A Pound of Flesh (A Pound of Flesh #1) (4 page)

Kat hummed sardonically. “Look, I know you’re Team Mom—”

“I’m not team anyone,” Beth countered. “I simply see where she’s coming from. It must be difficult for her.”

Kat huffed. “Difficult for
her
? She’s been on my case since I took this damned job. ‘It’s unsafe.’ ” She mimicked her mother’s tone. “ ‘I’m putting myself at risk working with those animals,’ blah, blah, blah.” Her shoulders slumped. “Why can’t she be supportive?”

“She means well,” Ben said. “She’ll come around.”

“Sure,” Kat replied, unconvinced.

* * *

Carter woke, having slept soundly; maybe he’d worn himself out plotting against Anthony Ward. He smiled. The motherfucker really had no idea who he was messing with.

He was to stay in his cell until four—two hours to go—which was when his twenty-four-hour punishment was over. For pushing a chair into a wall. What bullshit.

Maybe he’d pushed it a little harder than he should have, but his philosophy tutor had most definitely overreacted. And Ward? Well, he just knew all of Carter’s buttons to press.

Jack soon arrived with a rescheduled visit for Max and a disappointed look on his face, which made Carter’s insides clench. He appreciated Jack’s gesture, given the man’s thoughts on Max, and once again, he kicked himself for acting like a dick with his counselor. His mouth just ran away with him sometimes.

“So, I take it we don’t like philosophy?” Jack had asked with a small grin. “Aristotle not doing it for ya?”

“Not exactly.”

Jack nodded and rubbed the back of his neck. “Thanks for the shit storm from Anthony Ward, by the way. I owe you big-time for that.”

“About that,” Carter mumbled from his bed. “My bad.”

It was the closest to an apology Jack would get.

“Yes, it is,” Jack agreed. “Jeez, Wes, you’re better than that.”

Carter sighed despondently and pulled his knees up to his chest. “The guy was talking crap, Jack. He deserved it.”

“Well, whatever your reasons, you have a lot of making up to do.”

“Oh, yeah?” Carter snapped.

“Yeah,” Jack returned, undaunted. “I’ve enrolled you in Literature. I know you like to read.” He gestured to the shelves on the right wall of the cell, filled with battered, dog-eared texts. “And the tutor is a woman, so maybe there won’t be as much hostility.”

“Hostility?”

“You know what I mean,” Jack said sharply. “You promised you’d try, so prove to me you are. I had to kiss that son of a bit—” He glanced toward the prison officer standing two feet away. “I had to speak nicely to Ward to give you another chance. Don’t tell me I’ve wasted my time here.”

Carter sat forward, running his hands over his buzzed hair. He was at a dead end. Ward had not only Jack’s balls in a vise but his, too. He wanted nothing more than to beat the arrogant shit with his book of “rules,” but he couldn’t let Jack down again. He was stressed, frustrated.

“You’ll do fine,” Jack said quietly, moving a step closer. The guard behind him shifted, too.

“Yeah,” Carter muttered. “We’ll see, won’t we?”

Even after his long sleep, fatigue began to creep silently over him. The walls had started to close ever so slightly, making his head heavy. Twenty-two hours locked in one room could do that to a man. Even him.

“Tomorrow morning,” Jack said with an encouraging nod. “The tutor is Miss Lane. She’s very good. Try to be … Just try, okay?”

“Okay.” Carter held up three fingers. “Scout’s honor.”

Jack smiled. “And just to be safe, I’ve made sure all the chairs in that classroom have been bolted to the floor.”

Carter laughed loudly. “Good thinking, J,” he called before the guard shut the door of his cell, leaving him alone once again.

* * *

The final two hours of the punishment crept by at a snail’s pace, and Carter almost knocked the guard off his feet when he finally opened the cell. He stretched his arms back, cracked his neck, and hurried toward the yard.

“Yo, Carter!”

Riley Moore’s thundering voice traveled across the basketball court.

Carter smiled. “Moore,” he replied, strolling toward the giant man.

“Where ya been?” Moore asked with a slap against Carter’s shoulder. “I’ve missed your punk-ass face.”

“Give me a smoke and I’ll tell you all about it.”

Riley pulled a cigarette from his pocket and flicked Carter a match. They made their way to a small seating area at the back of the court.

“Move!” Riley barked.

