Page 24 of The Way We Rot
Then he sighed. Shook his head and muttered under his breath before speaking up again. “The BOP said this will be temporary, let’s maintain order, yeah?”
The room shifted after that. Chairs creaked, boots scraped, irritation thickened the air as we all braced ourselves for what was to come. Hunger made people stupid, violent.
I tracked each movement without meaning to, cataloging which of them was angry, who looked bored.
Who was excited for the chaos.
I thought more on my ignored question, if the Federal Bureau of Prisons had suggested cutting food, or just thrown the budget cut at the warden and expectedhim to decide. Either way, he was implementing it, so he was to blame for anything bad that happened.
And I could fucking feel it in the air that bad was coming. Even the other COs seemed antsier, itchy with pressure as we left the room.
“These fat bitches live for their food,” Randal muttered under his breath, sniggering as he walked past me. “This is going to be a fucking shit show.” My jaw tightened as I held in my anger for the cunt; he was one of those fuckers who relished in the misery of this place, fed off it.His energy was full of excitement, glee.
I hadn’t let myself register that he was here, on the same shift as me again. We were synching up, like he was becoming my shadow, always just behind me, or around the corner as I turned it, ready to remind me what a shithead I was. I had to wonder if it was on purpose, some cosmic joke to make my life even worse. Since I’d given him that ill-fated tip about Karner in a moment of weak anger, he was becoming more and more a beggar, a fucking cancer on my skin.
Asshole still hadn’t got what he deserved from me. I was biding my time, though, waiting for that perfectmoment to strike. Ruin him. He’d listened to me in a dark moment, reveled in it.
I’d made a mistake, but that didn’t excuse his going and forcing an inmate to her knees.Myinmate. Even if I’d told him to do it, he shouldn’t have. We were just as bad as each other, but at least I knew it. Understood it.
Randal was ignorant, dangerous in it.
I followed him out into the hall and through the gates to the officer’s desk, ignoring his yapping as we handed over. A few violent incidents last night. Someone on Karner’s floor had tried to kill themself — wasn’t her — and another had spent the last seven hours screaming for their boyfriend’s dick, again, not her.
My eyes drifted to Randal as he moved through the hall, and I fought back the desire to have myself locked away, killing him in front of hundreds of witnesses just to satisfy the clawing urge under my skin. Braying women at their cell doors, desperate for their meager meal, for a bit of entertainment however they could get it.
I really thought it through as I stood there, how I might do it, letting my mind drift to images of his bloody corpse, of dragging Karner along for the ride then ending her too.
But no. I was patient. I’d proven that to myself more than once. Randal wasn’t dying.
If I killed Randal now, the scandal would be all that was on their lips for years to come. But I always came back to Karner, up on that second floor, biding her own time. I wanted to see what she was doing every damn minute of the day, to watch her and command her, to carve into her skin and make her my marionette.
I had the tools, the research.
She would look so pretty if she were unable to move any of her own muscles. Beautiful as a doll, frozen in time, gaze vacant, lips unmoving, limbs bent just how I wanted them.
Anger struck through me like lightning; she never wandered far from my mind. That evil witch of a woman with the skill to kill men twice her size and chuckle about it in front of police officers, lawyers, family. But I did. She existed under my skin now; wewere burrowing into each other free roaming and unfettered.
I hated even more that she turned me on.
I should stop. Leave. Nothing had gone too far yet, I could simply walk away. Turn tail, maybe rejoin the police force, or move towns and start fresh somewhere else. I didn’t have to linger in this.
With deep, steadying breaths, I pictured Karner. Imagined her here without me, under someone else’s control.
My chest squeezed.
Fuck, this place was making me sloppy, making me forget the whole damn point of all of this. I turned my back on Randal, looked away from the second floor, and focused on the notes being shoved into my hand by the departing night shift officer.
Penelope Karner would not have my power.
Twelve
Penny
The slop on my plate was at least half the size it had been a few days ago. The mashed potato was watery, with clumps of powder making it lumpy too, and the little brick of ‘roast chicken’ had definitely been cut into chunks, spread out thin between us all. While the food here had never been great, and fair enough, we were a bunch of murderous criminals, it had, if nothing else, been edible. Sustaining.
I frowned. I had a decent appetite, and this wouldn’t keep me going. Lately, at the end of every meal, my stomach still grumbled, and it was only getting worse. Something was shifting, and no matter how much any inmate asked the guards, we were told nothing. To shut up and eat our meager portions.
We were all more tired, crabbier, hungrier. And that was never a good combination when you added in ourincarceration and the fact we got about four tampons for an entire period. It left a lot of bloody messes if we didn’t have commissary.
