Auctioned to the Prisoners (Auctioned #4)

21

KINKAID

TUESDAY AFTERNOONS

Dear Kinkaid,

It’s strange to write to you. There's a lot I want to say but can't. You know why. I just wanted to let you know that I'm okay. Well, as okay as it’s possible to be without you. Is it stupid that I wish I could be locked up with you and share a too-small bunk and eat terrible food just so we can whisper to each other in the dark? I dream of you, and it's like we're together, and everything is brightly colored. Then I wake, and it's gray again.

I hope you're okay. I hope you'll write to me, even if it's just to let me know you're as good as you can be. James and Rock, too.

I managed to help Kennedy and her kids. Everything that happened was worth it for that, even my sad heart.

I miss you. Your hands and your arms, your intense eyes and your hard mouth. You didn't smile a lot, but when you did, it was like a glimpse of sunshine through a storm cloud. Maybe, if life gets less stormy, you could smile more. I'd like that for you.

I listen to that Johnny Cash song you and James used to sing. I hear both your voices when I do, and it makes me feel less alone.

Write me. It won't be enough, but it'll be better than nothing.

It'll give me something to hold on to.

Princess.

I've been working in laundry since Grady returned us to our cells. As a job, it isn't that bad. We get gloves so we don't have to touch the filthy fabrics with our bare hands. Some of these motherfuckers stink like you wouldn't believe, and I don't want to count the types of bodily fluids I've spotted on items I've been sorting. Most men are disgusting pigs when left to their own devices.

The laundry crew is generally upbeat and wasn't resistant to a new joiner. They're mostly focused on the job and the escape from the monotony of life in the cell blocks.

I last saw Grady six days ago, and I probably won't again before I leave. It's too risky for someone to witness us together.

Grady's brother-in-law is going to handle the pickup tomorrow. He knows I'm going to be hidden in the bundles of sheets. Grady's going to run a surprise inspection of the place when it's time for me to disappear, and that'll be enough of a distraction that people won't notice I'm gone. I've kept my head down to make myself less memorable. It's a plan of sorts, and I don't have a choice but to go with it and cross every finger and toe so that I won't get caught.

Lory is out there and leaving her alone until the first of us is released isn’t an option. Her letter solidified the plan. She misses us, even though she's on the outside and free to find any other man on the planet. I haven't been able to breathe without it hurting since I read her words.

What we are to each other is worth risking everything for.

After my work detail is finished, I'm escorted back to D-Block. I search out Hyde and Rock, who are both watching TV and waiting. I slump down, tired but wired.

“You guys okay?”

“Yep.” Rock has returned to his man-of-few-words status.

Hyde's leg jumps again.

They're both missing Lory like crazy.

“Did I ever tell you about this place in Mexico?” I rub the beard I've allowed to grow in since Lory left. I've heard men in other countries grow facial hair when grieving, but mine is more about disguise. In all the photos people have of me, I'm clean-shaven. When I get out of here, I'm buying a shaggy wig, and with the beard, I hope to be less identifiable.

“Mexico?” Hyde bites the edge of his thumb, his dirty green eyes darting between me and the screen.

“Yeah. It's a pretty place on the Yucatan Peninsula. It's named Valladolid, same as a city in Spain.”

“Oh, yeah.” Rock eyes me like he's catching onto something. I don't talk like this normally about places I went when I was sucked into the drugs trade. There are eyes and ears all around us, so this is the only way to pass on this information in half-whispers.

“Yeah. It means something in Arabic, I think,” I add, hoping that if they forget, they'll have a way of searching it up. “Valladolid. Funny name for a place in Mexico.”

“You been there?” Hyde asks.

“Yeah.”

On the TV, a detective show reaches a climactic moment, but Rock and Hyde aren't watching anymore, even though their eyes are focused on the screen.

“There's this statue. The Monument to Motherhood, it's called. Pretty place.”

“Right,” Rock says, then he laughs. “Since when did you become a fucking sculpture enthusiast?”

“You know me,” I say. “I love women, even the MILFs.”

Hyde cracks up, folding himself over, making it look like we're just shooting the breeze rather than making plans for another place and another time.

“Did I ever tell you about this MILF I fucked? Best Tuesday afternoon I ever spent.”

Now, they know that's a lie. The best Tuesday afternoon I ever spent was with Lory, licking her pussy until she gushed, then fucking her until I had to smother her screams with the palm of my hand. She was a wild little thing. I smile at the memory.

“Yeah. She have big tits?” Rock asks.

“A good handful. She made me a sandwich after and kicked me out at three p.m.... I went back every week after that.”

“Sandwich? What kind of sandwich?”

Rock shoots Hyde with a disgusted look, but he's smiling. “Sandwich. That's what you took from that conversation?”

“Oh, I took a lot from that conversation.” Hyde winks at me, and I slump back into the chair, content that they've understood what I'm saying.

“Ham, cheese, tomato,” I say for the sake of finishing the conversation.

When they get out of this place, and if I succeed in getting across the border, we'll have a place and a time to meet without ever having to say another word.

“You hear they're trying to pin Wilson on Garcia?”

“Seriously?”

While we were locked up with Lory, Wilson's miserable life was snuffed out. Someone strangled him with a torn piece of sheet. He didn't have many friends in this place, and none amongst the crims, so identifying a killer with a motive was like finding a needle in a haystack. Garcia hated Wilson, but I don't think it was him. Grady might not have had the guts to take out someone who threatened to blackmail him, but he had the capacity to put the right people in the right place for it to happen. Isn't there a saying about your enemy's enemy being your friend?

Like Whitaker, Wilson underestimated his opponent.

“He's a lifer anyway,” Rock points out. “Doesn't matter what they say he did.”

“Easy to bury a stick in a bonfire,” Hyde muses.

“Did you just make that shit up?” I ask, laughing.

“Sure did. You're not the only one who's good with words, Kinkaid.”

He's right. The letters these men have been writing for Lory are poetic. For three rough, prison-hardened men, we sure can come up with some pretty words when inspired.

Thirty minutes pass before I drag myself up. I rest a hand on each of their shoulders. “I'm gonna hit the sack,” I tell them. “I'll see you tomorrow.”

“Yeah. Tomorrow.” With a final squeeze of their shoulders, I walk away, hoping, praying that we'll meet again in a little town far away and that maybe, if the wind is blowing in the right direction, our woman will be waiting for them, too.