Carter snorted when the two newbies who’d been sitting in their spot scattered like leaves. He sat down, closing his eyes to the sun beating down on him, letting the smoke whisper from between his lips.

“So what gives? You been somewhere jerking off since yesterday?” Riley laughed and lit a cigarette.

“If only,” Carter replied, watching the basketball game across the yard. “No, it was Ward.”

“No shit,” Riley murmured with a shake of his head.

“I had a slight disagreement with one of the tutors and he put me on twenty-four-hour punishment.”

“It’s on, man.” Riley bumped Carter’s fist. They’d known each other many years, both inside and outside Kill. If Carter needed him, he’d be there.

They both turned when they heard a loud bout of whistles and jeers from courtside.

Riley snorted. “Talking of tutors,” he said, cocking an eyebrow.

Carter followed his stare through the fencing to see a redheaded woman with the sexiest curve to her ass he’d ever seen. Wrapped deliciously in a black knee-length skirt, she crossed the parking lot toward a sweet Lexus sport coupe. Her awesome legs disappeared into black heels that, even from Carter’s viewpoint, were hard-on-inducing.

“Who the hell is that?” he asked, trying to see past the other inmates who were milling at the fence like kids at a damned zoo.

“That’s Miss Lane,” Riley answered, leaning back on his elbows. “My lit tutor. She’s cool, actually.”

Carter snorted. “Well, at least that’s a plus.” He snuffed out his cigarette on the bench.

“What?” Riley frowned, confused.

Carter waved his hand toward where the car had disappeared. “The tutor will be one good thing about doing lit.”

Riley chuckled. “You’re doing lit, too?”

“Yeah,” Carter answered with a roll of his eyes. “Jack wants me to prove to the powers that be I can ‘improve’ myself inside. Some shit about how it could help toward an early parole. I’m not holding my breath.”

“Sounds like a crock to me.”

“Agreed,” Carter replied, leaning back and lifting his face to the blazing sun.

Kat dropped her bag by the front door before walking over to play the answering machine, and immediately heard her mother’s voice, urgent and clipped.

“I’m assuming you’re still alive and well, even though I haven’t heard a peep from you since Saturday. I hope you haven’t forgotten that you’re coming to the house this evening for dinner. If you aren’t here by seven, I’ll be sending Harrison out to make sure you’re all right. Bye.”

Kat sighed and pressed call back on her phone, leaving it on speaker. She walked over to her tropical fish tank and sprinkled food across the smooth water, smiling when they came to the surface and puckered and kissed at the flakes.

“Katherine?” Her mother’s anxious voice filled the living room.

“Yes, Mom, it’s me. I’m alive, I’m safe, and I’ll be at the house at seven, so cancel the search party.”

Kat could have done without having to have dinner with her mother after the day she’d had. She’d woken late that morning after, once again, being awake half the night having the same vivid dream repeatedly. She’d tried to go another night without her pills and had done nothing but regret it as soon as her head hit the pillow.

It was a new dream this time. There were no faceless men or wet sand, but her father was still there. He kept whispering something to her and, try as she might, she couldn’t get near enough to hear him. That was when the hooded stranger came and pulled her back from him.

Just as he had done all those years before.

He was still a stranger to her—both in and out of her dreams—after apparently disappearing without a trace from the doorway of the building in which he had held her as she cried for her father. She truly believed the police and her mother thought she was insane when she tried to describe what had happened: that a hooded unknown had pulled her from seeing her father beaten to death on a cold, wet night in the Bronx.

All she knew was that he was definitely male and he couldn’t have been much older than she was. But he was never found. Regardless, he was still there in her subconscious, desperately dragging her away from her father.

An hour and a half later, tired and frustrated, Kat was sitting at her mother’s dining table, fighting to clear the horrendous tension that shrouded the room. It was a losing battle; it had been that way ever since Kat had applied for her job at Kill. Nevertheless, trying her hardest not to be discouraged by her mother’s blatant apathy, Kat enthused to her mother and her mother’s partner of ten years, Harrison, about how well her students were doing, how hard they were working, and how focused they’d become. Kat described what she felt when her student, Sam, had written prose so poetic it had damned near brought her to tears of pride. She spoke about the surge of adrenaline that only a teacher knows when their students show understanding of a subject, but her mother didn’t even try to hide her scoff.

