Chapter Text
Chapter 1
The air was oddly cold that afternoon, with the scent of rain lingering about. The dark clouds veiled the blue sky, obscuring the light and painting the streets with pale colors. In the middle of his scattered thoughts and shaking nerves, Adam heard a thick voice calling his name. A police officer stood by the bus door, holding a long paper with names printed on it. The officer was in a blue uniform, which had a little tag, reading “LA State Private prison [LASP].”
It was a good prison, some people said. Adam stared at the tag for the longest time. It still didn’t make any sense. What was he doing in this place? Adam shouldn’t have been here.
It was all just a big mistake.
***
Adam was a keen man, independent and very comfortable with himself. He was a ball of excitement, a little stubborn for his own good but very passionate about his thoughts and ideas. He wasn't weighed down by the troubles of everyday life, and was always himself regardless of the situation. He lived his life to the fullest, and didn't like planning ahead, choking his day with stressful schedules and mind-numbing routines.
He rarely stayed at home. There was something happening almost every day, a little dinner party with work colleagues maybe, drinking out with friends, a date, or even something as simple as family dinners with his Aunt Sandy. His engagement to Carrie didn’t change his lifestyle very much. They met at work. People used to say that she was the female version of him. She was just as wild, loud and outgoing as he was, if not more.
Adam was a reveler. His constant partying got him into a lot of trouble, from neighbors complaining about the noise to getting into stupid fights with strangers during a drunken haze. Sometimes, he would let his short temper do the talking for him, but he was not evil in any way. He tried to be a loving boyfriend, a nice neighbor and a good friend.
He loved his job, and considered himself one of the few lucky ones, who genuinely enjoyed what they did for living. He was a car salesman (a hell of a good car salesman) at his uncle’s dealership. It was not a big lot, just a small family business his Uncle George inherited from his mother after she passed away. His uncle always said that Adam could sell anything, even if it was a potato sack. It made Adam a little cocky. He knew he was valuable to the dealership, and that made him a little careless. He would miss work a lot, stay in bed hungover from a night before, or stay home just because he didn’t feel like going to work. His uncle never made a huge deal about it, but occasionally threw some shade on the subject at the family’s gathering.
Adam wouldn’t dare say that his life was perfect, because it was not. Nothing is. He struggled with money a lot, had women breaking up with him and people using him for their own good. But he was a happy man, and he rarely complained.
That’s why it didn’t make any sense when he was pronounced a killer at court and was sentenced to life. It happened too fast, too sudden, like a quiet wave that came without a warning and washed everything over to the bottom of the ocean.
It was on a Thursday night.
He came back home around eleven at night, a little drunk. That day, his friend got a big commission after he’d sold a Mercedes, and he insisted on buying drinks for everyone. Adam had a couple of martinis at the club and some scotch from his friend’s flask before he got into the cab.
After the cab driver dropped him off, Adam realized that he was still a couple of blocks away from his house. So, he decided to walk the short distance. From a few yards away, he could clearly see that the lights of the living room were turned on in the windows. The door was slightly open, too. He remembered being worried that someone had broken into his home and stolen his stuff. He rushed into the house, and left his briefcase on a table next to the front door.
That was when he saw it - blood. It was everywhere, on the floor, the chairs, and the rugs. A woman was lying next to his dining room table, on her stomach, moaning and breathing heavily, her blond hair swimming in a pool of blood beneath her.
He felt dizzy. He’ had never seen so much blood in his life. He had to hold on to a chair so he wouldn’t collapse on the floor.
It was Mary, their neighbor’s daughter. She had the phone receiver on her ear and she breathed hard into it. When she saw Adam, she smiled and started saying his name again and again and again until she just stopped, her brown eyes closed gently, and her lips froze. As he walked closer, he found a knife next to her – his kitchen knife – bloody shoe prints and a glass of wine with her lipstick on it.
He sat next to her and shook her, trying to wake her up. His drunken brain still couldn’t process the fact that she’d already died. When he turned her on her back, his body immediately jerked away and started shaking. She was stabbed, four times. Her white blouse had four wide cuts in it and was soaked in blood. That was when he realized that some of his fingers were covered in blood, too. He wiped the blood on his shirt in an attempt to get it off him, but it’d gotten under his nails.
