23 Hours: A Vengeful Vampire Tale(2)

“Get out of here, all of you,” someone said, kicking the doors open. One door slammed into Caxton’s side, making her wince. “Move this piece of shit out of view.”

Hands reached down and grabbed Caxton, hauled her deeper into the kitchen. She was rolled over on her side and then someone kicked her in the stomach. She hadn’t caught her breath yet and couldn’t ask any of the questions that occurred to her, couldn’t yell for help.

A tall, thin Asian woman knelt down next to Caxton and grabbed her lower lip. She yanked on it as if she might tear it off, and Caxton was forced to raise her head. The Asian woman had black tears tattooed underneath her eyes, four on one side, five on the other. Her hair stuck out from either side of her head in a long pigtail. “You’re Caxton, right? I’d hate to think we went to all this trouble and got the wrong cunt.”

Caxton didn’t answer. She didn’t see what good would come of doing so.

“That’s her,” someone else said. Someone standing behind the Asian woman. Caxton couldn’t see who the new voice belonged to—she didn’t dare break eye contact with her captor. “She’s a cop. Are you sure the pigs won’t—”

“Ex-cop now,” the Asian woman said. She didn’t smile. “The COs hate her more than we do, because she used to play for their team and then she f*cked up.”

She turned back to Caxton. “I’m Guilty Jen. They call me that because there was another Jen on our dorm who used to tell the screws every night how innocent she was. If I’d tried that they would have laughed at me. I mean, just look at me. Guilty as f*ck and it’s written all over my face.” She tapped the place below her left eye where there were only four tears. “Every time I finish a stint, I get a new one. Come next October, I get out and it’ll be number ten. See what I mean?”

Caxton tried to bring her knees up to protect her abdomen, but hands from behind grabbed her legs and pulled them back. Other hands grabbed her arms and her shoulders. Guilty Jen had a lot of friends.

“I don’t know you, ex-cop,” she said. She reached into the pocket of her coveralls and took out a cigarette lighter and a long iron nail. “I’ve got no history with you, and no beef. But as many times as I been inside, this is my first time at Marcy and in here, now, I’m nobody. I need to make a name for myself all over again. Sucks, but that’s how we play. So I asked around and found out who’s tough in here, who people are afraid of. I got a pretty short list. Most of the names I could eliminate because they had serious protection. They were ganged up. But you— everybody hates you. Dyke ex-cop. No friends in here. I f*ck you up and I’m looking at zero consequences, other than a couple days in a special housing dorm for violence.” She flicked on the lighter and held the point of the nail in the blue part of the flame.

“There are quicker ways to kill me,” Caxton managed to say. “I figure you only have about thirty seconds before the COs realize we’re in here.”

“Oh, I’m not going to go that far,” Guilty Jen said. “I’m just going to mark you. Put a J on you so you’re mine. You just lie there, stay quiet, this doesn’t have to go bad for you. Just tell me one thing?”

“What’s that?” Caxton asked, as Guilty Jen took the nail out of the flame. Its tip was scorched black by the flame.

“Left cheek, or right?”





2.

Caxton stared at the point of the hot nail. It was beginning to turn red. She knew if she didn’t struggle, if she let this woman brand her, she would be marked in more ways than showed on the skin. She would be giving the prison population a signal that she was weak, and vulnerable, and could be preyed upon.

There were a lot of women in SCI-Marcy who would be thrilled to get that sign from an ex-cop inmate. This would be only the first assault of many.

She waited until Guilty Jen flicked off the lighter and scooted forward on her knees, ready to bend down and place the nail against her face. She waited for a second longer, until she could feel the heat of it near her skin.

Then she twisted her wrists simultaneously, slipping them free of the hands that held her, and brought her hands around to smack Guilty Jen’s hand sideways. The nail went into the calf muscle of one of the women standing over Caxton. That woman howled and jumped in the air.

The hands on Caxton’s ankles slackened their grip, just a little. Caxton had been expecting that—it’s hard to pay attention when one of your friends is screaming in pain—and she capitalized on it by bringing her knees up to her chest as fast as she could and then kicking out, knocking Guilty Jen backward and away.