Her mother, as much as Kat loved her and tried to understand her point of view, was still extremely prejudiced about criminals and what should be done about them. As much as Kat had tried her best to quash her mother’s fears, her pleading was ignored. The thought of Kat being near them, let alone teaching them, made Eva sick to her stomach.

The arguments that had taken place had been epic in their ferocity. Kat had tried to reason with her mother that, as hard as it was to understand, they weren’t the same men who’d killed the man they both adored. After her therapy sessions, where she had discussed the same fears, it had surprised Kat how easy the words came off her tongue.

Nevertheless, despite Kat’s efforts, the dinner was, as always, overwrought and awkward. Kat left early, making excuses about grading her students’ work.

Once through her apartment door, she kicked off her shoes and wandered over to the answering machine, which was flashing, and pressed play. She grabbed a bottle of white wine from the fridge and poured it into one of her larger glasses. After dinner with her mother, Kat was definitely ready for a drink.

“Miss Lane, it’s Anthony Ward. I wanted to give you a heads-up that a new inmate will be joining your class tomorrow. He’s … difficult, but I’m sure you’ll be just fine. I’ll explain in the morning. Have a good evening.”

Kat stared at the machine. A new inmate? Difficult?

“Cheers, Mr. Ward,” she muttered, sipping her drink. She sat cross-legged on her sofa, glass of wine still firmly in hand, as a new message began.

“Hey, Lane!” Beth’s voice was excited. “It’s me! So. Reminder. It’s nearly my birthday, which means wine and food, and did I mention wine? Huh. I’ll text you the details. Call me.”

Kat laughed into her glass.

With the uncomfortable dinner at her mother’s house still fresh in her mind, Kat was certain that Beth’s birthday party was just what she needed.

* * *

“Good morning, everyone.” Kat smiled while her students took their seats.

“Morning, Miss L,” Riley answered with a huge yawn. “And may I say how nice you look today?”

“You may,” she answered with a playful warning look.

“You look nice,” he responded, giving her a wide closed-lip smile.

“Thank you, Riley,” she replied, unable to hide her own grin.

She handed out their previous day’s work, entitled “My Favorite Places,” and gave them a couple of minutes to read her comments.

“What does ‘not entirely appropriate’ mean?” Corey asked from his seat at the back of the class.

Kat approached him. “It means, Corey, I don’t really want to read about every one of your conquests or the marks you gave them out of ten, including”—she whipped the paper from his desk to find the offending sentence—“her mouth was like a vacuum.”

At this, Corey barked a huge laugh that echoed around the room, his afro hair bouncing as he did. Everyone else sat in unimpressed silence. “Oh, come on,” Corey insisted, waving his sheet of work. “That shit’s funny!”

“You’re a prick,” Jason muttered from his seat, dissolving Corey’s smile instantly.

“Jason,” Kat warned, unease prickling her skin.

Corey retorted with a string of colorful language before he kicked the back of Jason’s chair. Hard. “Fucking asshole.”

“Hey,” Kat said, alarm rising inside her. “Not now, guys. Let’s just keep calm and—”

“The hell?” Jason snapped back, ignoring her. He began to stand from his seat and turned to Corey, his height and wide shoulders dwarfing Kat. “You gonna say that to my face, you ugly fuck?”

“Hey,” Kat repeated louder, maneuvering herself between them.

Corey stood, tall and lean, his ebony skin gleaming under the harsh lights of the classroom. “I’ll kick your ass, shithead. Just name the day.”

“Guys, please—”

“I’d like to see it, you jumped-up little bastard.” Jason gave a come-closer gesture with his hand.

Panic began to engulf Kat’s throat. She held an open palm toward each of the men as they threw threats and words, conjuring terrified sweat from her forehead. If either of them threw a punch, she would be right in the middle of it. She froze, dread solidifying her joints. Officer Morgan and Riley tried to get in between them, trying to protect her. She could hear Rachel calling for her to move back.

But she couldn’t.

The fear pounded her head. She tried to remain calm, remembering the anxiety breathing exercises her therapist had given her, but her heart slammed against her ribs, taunting her. Kat clenched her eyes shut against the sixteen-year-old memories that pushed and clawed through the bars of the cage where she kept them locked in her mind. They were desperate to see her fail and crumble.

Breathing deeply, Kat grappled for the reins, trying frantically to gain control. She knew she couldn’t allow her students to behave like that. It was her classroom, her time, her job, her promise.