Adam did not have to call 911, because a second later, Adam heard the sirens outside his house. He was not an idiot. He knew exactly what this looked like for him, and knew the moment these cops asked him to step away and put his hands over his head that he’d just become their number one suspect. He remembered thinking that there was no way he was going to jail.
The cops gave the case only two weeks of “thorough” investigation before they accused Adam of being the culprit. His lawyer couldn’t do anything for him, except ask Adam to plead guilty. He said that there was too much evidence pointing at him. The knife that killed Mary had no other fingerprints but Adam’s. The cops found one of Adam’s white shirts, stained with Mary’s blood, a few miles east from Adam’s house, accompanied by a pair of bloody shoes that were also Adam’s. The fact that Mary kept repeating his name on the phone didn’t help either, because her 911 call that night had been recorded.
His lawyer said that he could get Adam a life sentence with a chance of parole if he pled guilty, since he was a first-time offender. Adam refused, at the beginning. He had done nothing wrong. He kept repeating that again and again, but no one believed him, not even his lawyer. He could not explain the bloody shirt, or the shoes, or the reason that girl was in his house in the first place. He could only hope that someone believed him.
But no one did. His friends refused to give their statement. No one saw him at the club and the police couldn’t find the cab that drove Adam home. In other words, he had no alibi. His lawyer’s hands were tied and he made sure Adam knew that very clearly. He kept saying that if he pled guilty they were going to send him to a private prison that was “high on human rights,” and had minimum security.
Adam finally broke when one officer mentioned a death sentence. It had Adam shaking with anxiety. He didn’t want to die like that, not with everyone thinking that he was some cold-blooded murderer. His mother would have had another stroke if that were to happen. So, he decided to take his lawyer’s advice. He pled guilty.
Adam only remembered flashes of what happened after. The cold look on the judge’s face, his fiancée Carrie avoiding his eyes and Mary’s parents, crying when Adam was only sentenced for life, not death. At some point after the judge left the room, Carrie approached him and gave him the ring back, which he didn’t even get to keep. It crushed him, when she turned her back to him and walked away. She used to say that she knew him better than anyone. How could she think he killed that girl?
***
“Adam Levine,” the man called again, looking at the inmates’ faces one by one. He looked impatient, as he glared at their faces.
There was no way out of this. The realization made his heart ache, tears burning at the back of his eyes already. “I’m here.” Adam raised his hand.
The man signaled for him to get up. “C’mon, your next. Hurry up!”
Adam got up with a heavy heart, and walked out of the bus.
The high concrete walls were the first thing Adam had noticed when he stepped out. He couldn’t see anything behind them, and had to wait for the huge gates to open. Intimidated by the new place, Adam didn’t realize that he was frozen in place, getting in the way of the rest of the new prisoners. The cops pushed him forward with no concern for his safety, and he stumbled forward.
He walked behind a short line of men of different shapes, sizes and races. They were all instructed to go forward toward a big door that took them to a small room, where they were asked to wait.
Adam sat down on a wooden bench and bowed his head in defeat. Most of the new inmates were already BFFs, talking and laughing about how it didn’t take them long to come back. Some had a heated argument about some drug, while others just sat there like him, head down as they waited.
After the long wait, the new prisoners were taken to the bathrooms, where they had to shower in front of strangers with shotguns. Adam did not really mind. He liked his body, and was proud of it. Besides, it was like showering at the locker room, nothing too extreme. What he really minded, and hated to the deepest point of his core, was the “cavity search,” which meant that he had to have all his “holes” inspected for sharp weapons and controlled substances. And yes, one of the holes they had to search was his butthole. Adam refused to do it at first, which gave the other inmates something to laugh at, but one of the officers convinced him with a very persuasive threat and a thick shotgun pointing at him.
It was humiliating, to put it in one word.
After the shower, they were each given an orange jumper, which was ironic. Adam had always said that the only way to get him to wear that hideous color was by sending him to jail. They didn’t even give them any underwear, saying that they were going to change their clothes again after the “reception.”
