Imprisoned Read online

  Ari swallowed hard.

  “Yes. Yes, of course, Sir.”

  Stubbins nodded approvingly.

  “All right then, good. Then here’s your first kite.” He held up a slip of grubby white paper. “Says there’s a glow out in the cellblock E bathrooms. You’ll need a new glow and a screwdriver.”

  As he spoke, he drew the items out of the toolbox, spat on his thumb, and then pressed his wet thumb to the base of each where there was a small, black button Ari hadn’t noticed before.

  “Now you,” he said, motioning for her.

  “Now me what?” Ari asked uncertainly.

  “Now you spit on your thumb and put it over where I had mine.” Stubbins sounded impatient. “Haven’t you ever used restricted tools before?”

  “Um, no.” What he was asking her to do sounded gross and unsanitary to Ari but she didn’t dare say so. Instead, she licked her thumb and pressed it tentatively to the red button on the base of the screwdriver.

  She was half expecting to get a horrendous shock again but to her surprise, she felt nothing but a slight, humming vibration and then the red handle of the tool turned blue for a moment. The same thing happened when she pressed her thumb to the base of the new glow.

  “This is amazing,” she remarked, examining her new tools. “Is it DNA activated?”

  “You got it, lad.” Stubbins nodded. “Any kind of body fluid works, really. Piss, spit, or blood. But I ain’t about to bleed just to get a damn glow changed in a cellblock shithole.” The other Spice Lords roared dutifully at his joke as he cocked an eye at Ari. “I might piss on the tools though, if you get me mad enough. Let you lick them to activate them afterwards—how’d you like that?”

  Ari felt her gorge rise. Why was everyone here at BleakHall so willing to threaten and humiliate others? Probably because it’s a freaking prison, Ari, whispered a little voice in her head. Get over it and get on with your new job.

  “I wouldn’t like it at all, Sir,” she said in a low voice. “And I promise you, it won’t be necessary. I’ll do a good job and come right back as soon as I finish.”

  “All right.” He nodded. “Prove it. Go change that glow. And mind you don’t take too long about it.”

  “Yes, Sir.” Tucking the fragile glow globe in one pocket of her jumpsuit and the screwdriver in the other, Ari ran up the stairs heading for cellblock E. Behind her, she could hear the deep, raucous masculine laughter as the Spice Lords enjoyed yet another joke at her expense.

  Assholes.

  But she was stuck with them—and with this new job. There was nothing she could do but complete her tasks and get back down to Stubbins before her new boss got impatient.

  Ari just hoped she could be fast enough.

  Twenty-Six

  Cellblock E was up five flights of stairs but Ari was getting used to climbing steps everywhere she went. BleakHall’s vertical construction insured that all the inmates got plenty of exercise in their daily routine, though it was hell on the knees of the older prisoners.

  As she found the communal restroom and rounded the corner, Ari was confronted by a long row of open stalls, each housing a small rounded fixture with a black gaping mouth-like hole in the center. There was no toilet paper in sight—not even the brown scratchy stuff that felt like sandpaper against her sensitive parts that Lathe had in his small bathroom.

  Ari began to understand why the trustees with their tiny private restrooms were so envied by the other prisoners. The idea of having to eliminate in front of everyone, squatting over one of those awful, stained and splattered fixtures and not having anything to clean up with afterwards made her shiver with disgust.

  Luckily, there was no one using the Cellblock E bathroom at the moment so she was able to change the burnt out glow by standing on the dull silver sink and reaching over her head. It was a precarious position but Ari was light on her toes and had good balance—she managed easily enough and was about to go when she heard a strange noise coming from deeper in the bathroom.

  Leaping lightly and soundlessly to the floor, she took an uncertain step towards the strange sound. There was a rounded archway that led from the toilets into what she assumed was the communal shower room. It sounded like choking and gasping—was someone being sick?

  It doesn’t matter if someone’s sick, you should just leave them alone, Ari, whispered the voice of caution in her brain. Get out of here now—it’s not safe to be someplace like this by yourself! Remember what Lathe said—never go in the showers alone!

  But the choking got louder. What if someone was really in trouble? What if they died just because she was too afraid to put her head in the door and see if there was a problem? At the very least she could run and fetch Lathe to help them. Couldn’t she?

  A broom had fallen across the entrance to the showers, its long handle positioned as though to bar access but somehow Ari found herself stepping over it and making her way down the short, tiled hallway that led to the communal showers.

  The choking and gasping sounds were louder in here, echoes bouncing off the dirty tiles, magnifying the noise which made the short hairs at the back of Ari’s neck stand up for some reason.

  At last she reached the end of the hallway and peeked carefully around the corner, trying to keep her breathing as quiet as possible so as not to disturb whoever or whatever was making the awful sound.

  What she saw made her stomach churn.

  Tapper was standing there with his dirty jumpsuit unbuttoned past the crotch, exposing his short, stubby root of a cock. Kneeling on the floor in front of him was a young man Ari vaguely recognized from the large hall where she’d waited to be processed into the prison.

  He was a tall, good-looking guy with short brown hair, brown eyes, and intimidating-looking tattoos. Ari remembered thinking that she’d better steer clear of him—he looked tough.

  But he wasn’t so tough now. His hands were balled into fists at his sides and he was gagging and choking as Tapper shoved his dirty member down the tattooed man’s throat.

  “That’s right, lad,” he was growling, as he pumped his hips steadily. “That’s right—suck it good, there’s a good boy.”

  Ari felt faint and weak with disgust. Tapper’s vile body odor wafted towards her and she had to fight not to puke, just as she had when he’d shoved that dirty, malodorous root in her face. She felt sorry for the tattooed man but she didn’t know what she could do for him. Rape and abuse seemed to be the order of the day at BleakHall and there was no one she could think of who would even care if she told them what was going on.

  The guards turned a blind eye to everything and none of the other gang lords would bother to lift a finger. Wheezer would probably just shrug and tell her that was life in BleakHall and as for Lathe—well, the big Kindred might care but he and Tapper were already in a kind of war. Would it really be wise to involve him in something like this?

  As she stood weighing her options, her rubber slipper slipped in a puddle of water on the floor and made a sound. Not a very big sound, but the tiled walls magnified everything.

  Tapper’s head jerked up, quick as a wink, and before Ari could pull her own head back behind the corner the crime lord had seen her.

  His small, piggy eyes widened, then narrowed as he took her in but to Ari’s horrified fascination, he never left off thrusting into the other prisoner’s mouth.

  “Well, now—if it ‘ent pretty boy come to see me. Didn’t you see the barrier I put up, pretty boy? This here’s a private moment you’re interrupting, so you are,” he snarled, smiling at her in a shark-like way that made Ari’s heart pound so fast she felt dizzy.

  “B-barrier,” she managed to get out. “What…?”

  “The barrier—the broom I laid over the threshold of the showers.” Tapper was still speaking casually, as though he wasn’t currently in the act of raping the hapless prisoner’s mouth. “Didn’t you see it, pretty boy? Or did you come to watch the show? Maybe you wanted to see what’s in store for you the minute Me