All Chained Up (Devil's Rock #1)(5)

Funny how he still felt this reaction. How some bull digging his knee into his spine or prodding him in the back and eyeing him like he was a piece of shit could still get a reaction from him. After all these years, you would have thought he wouldn’t care anymore. That he would have given up all expectations for anything more. Anything better.

He should have accepted that this was simply his life.





THREE


IF BRIAR WAS hoping for a quiet first day, it wasn’t to be. Thirty minutes before their first appointment, the door to the unit buzzed open.

Four guards entered the room escorting three inmates in full restraints, hands bound in front of them. Murphy quickly patted them down, checking for any hidden weapons. The chains clinked at their wrists as they walked.

She stood up from the desk where she and Dr. Walker had been reviewing the files of the incoming patients, already making notes and potential diagnoses based on Josiah’s assessments. They were hoping to see all the inmates Josiah had scheduled for today and maybe some additional cases, too. After glancing through the wait list and reviewing some of the inmates’ complaints, Briar and Dr. Walker had exchanged looks. It was alarming how many of these men were walking around untreated with conditions that would have put them in the hospital in the real world. In fact, she suspected Dr. Walker was going to recommend immediate hospital transport for one or two of them.

The room suddenly seemed to shrink at the arrival of these menacing men in restraints. Dr. Walker and Josiah moved forward, directing the guards where to place the inmates, but her limbs froze. A dull beat started in her ears as she surveyed them. She couldn’t move.

Two of the inmates were riddled with tattoos. They were scary looking men, ink covering every inch of their arms, necks, and faces. Her stomach churned. They were the type of men she would have crossed the street to avoid.

One of the convicts bled profusely from the mouth and nose, thick crimson dripping onto his white uniform. The other one hop-walked, supported by two corrections officers. Even though the tattooed pair were injured and it was her job to extend care, she couldn’t stop the small shudder from rolling through her.

Yet even as alarming as those two skinheads appeared, it was the third man that gave her the greatest pause . . . who made her heart stutter and then kick into a hard hammer that shouted: Stay away, stay away, stay away.

He was tattoo-free, as far as she could tell anyway, but that left the immense size of him and the harshness of his features to focus upon. His jaw looked like it could break granite, and his mouth was an unsmiling slash, bracketed by two short lines that could have possibly been dimples or smile grooves. Except she was certain that he never smiled.

A three-inch bloody gash at the corner of his forehead only added to the severity of his appearance. On someone else, it might have made him look weaker, but not this guy. He looked like a warrior unfazed and ready to plunge back into battle. She knew plenty of women were drawn to his type. A bloodied Viking. The Tarzan that dragged Jane into his hut and quickly made her forget that she was a good civilized woman. Raw and seething with power. He radiated danger. The edgy guy with intense, deep-set eyes and a shadow of stubble covering his square jaw. She could almost imagine brushing her fingers across that jaw. Almost. If she were crazy and into felons.

He stood a few inches over six feet, towering over everyone else in the unit. Even the guards, fully armed and so very competent-looking in their uniforms, seemed diminished beside him. She eyed the cuffs at his wrists, worrying if they were enough, if they would hold him.

“These beds here are fine.” Josiah waved at three gray-blanketed beds. They were side by side, the heads butting one side of cinder-block wall.

The ink-free inmate made a move toward one of the beds, but a guard stopped him, his baton arcing through the air with a hiss and whacking him across the flat of his stomach.

It was no gentle blow, and Briar flinched. Everything inside her rebelled at the ease with which the guard delivered the hit. And, if she were honest with herself, the ease with which the inmate accepted it.

She had been so careful to construct a life free of violence. Violent people. Violent situations. She led a safe life. At least as much as she could control.

The inmate didn’t even blink an eye. He merely stopped and turned a dead-eyed stare on the guard smirking back at him.

That same guard—his name tag read CHESTER—addressed Josiah: “I wouldn’t stick these two anywhere near Callaghan. He might decide to finish the fight.” He nodded at the inmate he’d just struck with his baton.

Callaghan. He held himself still, seemingly patient, but tension radiated off him. He reminded her of a jungle cat on one of those nature shows, ready to spring at any moment.

“Yeah. Not a good idea,” Chester added, idly tapping his baton against his thigh.

So Callaghan was the reason the other two looked the way they did. Did he start the fight? As soon as the thought entered her head, she shoved it out. It didn’t matter. It didn’t make him any less culpable if he didn’t start it. He was a convict. God knew what horrible thing he had done to land himself in this place. Not a good idea was the perfect sum of him.

“Okay.” Josiah nodded and turned in a half circle. He waved at the bed in the far corner near the desk. “That one, then.”

Nodding, Chester escorted Callaghan to the bed. The inmate sank down on it, still without uttering a sound. Not even a flicker of discomfort crossed his granite features.