After they got dressed, the inmates were led to a room, where they had to sit down with an officer and answer a whole lot of personal questions. “Have you ever attempted suicide?” “Do you have any STDs?” “Do you have any family member who is currently in jail?” These kinds of questions.
After the questions, they were all led to a large cell that had nothing but wooden benches, a toilet and a sink. There were seven other prisoners in there, and with Adam’s group added, the total number jumped to thirteen. After the new inmates were shoved inside, the bars closed immediately, without any additional word.
“Welcome to the reception!” A man’s voice rose up, roaring with laughter.
Adam stood in his place for a few minutes, eyes wandering around, following any sudden sound. He didn’t know what to do, or where to go. There weren’t any empty seats except the one close to the toilet. Everyone was avoiding that bench, and after Adam smelled that toilet, he no longer wondered why.
A man called Fred Von asked him to sit down, because he was distracting everybody. He even asked his friend to make some room for Adam. Adam thought that he was being a nice guy, so he accepted the gesture and sat between the two men.
After he sat down, he had a moment where he wanted to cry. He couldn’t believe that this was actually happening. It didn’t matter how many times he closed his eyes and reopened them, he was not having the most horrific nightmare of his life. He had a look around, and imagined how his life was going to be in this place. There was no space to move, there was not much to do and there was no respect for one’s privacy.
Adam stayed at the reception for two weeks, where he hadn’t seen any daylight for days, showered only once and had to sleep on the wooden benches if not the floor sometimes. Using the toilet was tricky, since he always waited until the lights were off and everyone was asleep. The smell that came out of that place was unbearable sometimes, and Adam had felt like throwing up a couple of times.
The food was delivered to them in boxes, three times a day. It was different from one meal to the next, but the menu was always the same throughout the week. Breakfast: scrambled eggs, two slices of bread and an apple for dessert. Lunch: Potato and egg salad, and another apple. Dinner, macaroni and cheese with chicken pieces cut in it, and a slice of a sweet oatmeal cake for desert. The food was not bad at all, to Adam’s surprise, but after a few days of eating the exact same thing every single day of the week, it started to get a little bit redundant.
At the reception, Adam learned a few things about the prison. An old man cared enough to explain for Adam. The prison wasn’t minimum security, as Adam’s lawyer said. It housed some very tough, violent convicts, and even had a maximum security unit with death row inmates! That’s why the guards had to be violent with the inmates sometimes.
The facility consisted of three blocks, the old man told him. He said that LA State Private Prison, or, as they called it, LASP, was the one of the very few prisons in the United States that offered a “pay to stay” program, where politicians and celebrities could relax in a quiet, hotel-like wing, away from the general population. The inmates called that wing the X-unit.
Adam was interested in that, so he asked about the cost, and was dumbfounded when the old man answered, “First, you need a good lawyer, which already is very expensive. Then you need to pay at least $100,000 for every year. The moment you stop paying, you’re kicked out.”
That was disappointing.
Another week passed in that horrible place, and Adam hated every second of it, especially with that guy, Fred, coming his way. At first, Adam genuinely thought that Fred was a nice guy. There was nothing about him that scared Adam in any way. He looked in his forties and was short and a little overweight. His lazy black eyes crept around the cell under thick curls of brown hair. He was always laughing and talking about women and men that he’d fucked, which, other than his vulgar language, Adam didn’t find anything wrong with. However the old man warned Adam, and told him that Fred was actually a rapist.
After Adam found that out, he started to avoid being around him. Fred began calling him a princess, laughing at him. He would get in Adam’s way a lot, pinch his butt, and even talk about how Adam needed a real man to unleash the whore in him. It was so disturbing that Adam couldn’t sleep through the night sometimes.
Luckily for Adam, he was a first time offender, so he got called out after only 24 days. It was relatively a short time compared to some of the prisoners at the reception, who had been there for over 70 days.
Adam was taken to a clinic, where he had everything tested – his blood, ears, eyes, prostate, etc. After that, he was taken to a psychiatrist, who talked to him for a few minutes, showed him a few pictures and asked him about what he thought of them. The therapist told him that the session was to evaluate him on a metal level, and to determine whether or not he was a violent guy. The evaluation lasted for a whole hour maybe a little over, but the results came immediately. He heard the doctor tell the office that he was safe.
