“Soon as we lock in, I got somethin’ for that ass,” Coletta informed her girls, “for what she did to our girl, Snake.”
“I know that’s right,” a dark-skinned inmate named Lacy agreed. She and Coletta were codefendants, both born-and-bred criminals, incarcerated this time for carjacking an elderly woman driving a Mercedes-Benz CLK at a stoplight. The elderly white woman had been snatched out of her car at knifepoint and thrown to the ground. She’d had a heart attack during the crime, and had been pronounced dead the moment the paramedics arrived on the scene. That, coupled with the carjacking, was what had given the two women a twenty-five-to-life sentence.
“Shiiiit, fuck waitin’ for tonight,” another inmate who went by the name Goldie hissed. “Let’s hop on that ass now.” She was serving an eight-year sentence for four counts of burglary and endangering the welfare of a minor. Each time she burglarized someone’s home or car, she’d taken her three-year-old son with her while she committed her crimes.
“No. I’ma handle this one my—”
Heaven had leapt out of the cell with her arm pulled all the way back and hit Coletta in the face with the radio, sending her head snapping to the left. Blood spurted everywhere. It happened so fast that it had stunned them all.
Pumped with high levels of adrenaline, she beat Coletta in the face with the radio, not giving her a chance to recover from the blows. She’d split her lip, and beaten her eyes swollen. Immediately, pandemonium erupted on the tier as four of Coletta’s girls jumped in to help their homie, punching and kicking Heaven to get her off of her.
The whole scene was being captured on camera, causing the two COs manning the control center to take bets as to which inmates would be rolled out on stretchers as they watched on. The housing officer immediately backed up against the wall and radioed into central control for backup. A code was called.
Heaven was beat about the back and head with homemade clubs and fists and feet. But that didn’t stop her from taking her razor-sharp nails and nearly gouging Coletta’s left eye out, while she used her free hand and continued to punch the side of her face in. And, unbeknownst to her, Coletta Evans and her girls were members of a notorious street gang.
And she’d just taken on all five of them.
FIVE
Breaking Up Somebody’s Home . . .
Warden Kate was livid!
She fell back into her chair in an angry daze. She’d just viewed the playback video for 4 East. What she witnessed on that tape made her stomach churn. It was appalling. Goddamn embarrassing. Women fighting like wolves.
The melee up on the third tier suddenly incited several other fights down in the day space, causing inmates to brawl, fighting and throwing plastic chairs at each other. One of those chairs somehow managed to hit Officer O’Neal in the face, causing blood to spill from her nose. And the one woman whom she’d struggled to keep her eyes off of so that she could view the entire fiasco was that fucking inmate Lewis. Hadn’t she just been released from solitary? And less than one hour later, her ass was already in the mix of more shit.
The warden snatched open her bottom drawer and reached under a pile of folders, pulling out her flask filled with—this time, Stoli. She unscrewed the cap and sighed. She knew inmate Lewis was going to become the proverbial thorn in her goddamn side, one she would have to pluck out before it caused her a shitload of grief.
On a tier of sixty-eight women, twenty of them had been slightly injured. And another three were severely wounded—one of those being Coletta Evans.
She’d been beaten nearly unconscious, the lens of her left eye severely clawed.
Good for her troublesome ass!
Truth was, the warden couldn’t stand her loudmouth, thuggish ass. Trashy bitch. She knew she had to have been the sole instigator in all of this recent mess, as she always was. Yet, she couldn’t prove it. And, the fact of the matter was, she was glad someone had finally stomped her ass real good. Still, for appearance’s sake, she had to appear concerned for the wretched bitch’s welfare.
She sighed.
Two of the prison’s most aggressive inmates had been hospitalized in two separate incidents, both at the hands of inmate Lewis. She honestly thought she’d be more of a problem by trying to seduce her COs, or fuck one of the civilian staff.
Not by fighting.
But it appeared the feisty bitch liked violence more so than she did cock. Fighting was probably how she got her rocks off, the warden surmised. After all, she’d shot her own boyfriend in the back. Three times.
Mmph.
Then she probably fucked herself with the butt of her gun afterward, the warden mused as she pressed play again, and watched the video for a second time. She fast-forwarded certain parts of the tape to get to other sections. When she got to the part where the housing officer had gotten hit in the face with the chair, the warden paused it, slamming a hand down on her desk.
“This shit is unacceptable,” she hissed, finally bringing the neck of her flask up to her lips. If these convicts wanted to kill each other, perhaps she should simply let them all out in the yard with their shanks and homemade clubs and have at it like the savages they were acting like.
Millions of dollars had been invested into rehabilitation programs for the women at Croydon Hill. From horticulture and dog grooming to the prison’s tailoring and shoemaking and cosmetology programs—along with treatment and educational programs and support groups, these women were afforded the tools to get back into society and be productive citizens, if they so chose to be.
But most of these women would rather jail than do something constructive with their time. So obviously many of them didn’t want to be rehabilitated, so why should she give a damn? Obviously, these uncivilized bitches were living proof that they didn’t give a fuck, either. Well, so be it. But she’d be damned if she was going to let them tear down her prison with their savagery.
Fuck it all to hell.
They were a bunch of damn cavewomen.