Blood to Dust(22)

When Ink strode into the bathroom with me, I raised one palm up.

“Beat said I’m allowed my privacy in these fifteen minutes,” I lied.

“Beat is not the f*cking boss of me,” he retorted chirpily, bulldozing his way in. The way his gaze licked my body confirmed that just like his roommate, Ink was ready for some action. But in his case, I moved uncomfortably, my eyes searching the room.

An hourglass moment pinched at my gut, telling me that Ink is just like them. A taker. But not again. Never again.

It was the first time I was grateful for Godfrey and his threat not to touch me. Ink was the kind of guy who’d let Godfrey cut his dick off with a butter knife—slowly and painfully—before disobeying orders.

“I need to. . .poop.” I cleared my throat. He winced, I noticed it even through his ski mask. This was not a part of the peep show he had in mind. His round belly wobbled as he chortled. “Clean up after yourself.” With that, he stepped out of the bathroom and locked the door from the outside. My stare lingered on the lock. Beat replaced it with a new one after I broke it the night before, and probably didn’t tell Ink, seeing as he hasn’t mentioned it.

I got down to business, weirdly happy with the fact that Beat wasn’t here to witness me doing a number two, and even happier that he kept my attempt to run away to himself. I had a quick shower, after which I left the water running while I searched for a potential weapon. Again. But Nate wasn’t stupid. After my attempt to break free yesterday, he removed the towel rack.

The towels were thrown on the floor.

Groaning, I yanked out the little metal wire that held the toilet paper and tucked it under my dress. It wasn’t sharp enough to cause serious harm, but walking out of there empty-handed was admitting defeat. I knocked on the door from inside.

“I’m ready.”




Jittery, uncertain and conceited. Wants to be a tattooist but is too untalented to land a real job, so he is flipping burgers. Likes: belittling women, playing the tough guy and, well, ink. Dislikes: being talked back to, independent women and his life.

He opened the door, his eyes moving up and down my legs. “You scrub up good, bitch.”

Eat shit.

“Thanks. You still look like rotten balls, even with a ski mask on,” I told him with a straight face, and he almost slapped me, but this time withdrew his hand inches from my cheek.

Ink shook me by the elbow, pouring us into the hallway, and poked my back, more aggressively than necessary, on our way to the basement. That was Ink. He wasn’t layered the way Nate was: sorrow, remorse, ruthlessness, heart, street-brain and compassion tossed into a personality of intriguing chaos.

“Who’s coming for me tomorrow?” I enquired before he swung the door shut.

“Nate—er, Beat.”

Nate.

While I don’t want him to know that I’m reading his diary, the day I tell him his roommate ratted out his name is closing in After all, there’s no guarantee I won’t run away from Godfrey, and if I do, his life will be over.

Ink swung the door open and rushed in, pinning me against the wall. He dug his fingers into my throat, his ski mask sending hot air from his mouth. The rotten scent of bacteria and plaque assaulted my nostrils.

“Listen up, bitch. That was a mistake. Tell Beat I said his name, and you’re dead. Get it?”

I nodded. He wouldn’t kill me. He was far too scared of Godfrey. And Beat. And everything else. A prime example of a beta-male. While Nate is everywhere, oozing quiet power, Ink can stand inches from me and I wouldn’t even notice. “Of course.”

From the moment he left the basement, until the moment I heard Nate sinking into his bed, all I did was try to rip open the boarded windows with that small wire I stole from the bathroom. It got me nowhere other than bloody fingers and a cut wrist after my hand slipped against one of the rusty nails.

I need to change tactics. I need to lure Nate faster.

Considering the fact that talking my way out of this situation hasn’t helped me so far, I’ve decided to try the opposite approach—silence.

NOVEMBER 18TH, 2010

“DEPRESSION IS THE INABILITY TO CONSTRUCT A FUTURE.” (ROLLO MAY)

I get sick for the first time in my life.

The Vela men don’t usually do weakness, unless it’s booze.

I stay in my cell, nursing a fever and a bad case of the shits. Pedro and his pleas for methadone are pissing me off. The world is pissing me off. I’m not even twenty-two and my life is already over. The realization’s a hard pill to swallow.

To make matters worse, Pedro’s constantly eyeing the toilet bowl, trying to fish my shit out, because he wants to throw it at the corrections officers to make a scene. A scene will land him in the hole. But he’ll get something to calm his raging withdrawal symptoms first.

That’s what Pedro’s counting on. He’d kill us both to get that shot in the butt. Beth, a corrections officer who I befriended, allows Frank to drop by with canned soup.

“Punk-ass kid.” He spits his words, as he does when he forgets to put in his artificial teeth. I grunt into the lukewarm liquid, taking slow sips.

“You were less of a weirdo as a teenager, y’know?” He grabs on to my arm, yanking me upright. “That poetry messed with your head, Nathaniel.”

“Name’s Nate,” I correct him. We’ve been hanging out every day since I arrived, but I never bothered to say something. Because I never bothered to talk. But today I’m angry at everything, Frank included.