Most of all, she cried for herself. She cried for the fact that she’d not only allowed a man to twist her up the way Cutter had but that he’d done it so quickly. She was a Southern girl raised by strong, down-to-earth parents. Her father had always taught her to stand on her own, to think for herself. Her mother had taught her right from wrong. Yet, she’d forsaken it all far too quickly and far too easily. She had wanted a man, but somewhere in all the passion and lust, somehow, he’d manipulated that want into something else. She’d never even realized it before now. She’d allowed a want to become a need.
“Never depend on a man,” her father had always told her. “Men come and go. Men will leave you. Believe only in yourself.” She could hear his voice just like it was yesterday. It rang in her ears now, as if he were there in the room with her now.
She had forgotten the words of her father. She had forgotten his counsel. Never need a man.
She had allowed herself to need a man.
As she picked up the bottle of shower gel and poured some into the washcloth, she was determined to choke back the tears. Never again would she allow this to happen to her. Never, ever, ever … would she be used the way she had tonight.
Never again, she swore, would she need a man. Ever.
She put the cloth to her neck, the hot water soothing on her skin. Slowly, quietly, her tears all but gone, she raised her chin with a newfound resolve and began to wash the sin and shame away.
Chapter 3
“Get your asses in there!” The ZiP trooper gave Gideon a firm shove, as he intentionally dawdled in front of the holding cell entrance. Tuttle, half-stumbled, half-fell through the door and would’ve hit the hard magnicrete floor face-first if he hadn’t fallen into the arms of Junior.
“Hey, ya damned pig!” Junior yelled angrily. “Keep your dirty hooves off my Pa!”
The burly trooper pulled out his shockstick and pointed it at the younger Tuttle, a cruel sneer on his fleshy, square face. It bulged from the opening of a regulation-issue Zone Patrol battle helmet that appeared a size too small for his massive head. “You keep talking and I’ll crack that thick skull of yours.” He let out a cruel laugh. “Hell, I’d probably be doing you a favor. Probably make your dumbass smarter.”
He reached over and placed his thumb on a scan pad mounted on the wall. The buzz of high-voltage electricity becoming energized filled the corridor as the entrance to the cell was now charged with a four-thousand-volt EMF field. Like a taser or shock stick, it carried no amperage, so it wouldn’t kill a person trying to breach it, but they’d wish they were dead while they lay twitching.
Junior tried to help his father to the closest bunk, but Gideon jerked away from him. “I ain’t no damned cripple!” he snapped. He was still fuming that he hadn’t been able to stay long enough to see what happened with Frost. Had the poison made it into his veins? Had his attempt to murder the mercenary been foiled? If so, it wouldn’t take them long to figure out that Tuttle had killed Frost’s man the night before. He’d be looking at Murder One and attempted murder and a one-way ticket to Penal One, the deep space supermax prison out beyond Jupiter.
Dubbed the “Alcatraz of Space,” only lifers were sent to it. The sheer isolation of it drove men and women to the brink of insanity. There were no guards stationed at this prison. The only human personnel worked receiving, checking in and cataloging new prisoners. Once a convict walked through Portal Hell into General Population, he would never lay eyes upon a free human being again. The facility was fully automated, with androids and robots serving as cooks, doctors and admin personnel. If the prisoners killed each other, that was their choice. If they destroyed the A.I. staff or squandered food and medical supplies, they simply did without, until officials saw fit to resupply, usually only after dozens had died of starvation or medical complications. As such, an orderly society had developed inside the prison, albeit a grudging, resentful one. A caste system where the strongest, both physically and mentally, lorded over the weak. Order was maintained, sometimes brutally. Still, it was better to devolve into the law of the jungle than to starve to death.
Orbiting the massive, human-made space station, a full squadron of Space Guard gunships guarded the perimeter, preventing any attempts to initiate a jailbreak from space. If the Space Guard somehow failed and the prison breached from the outside, an onboard nuke was programmed to detonate immediately and decimate the entire sector, vaporizing everyone and everything within fifty square kilometers.
Even a hardened man like Gideon Tuttle shuddered at the thought of being banished there. It was just a slow execution drawn out over years or decades. He wrung his gnarled hands anxiously. He was a tough old bird, but he knew a sentence like that, for someone his age … he probably wouldn’t survive the first six months. He needed to get out of here and find out just what the situation was.
“Ya call your