The therapist then asked Adam if he’d been tested for OCD? Adam told her that he, indeed, had mild OCD. At the age of ten, his mother got him tested for OCD, when he started doing a few things in certain way. It was things like tying his shoelace three times, rolling up his sleeves before his meals, and eating his desert first before anything else. He never had any medications for it, since the therapist told his mother that it was not aggressive. That’s why he refused the medications when the prison doctor asked him if he would like to sign up for treatment. He was doing just fine without them.
It was already four when the all the tests ended. He was then led to a room, where they had to log down all the tattoos he had on his body into a computer. It took them forever to photograph each and every one of them. Adam had a lot of tattoos, and he was proud of every single one of them. After it was all done, he was finally taken to another building. A female employee signed him up for the third block, and made him sign a legal form.
They entered the new building through a gate that connected the two buildings. A man felt the prisoners around for sharp metals they might have stolen, and then let them pass. Adam had to wait in a small overcrowded room. There were about twenty prisoners waiting in there, so there was no place for him to sit down. Three minutes later, the men in the room were asked to line up in a single file. A door opened, and Adam saw a couple of stairs followed by an open space.
There was a little “welcome party” behind the door, thrown by the older prisoners. And by party, Adam meant endless staring, creepy smiles and laughter. Unlike Adam, the new prisoners kept their eyes down and walked in silence. But, being the inexperienced idiot that he was, Adam thought that if he showed them that he wasn’t scared, everyone would just leave him alone and not get in his way like Fred did to him.
Adam didn’t want to mingle with anyone. His eyes wandered around, looking at nothing in particular. He wasn’t sure what, exactly, he was looking for. Maybe he wanted to predict the state of living by studying the condition of the other prisoners? They didn’t look in a bad shape. Most of them were clean, sharp and holding themselves together pretty well. It was different from what he was imagining. He was expecting tortured guys, dirty clothes and dismembered bodies or something. So seeing them in that state was, actually, relieving.
Before the new prisoners disappeared inside the building, Adam’s eyes fell on a man standing by some rocks stacked together. He was in a blue uniform, and was so tall that the guy whispering close to his ear looked like a hobbit. His face was straight, clear of any emotion. His ice-cold blue eyes almost froze Adam in his place when they looked at him. It was uncomfortable, the way that guy looked at Adam, barely blinking at all. It was as if he could look through Adam’s soul, see his darkest secrets. Adam frowned at him, and held eye contact until they disappeared into the building.
As they were ushered to the showers, Adam started examining the place. They walked through a wide aisle, which had cells along both sides. As they continued ahead, Adam noticed the cells, lined up in two floors. They had white bars and were all identical. Adam couldn't exactly see what was inside, but he could tell that every cell was a mirror to the one that followed. ‘This is the third block,” Adam heard someone say. As Adam looked farther up, he noticed a third floor that looked nothing like the bottom two. It looked dark from down there, and Adam couldn’t really see much. At the end of the hallway, there was a door that took them a narrow hallway. The hallway had two doors. One of them led to the bathrooms.
This bathroom was actually much better than the one from before. It was divided into two sections. The first section had over twenty narrow, short stalls, providing a fair amount of privacy. Each stall was narrow and had a single shower head, in addition to sample-size bottles of shampoos and soap. The second section was at the back, and had toilets, sinks and mirrors, along with some towels and toilet paper.
After the time allowed to shower was out, the new inmates were given their clothes – a white tank top, black boxers and socks for undergarments. In addition to that, they had a blue uniform.
As they were guided to their cells, they were given a few things that they were going to need: a heavy blanket, toothbrush, toothpaste, and black sneakers that looked a little too cheap. In addition to all of this, they were given a small brochure and were instructed to read it very well.
It was six thirty by then. The huge clock on top of the front door said so, which meant that the Leisure Time was about to end, according to one guard. The guard, responsible for showing the inmates their cells, was a little too rough with the prisoners. He would yell at them, shove them into the cells and ask them to make their beds before lights were out.
