Ernest held my gaze for a long moment.
"All right. I'll get on it. Watch yourself in here. Nelson's put the word out—he wants you wishing you were dead inside this place."
I turned and walked back to the cell.
The second I stepped through the door, the air was wrong.
Every woman who'd been sitting on her bunk was now standing, their bodies packed together to block the surveillance camera.
Marlene Coyle walked toward me with a smile.
"Laurel Fox, right? Somebody outside put up a hundred thousand for one of your legs."
The words barely left her mouth before two women lunged at me from either side, locking my arms tight.
Marlene drove the sharpened toothbrush handle straight at my thigh.
I snapped my knee up and caught her square on the wrist.
Her bones cracked like a dry branch and she shrieked, the shiv clattering to the floor.
I twisted, threw the woman on my left over my shoulder, and slammed her into the concrete.
The one on my right let go and stumbled back, hands up.
I rubbed the red marks on my wrists and walked over to Marlene.
"A hundred grand? Nelson Whitney really is cheap."
She was rolling on the floor, cradling her wrist and howling.