathetic. He wanted to do it face-to-face and leave with as much dignity as he could scrape together.

Alfie hadn’t changed out of his work clothes, and the stale trousers smelled worse in the sunlight. As he walked, he straightened his tie and tucked in his shirt. He couldn’t hide the bags under his eyes, but he could at least smarten himself up.

He knew he would have to work two weeks of notice, but he could avoid Nate for that long. He only had a skype call once a month, and Glen and Marie could take a week each on the top level after he’d done it nonstop.

Nate would protest, Alfie was sure of it, but he could cope with two weeks of cell banging when freedom was on the other side.

The reception staff frowned at him, and he flashed them his ID card. They called through to Ryan’s office, and he told Alfie to wait in the corridor until he was called in. It was the first time he’d seen the corridor in the daytime since his interview. It felt less suffocating, which was ridiculous when there were more people moving about and gates swinging open and closed. The prison during the day was, in a word, loud, and it jarred him sitting there, letting the noises wash over him.

He'd seated himself on a chair outside Ryan’s office and waited with his head bowed like a naughty child sent to the headmaster.

“Officer Alfie?”

He looked up at the voice and blinked at the sight of Queenie. His lips were painted red, the same luscious shade of his nails, and his eyelashes were dark and long. He looked good, healthy and happy, compared to the last time Alfie had seen him. His glamourous appearance was only dulled by the blue apron he wore around his chest and the mop and bucket in his hands.

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