Chapter 18 Chapter 18
“Some wounds bleed on the inside long before anyone sees the bruise.”
Hale sat in the bathtub, water sloshing quietly around him, but nothing about him was calm. His breathing was sharp, jaw locked so tight a vein pulsed angrily down his neck. His knuckles were split open; fresh, raw, stinging and the red that swirled faintly in the water wasn’t doing a thing to cool the heat underneath his skin.
He wasn’t confused. He wasn’t hurt.
He was furious.
Furious at everything, but mostly… at her....For simply existing in his space.
Clara, with her wide eyes, her nervous stutters, her soft hands arranging his things without permission. Her quiet defiance when she should have been running the other direction....Everything about her riled him up in ways he could not explain.
She’d slipped into his life like a mistake, one he never planned, never wanted, and absolutely could not shake now.
And that alone made him angrier than he’d ever admit.
Across the hall, Peterson wasn’t asleep either. He lay on his back staring at the ceiling as if it had personally offended him. But unlike Hale, his anger wasn’t boiling, his mind was buzzing.
He could still feel her mouth on his.
Trinity.
The annoying little brat who rolled her eyes in his face… then kissed him like she wanted to steal the breath out of his lungs and have him fuck her over a serving table.
The same girl who’d threatened to slap him after looking at him with heavy liked eyes and rosy cheeks.
He chuckled quietly at the memory, shaking his head.
“Brave,” he muttered to himself. “Annoyingly brave…”
And that was the problem; Trinity didn’t understand how close she danced to danger. Or maybe she did, and that’s exactly why she kept coming back.
The Annual Visit came faster than expected.
Clara and Trinity barely caught a break as they cleaned, arranged, and assisted the officers in preparing the hall. Only once a year did the families of Saint Ridge inmates get a chance to see their sons, fathers, brothers; monsters or not.
Armed guards escorted the inmates in heavy chains, one by one. Some had visitors waiting. Some did not. Some walked in eager. Others didn’t bother showing up at all.
Hale… didn’t even step foot in the hall.
Clara noticed instantly.
She noticed everything where he was concerned, even when she wished she didn’t.
By the time the hall finally emptied and the doors were locked again, Clara felt like she’d aged a year in a day. Her mind had been pounding nonstop....Hale grabbing her throat, the fear, the embarrassment, the way her heart betrayed her even now.
Back in the dorm, Trinity opened her arms without a word. The moment Clara stepped into the hug, everything she’d been holding back shattered.
Her knees buckled
“I-I’m so stupid,” Clara choked through sobs. “I actually thought someone like him....someone like Hale would ever be interested in a boring girl like me.”
“Hey, hey, hey… don’t do that,” Trinity whispered gently. “He’s the jerk here, not you.”
“I thought I was going to die Tri.. I...I almost died" Clara cried harder, hands covering her face. “And to think I started developing feelings for him. I’m such an idiot.”
“No,” Trinity said firmly. “You’re human. You’re allowed to feel things."
"I should've known" She whispered almost like she was talking to herself.
"How could you have known when he'd been the one giving you signals and eye fucking you everywhere" Trinity’s words earned her a nudge and red cheeks from Clara
"But now you’re going to erase him. Delete him. Throw that whole man in the trash mentally, okay?”
Clara let out a shaky laugh and wiped her face. “Yeah. I should.”
“Damn right.”
And she did.
Four months slipped by like pages turning in a book she didn’t want to read.
Clara avoided Hale like her life depended on it, because now she truly believed it did.
The only times she saw him were moments she couldn’t escape: when she delivered files, or cleaned his space, or passed him in the corridor. She kept her head down, voice low, and never stayed longer than she needed to.
She didn’t look him in the eyes anymore.
Part of her had healed.
Part of her had hardened, maybe.
And part of her… was just too scared to put herself in near death situations again.
Meanwhile, Trinity and Peterson had become a whole different problem.
When they weren’t arguing loudly, aggressively, like two animals marking territory...they were kissing each other hard enough to bruise lips and slamming each other into walls like the building owed them insurance.
It made no sense.
It made total sense.
And Clara pretended not to notice.
Then everything changed the day the new inmate arrived.
Clara noticed him the moment he stepped off the transport wagon; thin, glasses sliding down his nose, hair in neat curls, clutching a stack of books like he’d been kidnapped from a library.
He didn’t look like a criminal.
Not even a little.
He looked like he’d get lost in a grocery store.
Clara blinked. “Maybe he’s… misunderstood.”
Trinity snapped her fingers in front of her face. “Clara. Babe. Listen to me. You have to be dangerous to get put in Saint Ridge. Danger. As in ‘you bite people for fun.’”
Clara frowned. “Then why are you sneaking around with dangerous Peterson?....Not scared of getting bitten i see”
Trinity froze. “We are not sneaking around. We just keep bumping into each other”
“You literally spend every day either fighting him or bumping lips with him.”
“That was once, okay twice...well maybe three...Clara shut up.”
Clara grinned. “Your lips bumping, hmm?”
Trinity glared. “I will choke you....stop teasi..."
But then… both girls slowly turned to each other.
Their eyes widened.
A slow, mischievous grin spread across both faces at the exact same time. They certainly had the same thought in mind.
“Oh no,” Clara whispered.
“Oh yes,” Trinity corrected.
Whatever idea just formed between them…
It was the beginning of chaos.
The fun kind.
And probably the dangerous kind, too.