Page 17 of The Care of Broken Things
Chapter Five
Chocolate Crayons
But he wasn’t done with trouble, because no matter how many times he reminded himself not to get involved, his body had become disconnected from his brain. Whenever he’d catch people hanging around Eli’s bed or shower stall, he’d find reasons later to trip them, shove them, and whisper not-so-soft threats in their ears. Once he went too far and wrenched a man’s arm out of its socket. That earned him a night in solitary. He didn’t usually mind that. In fact, for a night or two, he found it therapeutic. It was like his closet, but better, since there wasn’t any threat of other prisoners walking in. But not this time.
“Hey asshole!” someone shouted from a few cells down, “Some of us are trying to sleep here!”
He’d been kicking at the door without realizing, his frustration spilling over. “Come here and I’ll help you sleep forever!”
His mind was full of who might be trying to make a move on Eli while he was gone. He came up with a list. Racer, Ned, Trenches, Leroy, Rod and One-Ball. Those were the ones he hadn’t scared enough. People had forgotten that “Ice Queen” had once been “Mad Dog.” Maybe he’d forgotten it too or he would have gone to Racer that first night and torn his ear off just as he’d done to Chunker with his teeth.
The memory put a vicious smile on his face. He remembered the tearing sound and all that slippery blood in hismouth. Even now, with just the memory, he could feel the bile rising in his throat, but he would do it again. He’d do all of it and more “If they’d just let me out of this goddamn shoebox!” and slammed his body against the cell door. He did it hard enough to recoil backwards and bounce off the wall.
“Hey!” It was CO Bordez, or Stick, as he was called, because of the truncheon that never left his hand. He used it to hammer at the other side of Samuel’s cell. “Knock it off, Fuller, or you’re getting sedated.”
He wanted to fight. The frustration demanded it. But he couldn’t touch the COs. That would put more time on his sentence, and Jenny would kill him. Would likely already kill him when she found out about solitary. He was on a bad path. A very bad path.
The moment they let him out he was already on the move.Eli. But he didn’t need to put much effort into hide-and-seek. The man found him first.
“Samuel,” he said and clamped down on his arm.
The touch, after all the nothing of solitary, was even more dangerous than usual. Overnight his skin had grown more sensitized, and now all his hair—including the stuff on his legs and the back of his neck—was standing at attention.
He didn’t try to pull away, but he wanted to. Was going to. But then he caught sight of the fury in Eli’s eyes, and he didn’t.
“Who was it? Racer, right? Or Trenches. He gave me an obnoxious look when they were dragging me off. I didn’t think he could do anything with his arm messed up, but then I remembered it’s pretty easy to pop those back into—”
Eli slammed him up against the wall. “Enough.”
Andthe man didn’t need to say anything else. Every word in Samuel’s body dried up into nothing all at once. Dangerdangerdangerdanger. The klaxon was going off in his head like a fire alarm.
“You need to stop this protection racket you’ve got going, and I mean right now. Do you think I appreciate this? That I could want you throwing yourself in harm’s way for my sake? You are so close to extra time it’s not funny. The warden told me herself when I asked. So I don’t care what kind of complex you have, you’re going to bow your head and go back to being a model prisoner or I swear to God, I’ll tie you to your bed myself.”
“Let go.” He somehow managed to form the words and push them out of his mouth.
“Not until you promise to stop this. Do you know you gave Nathaniel a panic attack? He thinks going to solitary was his fault. It took me over an hour to calm him down, and I thought I’d get shanked for hogging the phone for so long.”
He knew that if he shoved at Eli’s shoulders he’d lose. That the man was serious about not letting him go. But what else could he do?
“Promise me,” Eli said. “Promise you’ll stop. I appreciate the sentiment, I really do, but you’re going to give me an ulcer. Listen, no matter what Nathaniel might have told you, Icanprotect myself. I’ve done it before, and I’ll do it again. I’ve been in foster homes nearly as bad as this, and I was a hell of a lot smaller back then. So whatever other vengeance you have planned—don’t.”
The truth felt like a present, unearned and unwanted. He wanted to give the words back and tell Eli not to share any other parts of himself.
“I can’t promise.” He was almost glad of Eli’s grip because the floor didn’t feel steady.
“Do you really think I’d just stand by and let one of thesebastards—”
“It’s not about you!” The words practically exploded from him, leaving in their wake a strange moment of silence. Eli looked at him, the anger broken.
“No?”
He could understand the man’s confusion. He could hardly understand it himself and didn’t want to share. But the silence stretched, Eli’s hold remained, and he knew there was no way he’d be making that promise.
It meant telling the truth.
“They’re the same ones. The predators. The same ones…”
It was harder than he thought, speaking. He hadn’t spoken to anyone but Jenny in years and years. Maybe ever.
