Page 49 of Auctioned to the Prisoners

“What about Kinkaid? His sentence is ridiculous. There are pedophiles in this place serving less time.”

“I know.” The warden rubs his face. “No one said it’s fair.”

“An unfair system deserves to be challenged unfairly.” I shove my hands in my pockets, twisting my thoughts into something safe to say without directly asking what I’m asking. “Like Dannemora”

Warden stiffens and presses his lips between his teeth. There aren’t many escape attempts more famous than that. They made a show about it so he should understand what I’m suggesting. But will he agree?

Grady rubs at the edges of his mustache, widening his stance. He’s actually giving my covert suggestion some, though. Hope mushrooms into something that presses against the inside of each rib, expanding my chest.

“The owner of the laundry company is a good friend of mine. A relative by marriage.”

Kinkaid glances at me, then back at the warden. Did we just hear that right?

He clears his throat and then continues. “One could work. Three is too much of a risk.”

“You’re serious?” I’m not a betting man, but if I was, I wouldn’t have risked a nickel on the odds that he’d help with something like this.

Grady nods. “This place... it wears me down like water dripping on a rock… it’s incessant. There’s no rehabilitation. Nothing to stop the ones who leave from coming back. You guys, you did what I couldn’t because I’m not built that way… to take revenge. It makes me sick with myself because I’d die in this place if I was on your side of the bars. I couldn’t handle it. That’s my weakness. I owe you more than just a pretty girl for a few days. I owe you my peace of mind and my freedom.”

“Kinkaid will go,” I say. “Me and Hyde will wait it out.”

“I’ll push as much as I can on your sentences,” Grady says.

“When?” Kinkaid asks, his voice tight and icy, a gravelly edge betraying the tension he’s holding back. This is beyond his control and his posture has stiffened with the knowledge that he'll have to take risks with real, tangible consequences if things go wrong. The punishment for an escape attempt is brutal for a reason.

“I’ll take Lory tomorrow and move you back upstairs one by one tomorrow night. Give it three weeks.”

Three weeks and then Kinkaid will get his chance at freedom. He can go to Lory and find out if there’s really something between them on the outside. And when it’s my time to leave, he could be waiting with our girl. My fantasy is a bubble that could easily burst, one that Hyde shares. But keeping hopeful is the only way I’ll get through each day that stretchesbefore me in this cage without Lory. It’s the only way I’ll be able to let Lory leave without dropping to my fucking knees.

Grady leaves before Hyde emerges, looking sex-drunk and desperate.

“She’s sleeping,” he says.

“I’m not surprised.”

He smirks at me, then collapses into a chair. “He’s taking her, isn’t he?”

“Yes.”

Hyde’s head falls.

“But we have a plan.”

We outline everything that was spoken out. Although Hyde retains some of his dark aura, some hope irons out his frown.

“We can’t tell her,” I say at the end.

“But…”

I cut off Hyde before he can finish, raising a hand. “We can’t jeopardize Kinkaid’s chance. All it would take is for her to tell one person, and everything would unravel.”

“But how will he find her on the outside?”

“We ask for an address… say we want to write her.”

“Have you noticed that she hasn’t shared much about herself since she’s been here? I don’t even know her last name.”

“Then we ask her. If she doesn’t want us to know, she’ll make an excuse, and we’ll let her go.”

---