Looking away from her, I kept my eyes locked on the wall over her shoulder. I was too dirty to even look at her. Too evil to touch her or to even think about it.

Her gloves snapped when she pulled them from her fingers.

“All done,” she said with a false smile.

She had yet to look me in the eye, and I decided I was okay with that. It didn’t matter, and it wouldn’t pay to become too attached to someone.

I was taken back to my cell and left there until chow time. I couldn’t keep this shit up, fighting every day just for the chance to see Lyla. If I did, it wouldn’t be long until I was sent to the hole, but then again, it was worth it. Seeing her was like being in the sun, and that was worth being in the dark for a day or two as far as I was concerned.

I’d hear the things the COs would say about her. They’d talk about her ass and her tits. The perverted things they said made my blood boil—made me want to rip them to shreds the way I knew I could.

I hated the fucking COs, most of them anyway. Officer Douglas was an okay dude, but the rest deserved to be ripped apart for even thinking the foul things they did. Especially since the ones talking the most shit had wives and kids at home.

Lying in my bed, I listened as two COs walked up and down the block talking shit.

“She’s got a sweet little ass on her. I bet she could take a mean fucking,” Officer Stone said while swinging his baton.

I’d never liked Officer Stone, mainly because he looked like a pedophile. This fucker wore glasses that looked like they were made in the seventies and had enough grease in his hair to fry a whole chicken. I swear if I found out he drove a friendly van, I’d snap. I could just picture him luring children in with promises of candy and bikes.

I’d heard from Scoop that he was a shady motherfucker. There had even been hearsay about him raping a few of the smaller guys on the block. One supposedly went on to hang himself in his cell with his bed sheets. But that was before I was on the block, so there was no telling if it was even true.

“Yeah, but I hate escorting her. She makes the inmates crazy. It makes me wonder if the warden knew what he was doing,” Officer Parks replied.

“I bet he wants to fuck her, too. That’s probably why the bastard hired her.”

They laughed. The fuckers laughed, and I wanted to rip their faces off. No. I wanted to rip their heads off. I wanted to see their dead eyes glaze over with the shroud of nothingness.

Their limp dicks would never touch her, at least not while I was there. I’d get my ass kicked every day and end up in the hole for the rest of my life before I let it happen.

The COs were dirty, hiding behind their badges to get away with everything. The fight club, the mistreatment of the inmates who didn’t deserve it, I’d seen it all over the last ten years, but I wouldn’t think twice about beating one of those fuckers to death if it came to the mistreatment of Lyla.

On the days she worked, she’d pass my cell. I’d stand at the bars and watch her openly. Most of the inmates did. I hated the tenseness in her shoulders and the way she’d hug herself as she walked down the block.

I’d hear the vile things the inmates would say to her and I’d grip the bars with white knuckles, wishing I could shut them up with my fists.

I knew in the back of my mind that it wouldn’t be long before I snapped again. Before I went mentally crazy and ripped one of the COs or inmates to shreds. It was all because of her. I wanted her to stay, but she needed to go. I couldn’t take the chance that I would kill someone. Fighting them and breaking a nose here or there was okay, but murdering was deeper. I wasn’t sure I could do it again. I didn’t think I could handle taking another life.

THE SUDDEN STING of alcohol brushing against the scrape on my elbow brought me out of my thoughts. Luckily for me, Dr. Giles was busy when I was brought into the infirmary and even though I knew she didn’t want to, Lyla had to tend to me.

It caught me off guard, and I hissed at the sting. It wasn’t often I showed my pain, and that was obvious in her expression when she looked up at me.

“Really? After everything you’ve been in here for, you’re going to show pain for a little scrape like this?” she asked.

The side of her mouth lifted in a semblance of a smile, and it made me feel lighter.

I didn’t respond. Instead, I focused on keeping my hands to myself as she continued to clean me up. It was hard work not to reach out and finger her hair or cheek, to fill my hands with her tits and ass. It took a lot to not run my knuckle over her fair skin and touch her soft lips.

I was a dead man for sure. I wasn’t sure how much longer I could keep it up while living inside my head with the new nurse.