Sam and Colby: The Penitentiary

29

"Where the fuck is Corey?" I hissed.

"Why in the hell did this have to happen to you?" Colby whispered, looking at me. "You're the only girl. How the fuck does that work!" He sounded angry, annoyed. But the look in his eyes? That was fear. Not for himself, though. No, Colby was terrified that something was going to happen to me. Quite frankly, I was also horrified. But we needed to worry about ourselves if we were going to figure out what this was.

"I don't know, but no one's paying any attention to it," I pointed out. "Look, we need to find Corey. If we're here, he is too."

"Okay. We'll find him," Sam whispered. We stood in line with everyone else, eventually ending up with trays of shitty food. We turned around after reaching the end of the line and stared out at all of the tables.

"This feels like high school," Jake said. I would have laughed at that normally. But if this was high school, we could sit anywhere without too much damage. But here? If we sat in the wrong spot and took somebody's place or got too close to the wrong people, we were dead. Literally.

"HEY!" a giant man yelled, standing up from a table. He was super tall and bald, his neck and hands covered in tattoos. He walked over to us, locking eyes with me. "What is your name," he said more than asked. I clenched my toes to lessen the shaking in my hands, not wanting him to see me so scared.

"It's V—er, Atkins. My name is Atkins," I said with an uneasy voice. The man crossed his arms and stared down at me.

"Get out of here, you three. Go," the man barked. Jake and Sam immediately walked away, Colby doing the same after hesitating for a minute. "You. Come with me."

I was not going to disobey this guy. Not ever. He could step on me like a fucking ant. He turned and walked back over to the round table he'd been sitting at and pointed to the last empty seat next to where he'd been sitting.

"Sit," he ordered. I slowly sat down, setting my tray in front of me. There were six chairs at the table. One was filled by the big dude, another by me, and the other four by equally terrifying men, although much smaller and more normal sized.

"This is Atkins," the big man grunted. Sly smiles appeared on all of their faces, their eyes all focusing on me.

"You?" one of the guys asked with a chuckle.

"Uh, yes sir," I said. What the fuck was going on?

They all stared at me for another minute, all looking at me like they were trying to understand who I was. Was this because I was a girl? The only girl?

"Well, shit," one of them finally said.

"Not what I fucking thought it'd be," another one said.

"Right?" another one laughed.

"W-what?" I asked, my eyes darting back and forth between all of them.

"Name's Dennis. They call me Big," the giant guy said.

"Uh, hi," I said. What the FUCK. The guys all went around the table introducing themselves, producing some sort of badass nickname for themselves. Big, Blaze, Red, Shag, and Rock.

"So? What do people call you?" Big asked.

"Uh, Vanessa. Nessa," I said uneasily.

"No, that's your name. What do they call you?" he asked.

"Who... I'm sorry, who is 'they'?" I asked.

"You know. Fellow convicts or whatever the fuck you want to call them," said Big.

"I don't... this is my first day here," I said.

"No fucking shit," Blaze answered.

"Hold on. Are you tellin' me you ain't never been in one of these joints before?" Shag asked.

"No, I have not," I said.

"Bullshit," Rock said.

"I'm... no, I'm for real. Why would that be bullshit?" I asked.

"Do you have any idea who you even fucking are?" asked Red.

"Uh...," I trailed off.

"Do you notice something about this room, Atkins?" Big asked. I looked around. "We're in the middle. We had an empty seat and there are dozens of men sitting on the floor on the edges of this room. No one even so much as looked at the chair you are sitting in right now."

"Okay...," I trailed off.

"Jesus fuck, if I didn't know who she was, I'd say she's dumb as a sack of rocks," chuckled Blaze.

"Look around, sweetheart. We're in charge. We run the whole fuckin' place," said Red.

"I... okay... so I'm sitting with you because...?" I asked.

"Jesus fucking Christ," Rock sighed, setting his face in his hands.

"For one, look down at our socks," Big said. I peered down to see the six of us all wearing bright read socks. "We're all some bad people. Real bad. But you? Aw, man. You take the fucking cake."

Oh no. What the fuck did these people think I did?