Adam was one of the new inmates that were paired with already existing prisoners, and that got him worried. His cellmate was not around when he was shoved into the cell, so, Adam had some time to check things out.
The cell was small, barely allowing any movement. The bunk bed, on the right, was taking too much space. The walls were painted white, but covered in all kinds of writings and scratch marks. There was a small window at the back, covered in rusting bars, and a pair of shelves under it. One of the shelves had three books and one small box. The other shelf had toilet paper. The toilet was the worst part about the whole cell, not because it was dirty or even broken, but because it was shoved in one corner of the room, attached to the sink and with nothing to respect one's privacy.
Since the bottom bed had a pillow on it and some covers, Adam figured that it was taken. Adam took off his shoes and climbed the ladder, feeling the cold metal through the thin material of the socks, and sat on top, with his legs hanging down. The sheets were already made, so the only things he really did were spread out the blanket and place the pillow in its place. It gave him some time to read the brochure he was provided with.
There were only four pages, made out of cheap paper. The first page was for the prison's schedule, the second was for the jobs available and the salaries, the third was for the rules and restrictions, and the fourth was for phone calls and visits schedule. Adam focused more on the schedules and jobs.
“05:30: Wake up. 06:00: Doors open. 07:00: Breakfast. 08:00: work\craft. 13:00: Lunch break. 13:30: work\craft. 16:00: backyard time\walk. 19:00: return to cell and dinner. 23:00: lights out and sleep.”
That was their daily routine, not too different from any working day. The jobs were a little trickier. Adam had the option to choose not work. The jobs available were strange, some were dangerous, and the salaries were too low for the kind of work they had to do. Some had as low as $20 per month.
Adam was still trying to figure out the jobs, when a loud bell rang, almost ripping his heart out of his chest. Then, a few minutes later he heard people talking and yelling in the hallways. According to the brochure, that meant the prisoners were returning to their cells. Adam saw the inmates walk by his cell in a straight line. Some were laughing, others just walked in silence. Adam was waiting anxiously to see his cellmate, and was praying he was a nice guy.
Finally, his cellmate showed up – short black man with funky sunglasses. When he saw Adam on the top bed, he took off his sunglasses and checked the other man out. They stared at each other for the longest time. Adam didn’t know what the protocol was, did they shake hands? Did they high five? Did they ignore each other? So he waited for the other man to say something first.
The inmate was chewing on a piece of gum as he looked at Adam up and down, and the sounds he made as he chewed made things more awkward. Finally, he spoke. “You're new?” he asked, taking off his blue shirt to stay in his white t-shirt. He had some great ink on his arms, colorful and bold. One in particular took Adam’s attention. It was a red and green dragon, wrapped around a lady.
“Yeah. I'm Adam,” Adam answered, offering his hand to the man, but his cellmate ignored it.
“What you in for?” the inmate asked, folding his arms at the level of his chest.
“M-murder,” Adam admitted. The word was like an alien in his mouth. “Bu-“
He didn’t have the chance to tell the guy that he didn’t do it. The man chuckled. “Me too,” the man admitted. He offered his fist for Adam, Adam pumped it with his own. “I’m CeeLo Green. Everyone calls me ‘C’ or ‘The Shark’ around here.”
“The Shark? Why is that?”
“I bit a man's fingers off, once,” he said with a proud smile that scared Adam a little. “I saw that son of bitch, driving around town with the girl I love, and I was like… I’m gonna kill him, which I did, but not before I chopped that motherfucker’s fingers off.”
Adam’s chuckled nervously, feeling uncomfortable. “Well… It's nice to meet you, C.”
“Likewise, bro,” he said, still standing up but leaning against the wall now. “So, you decided on a job, yet?”
“Oh, urm...” He was still flustered by CeeLo’s confession. “I don't know. I don’t see something that I can do, really.”
“If you’re willing to work –and trust me, you want to – you need to choose before tomorrow. Otherwise, they’ll put you in the kitchen with Samuel. And you don't want to be in there. You'll be stuck with an asshole who thinks he's Gordon Ramsay. The security is low in there, and it's freaking hot," CeeLo said, keeping eye contact the whole time. “If you don't see anything that you like, stick with laundry. It's simple. You can always change later.”
