Page 2 of Cry for Help

I ignored my own rumbling stomach.

I was used to taking the blame for things I hadn’t done.

I was ready for it.

I knew it was coming; I was just sad I’d had to miss dinner because one of the methheads on C block had decided to bite it in the shower.

I didn’t even know her name.

Jennifer...Something?

My wrists were shackled. The iron bracelets rubbed against my skin like a host of fire ants. An itch I couldn’t scratch. My ankles were connected to my wrists by a long chain wrapped around my waist and the chair I sat on.

Two guards stood sentry behind me, arms crossed and feet squared—their gazes fixed in the middle distance. Their distraction was an illusion.

I coughed—my chain jerking as I went to cover my mouth. Both guards stepped forward, ready for action.

The warden sat in front of me, picking the remnants of his beef sandwich from his teeth with his pinkie nail. That sandwich sat forlornly on the plate before me, half-finished and oozing mustard.

He'd be waiting a long time if he was waiting for me to speak.

I didn’t speak. Period.

Which was just as well, I wasn’t a pleasant person, and keeping quiet helped maintain the illusion.

Also, bad things happened when I used my voice.

I guessed that being in control of a thousand unruly female inmates allowed things to fall through the cracks. Maybe the warden didn’t know I was mute?

The warden was a rotund man in his late fifties sporting a beard that covered his neck but not his chin. His eyes were beady, constantly darting from side to side as if expecting an attack. His shirts were pressed and white, but the fabric was almost translucent, revealing the shadow of his massive amount of chest hair.

The inmates called him Sergeant Ape, but no one knew if he’d served in the military. The haircut indicatedyes.

The warden stared at me for a long moment, waiting for one of us to break the silence.

Every time my hands twitched, the chains rattled. The sound was eerily loud.

He knitted his fat fingers together, placing his elbows on my open file as he leaned forward, focused and full of judgment. “Madeleine Speck.” He spat my name like a curse. “Another dead inmate. That’s four in three years. What a coincidence, huh? You enter the shower, and suddenly, Inmate Callahan falls and hits her head on the tile. Wrong place, wrong time, huh?” He let the sentence hang.

I licked my dry lips but didn’t speak.

His beady eyes narrowed. “Or you’re the reason so many of my inmates are addicted toSugar.”

I knew about Sugar. You didn’t spend time behind bars without knowing about the drugs that moved through the prison and which inmates made hooch in the toilets or huffed toilet bleach.

Sugar was one of the bad ones.

Only last month, Mackenzie-Grace had cut her arms from wrists to elbows and pulled her veins out. She’d worn a blissful expression the whole time as if she was knitting a blanket. She’d been taken to the local hospital for treatment and hadn’t returned.

She’d live—don’t ask me how I knew. I just did.

“Inmate Speck!” The warden barked. “Am I boring you? Huh?”

I shook my head, going with the safe response.

We stared at each other for a long moment. Neither of us verbalized the truth about the situation.

It wasn’t a coincidence anymore. Too many inmates were dying around me.

---