Finally, Eric nodded goodbye to Sheila and approached Max. He motioned for Max to hold out his wrists. Max sighed again, this time deeper. “I don’t see why you’ve started shackling us all the time,” he complained.
“It’s a new policy,” Eric said.
“Sure,” Max said, raising his eyebrow. “I wonder what other strange new policies will be enforced now that the power is out.”
“The generators are on,” Eric said, helping Max to his feet.
“Small miracles,” Max muttered.
Eric locked the shackles and helped Max stand up fully. “You should be more careful. Colin is scheduled to be checked out once you leave.”
“That guy doesn’t have a scratch on him,” Max said and hated that the low-simmering anxiety leaked through his words. “Why would he need to come to the medical bay? I didn’t even get a chance to fight back. He barely got smacked in the jaw.”
Eric motioned for Max to follow him out of the medical bay. “I thought the two of you were friends.”
Max snorted and looked up to the ceiling. The generators made the lights give out a soft whirring sound. But even with the lights on, the prison was still full of dark shadows and even darker hallways. Some days, the sunlight barely made it through the windows. “Nah, Colin has been out to get me since day one,” Max said.
Eric gave him a strange look but remained silent as he led Max to his cell. Eric unlocked his cell and ushered Max inside, bending down to unshackle his wrists. “Try not to get into any more fights, okay? For my sake,” Eric said as he locked the door behind him. “Breakfast will be on its way shortly.”
“Another new policy?” Max asked. “Now I can’t even go to the cafeteria?”
But Eric didn’t answer.
Once Eric was out of sight, Max stumbled to his bed and collapsed in it. Eric wasn’t wrong about Colin. Colin had welcomed Max on his first day in prison with open arms. They’d both been part of the same drug ring. Both of them had gotten caught and were paying their dues in the system. The only difference was that Colin hadn’t sung like a bird and had taken his ten to fifteen years without parole without implicating the cartel. On the other hand, Max had rolled on the cartel, earning him five years maximum with parole.
Sure, he might have kept that fact from Colin in the beginning. He needed someone in his corner during the those first terrifying days of incarceration. Max had been a newbie and easily taken advantage of by others, but with Colin on his side, a lot of the other inmates didn’t harass him as much. Max learned as much as he could: who he could trust, who he had to watch out for, when he’d be safest.
He just hadn’t thought Colin would find out about his betrayal so fast. When Colin discovered that Max was the one who had given up the names and dates for future drug exchanges that had landed even more of the cartel in jail, he swore he’d kill Max. Max hadn’t just betrayed their cartel, he’d also betrayed Colin personally. Colin and his cronies took to beating Max up at every possible opportunity. When Max’s life had been threatened, he’d asked for a block change, but didn’t get it. The most he got were a few more watchful glares from the guards. Colin was still able to corner him when he least expected it. There was nothing to stop Colin from jumping him and pummeling him until he lost consciousness. This time had been no different.
Max rolled onto his side on the bed and uttered a soft moan of pain. The beds were hard, the sheets thin, and all he wanted was to be anywhere else than here. He pulled the blanket up and over his shoulder, making sure he could see the door to his cell in case anyone unexpected wanted to pay him a visit. Tears pressed against his eyes, and he closed his eyes tight to get rid of them. Tears were a weakness he could not afford to show.
Come to think of it, this had been one of the worst beatings he’d been through. Usually, the guards pulled fights apart within a minute or two, but this fight had gone on for far too long. At least five minutes. The longest five minutes of Max’s life. Which seemed…odd.
Max cracked open his eyes and peered at the bars of his cell. He didn’t hear much. No guards on rotation. The breakfast Eric said was on the way hadn’t shown up yet for some reason. More and more, the schedule of prison life had been out of whack since Kathleen’s last visit. He’d been spending more time in his cell than usual. It was as though the best solution for the prison to control their prisoners was to keep them confined. In fact, a lot of the guards he’d known fairly well had seemed to disappear without warning. The guards’ rotations had become more spread out, the allotted recreation time cut down to nothing, and most meals served in trays delivered to cells instead of taking the inmates to the cafeteria. At first, he’d wondered if it was simply a hiring turnover, but even then, the erratic behavior wasn’t normal. It wasn’t normal that he could’ve gotten his skull smashed open because of a hiring problem.
He pressed his lips tightly together. Things had become so strange since the power had become unreliable. Were guards just not showing up for work? Was the state not supplying enough money? God, he hoped this wouldn’t become a slow descent into anarchy.
But honestly, that was what it felt like. If the electricity went out completely and the generators finally quit, the inmates could be on lock-down permanently. And if that happened, if there was truly something larger going on, Max wouldn’t