Adam was listening, carefully. “If I chose not to work, is it okay?”
CeeLo nodded. “Well, yes and no. First, the food here sucks, so to get some okay quality you need to pay for it. If you don’t work, you get the free meals, which are…”
“Bad?”
CeeLo sighed. “Bad is a huge understatement.” He shook his head. “Anyway, the guards are tougher on unemployed inmates. You’ll be forced to clean the bathrooms, the chow hall, the backyard… And you won’t even get paid. So, trust me, you need a job.”
“Thank you, man!” Adam smiled. “That’s really helpful.”
“Sure.” CeeLo smiled, tipping his head a little “Oh, and no matter what happens, stay away from The Deer. You don’t want to anger them.”
“The Deer?” Adam’s eyebrows furrowed. He was confused. “You mean, like, the animals?”
“No, it's like some kind of Mafia or mob.” CeeLo finally lay down on his bed and talked to Adam from there. “It's Shelton and his folks. If they don’t like you, they’ll turn your life into a living hell. They won’t let you live or even die.” There was a little pause before CeeLo continued. “They have been here for only two years, but managed to get everyone at their feet.”
“That’s a little harsh.”
“A little?” CeeLo exclaimed, raising his voice a little. “These assholes have it so easy! They stay in the third floor. They call it the X unit, which is basically for spoiled-ass celebrities and politicians who can pay for a more comfortable stay.”
He sounded bitter. Adam didn’t blame him. “Is this what the third floor is for?”
“Yeah, they are treated differently.”
“Is that even legal?”
“Around here? Yeah.” CeeLo sighed. “Most of them are harmless, but The Deer, are... Just stay away from them, trust me on this one. They are cold-blooded assassins, and literally are on top of everyone around here, including the management.”
“So, you can’t make friends with them?”
“You can, but… it’s not easy, though. They have certain taste and prefer to stay around each other. But…” CeeLo said, edging his head out if his bed to look up at Adam. “Some might pay you for, you know, regular sex. Especially Shelton. He’s open about it. They call him Sugar Daddy. Every now and then he’d pick someone to be his… you know, ‘companion,’” CeeLo said, quoting the word “companion” with his fingers. “If he picks you, you get to stay upstairs, and have anything they have.”
Adam’s lips parted a little. “Are they gay? All of them?”
CeeLo disappeared again in the bed under Adam. “No. But this is a prison, dude, and you need, you know, relief. Married inmates would leave it for conjugal visits, while others wouldn’t mind using a pretty boy.”
“And that’s Shelton?”
“I heard he does both. He meets regularly with a blonde woman. But generally, he’s with his boys. If you want to have some of the privileges they have, just work on getting invited.”
“I don't think so!” He shook his head at the idea. He was no gay. “I’ll be fine on my own. Thank you anyway.”
“You’re welcome!”
Adam then looked down. “By the way, that's some cool ink you have there, man,” he complimented. “I have some tattoos too, but that dragon on your arm, man, is a piece of art!”
CeeLo was interested, so he asked Adam if he could see. Adam was always happy to show off his collection, especially the mermaid piece on his back. CeeLo seemed impressed with most of them, and it gave them something to bond over. CeeLo was nice, a little rough around the edges but generally sweet. Adam hoped they could be friends. He seemed to know his way around and that was what Adam needed.
Dinner was served to their cells in boxes, which was a great inconvenience, because there were no tables to eat. CeeLo got to sit on the floor and use the bed as a surface. It made Adam a little jealous. He wished he had the bottom bed, so he could do the same. But at the end it didn't matter too much, because there was not much need for a table. He could just use his spoon.
The lights were off at eleven, indicating it was time to sleep.
Adam's first night in the cell was horrible. CeeLo was a snorer, which kept Adam's eyes open for the longest time. It reminded him of his first night in the college dorms. His roommate was a snorer, too. The idea that he was in his college room comforted Adam. He could just close his eyes and pretend he was there, not prison. And it worked. His eyelids started to feel heavy and he fell asleep soon after.