Page 3 of The Bastard's Lily
She dries her hands with a sigh. “You’ll get used to the smell. Or you won’t. Doesn’t matter. Nobody cares.”
A buzzer sounds overhead, loud and grating. The woman—her badge saysM. Clark, RN III—scoffs.
“Shift change. Let’s go before Dispatch locks us out and makes a fucking example.”
I follow her down the hallway. The second checkpoint requires my palm print. A tired guard behind glass raises an eyebrow as I fumble with the scanner.
“New?” he asks, voice muffled through the speaker.
“First day.”
He grunts. “Watch your six. Some of 'em like nurses more than they should.”
The door unlocks with a mechanical hiss.
We pass through one more steel gate, this one double-locked and slow to open, and then we’re inside the belly of the beast.
The echo of boots on tile. Radios crackling. And always, always, the eyes. Watching from the shadows of rec rooms, infirmary windows, and barred doors.
Clark hands me a clipboard. “You’re shadowing me today. Don’t speak unless spoken to, and don’t ask the inmates shit unless you want them asking you something worse. Keep your ID visible, your voice steady, and your damn hair up.”
She stops walking just outside the infirmary door and turns to face me, nose wrinkling. “Oh, and Hale?”
“Yeah?”
“If you recognize any of 'em, don’t say a fucking word. That kind of familiarity gets blood spilled.”
The infirmary door groans as Clark shoulders it open, and the stench hits me like a punch—antiseptic, sweat, and something metallic beneath it all. The scent of things gone wrong barely covered up.
I step in behind her, clipboard hugged to my chest. My boots echo too loudly on the concrete, like the place wants to swallow the sound. Steel tables, barred windows, and cameras in every corner. It’s not just a med bay—it’s a cage with somewhat-decent lighting.
The morning drags. I patched up busted knuckles, stitched one guy’s ear back on, and cleaned gravel from another’s shoulder. Not a single one has said more than two words to me. I like it better that way.
Until the door buzzes open again. A guard leads in an older man—mid-fifties maybe, gray streaks his beard, and dried blood crusted down his forearm, soaking the bottom edge of his sleeve.
“Fence snag,” the guard says. “Let the nurse do her thing.”
The man lowers himself onto the stool slowly, grunting under his breath. He’s big. Broad. The kind of old-school tough that doesn’t need to posture. He doesn’t flinch when I peel the fabric back or when I rinse the jagged tear on his bicep.
“You’re new,” he says after a beat, voice low and rough.
“Yup,” I reply, tight and clipped.
He watches my hands as I work, eyes sharp despite the lines on his face. There’s a tattoo half-hidden under the blood—faded black ink near his shoulder. I can’t make out the design, but something about it tugs at a nerve I don’t want to name.
“You from around here?” he asks.
“Nope.” I swab the cut again, more firmly than necessary. “Just here to work.”
“Steady hands,” he mutters. “That’s good. You’ll need ’em in this place.”
I nod, eyes flicking to the mark again. A hint of a wing in the design? A crown?
No—can’t be.
“Seen a lot of patches torn like this,” he adds, like he’s talking to himself. “Barbed wire don’t care who you used to be.”
I pause for just a second. “Well, it cares now.”
