Disclaimers: The characters in this novel are of my own creation. That’s right, this is an ‘uber’ story. Some may bear a resemblance to characters we know and love who are owned by PacRen and Universal Studios.

Violence and Naughty Language Disclaimer: Yup, both. And quite a lot of each, to be truthful. This takes place in a prison, and where there are criminals, there’s gonna be violence and naughty words.

Subtext Disclaimer: Yup, there’s that too. This piece deals, after a fashion, with the love and physical expression of that love, between two adult females. There are some graphic scenes located within this piece, but I have tried to make them as tasteful as possible so as to not avoid anyone’s sensibilities. Let me know if I’ve succeeded.

Serialization Disclaimer: When I first started writing and posting, I made a promise to myself, and to anyone who read me, that I would never post a work that wasn’t finished. I detest serialization, normally. But . . .this novel, which is one week from being finished, is becoming very long and I’ve had readers write to me stating that they won’t read novels because they just don’t have time to sit down and read such gargantuan works. So, I compromised. This piece is finished (very nearly) and will go up at regular intervals so that the folks who like to read in small chunks can do that and the ones who like to read the whole thing can do that too.

As days turned into weeks, I felt my frustration level reaching new heights. Every new clue regarding the whereabouts of Ice’s transcripts led to a blind alley with no answers and little hope of finding them.

When dead end after dead end spurred fantasies of homicide, I would take a walk outside into the crisp fall air and take out my frustrations on the ever-ready punching bag. I often found myself having to share it with a disappointed Critter who had failed her first parole hearing. She had found out during the hearing that while surgery had saved the store-owner’s life, his health had never fully recovered. As months turned into years, he continued to become more and more frail. If he died as a direct result of the previous heart attack, Critter was afraid they’d add a manslaughter charge to the ones she was already serving time for. In any event, it looked as if she would have to wait yet another year for her next chance at freedom.

Pony and Sonny were on the outs over some failed love triangle and Ice was working long, enforced hours in the auto shop, breaking down and fixing up a whole slew of stolen cars designed to line the pockets of our corrupt warden.

All in all, it was not a good season for any of us, and it was about to get worse.

Frustration is a dangerous emotion in that it often leads us to make stupid mistakes in trying to relieve it. I made one such mistake and it cost me dearly.

About at the point of tearing my hair out in frustration, I finally gave in to Corinne’s oft-repeated suggestion of allowing an investigative reporter friend snoop around a little to see what he could find. All previous suggestions of this sort had been rebuffed by me with the knowledge that many reporters of this type are greedy bastards who will stop at nothing to blow the lid off a big story if they can find one. This was one story I didn’t want to be taken public.

Corinne promised me that she had so much dirt on this man that he wouldn’t dare act against her wishes or he’d find himself ruined both personally and professionally. After what seemed the hundredth time of hearing the same suggestions and the same arguments, I was finally at the point where I’d either tell her to stuff it or to go with it. I chose the second option.

The next two weeks crawled by with semi-regular reports from the man who called himself ‘Slim Jim’ for reasons I’m sure I don’t want to know. And those reports didn’t tell me anything I didn’t know already; that there appeared to be a cover-up of some kind regarding Ice’s court transcripts. His contacts within the justice system were rebuffing his overtures with uncharacteristic stoniness and he sensed something big was going on behind the scenes. Something he couldn’t possibly be expected to uncover given the strict ground-rules I’d laid out for him. Though I understood the hint, I didn’t rise to the bait and left the man grumbling but determined to crack what could well be the case of a lifetime.

I was beginning to become seriously concerned that this man’s innate greed for a big story would outweigh whatever dirty little secrets Corinne had on him and had finally come to the decision to tell her to call off her dog.

I sat in the library, rehearsing my arguments in my mind, knowing Corinne would use all the verbal charm at her disposal to talk me out of this decision. Against my better judgement, I had bowed to her formidable will once already and didn’t want to do so again. This was too important to me.

As I opened my mouth to speak, another voice interrupted before the first sound exited my lips. "Angel, may I speak with you for a moment?"

I turned to see Ice filling the doorway, her face an expressionless mask that usually denoted anger and her eyes cold as her prison name. I swallowed hard, my throat suddenly dry. I looked over to Corinne for support, but found her staring at Ice as well, her own face showing trepidation, an expression I’d never before seen on her. Turning back to my lover, I nodded. "Yeah, sure."

Taking a deep breath, I pushed myself away from the table and out of my chair, trying to control the shakiness in my muscles as I made my way across the library and out into the hallway. Ice led me halfway down the dimly lit hall before stopping and turning so that my back was against the wall, her presence looming over me. "This stops now."

"Um . . .excuse me?"

Her hand flung out, palm up. "This . . .investigation . . .of my missing files. You’re in way over your head on this one and everything is about one step from tumbling down all around you. I must have been out of my mind for agreeing to this in the first place."

"But, Ice . . . ."

"No, Angel. No, you listen to me. Call off whatever dogs you’ve got riding on this and close it down. Now."

"Ice . . . ."

Her hands came down and clamped painfully on my shoulders. "Now, Angel. Do us both a favor and back off." Releasing my shoulders, she glared at me for a moment more before turning on her heel and stalking off, leaving me to stand and stare after her retreating form, totally stunned.

A sound coming from the other direction caused me to whirl around. Corinne stood a few steps from the library door, looking down the long hallway. Her eyes slowly moved to meet mine. "I heard," she said in a soft voice. "And I’m sorry. I should have listened to you and not tried to bully you into something you didn’t want in the first place."

"That’s alright, Corinne. You were only trying to help."

"Regardless, this is more my fault than yours. I’ll try to explain that to her."

I snagged her arm as she walked up to me. "No. I don’t think that’s a very good idea right now. I don’t think she’s in a listening mood."

My friend dragged a hand through her gray hair. "I suppose you’re right. What should I do?"

"Get your friend on the phone and threaten him with every piece of dirt you’ve got. If that isn’t enough, make something up, but get him off that case. Please."

Corinne nodded. "That I can do." She looked at me, her gaze both apologetic and compassionate. "Will you be alright?"

"I’ll have to be, won’t I." That came out more harshly than I intended and I clasped her wrist. "I’m sorry, Corinne. That was uncalled for." I sighed. "I’ll give her a while to calm down and then go up to her cell. Maybe by then she’ll be willing to tell me what’s going on, huh?"

"Good luck," she snorted, returning my clasp before disengaging and walking back into the library to carry out her instructions.

"Thanks," I whispered after she was gone. "I think I’ll need it."

As it was almost time for my assigned exercise period, I headed down the hall, intent on taking in some fresh air to soothe my troubled emotions. As I stepped out into the prison proper, Digger spotted me and loped over, excitement broadly painted on her face. "Angel, I’m glad you’re here. I need to talk to you."

"Not now, Digger. I need to get some fresh air for a bit. Maybe later, ok?"

"Please, Angel, it’s really important. I’ll even go outside with you. The guards won’t know if we stick close to the building. Please."

The sense of urgency in her eyes made me acquiesce, though I really wasn’t in the mood for company of any sort, let alone that of my shadow. "Alright, Digger," I said finally. "But just for a few minutes, ok? I’ve got a killer headache."

"Just a few minutes, I promise."

I followed her through the prison and out the door into the yard, feeling the sun on my face start to dissolve the incredible tension tying my body in knots. After taking several deep, cleansing breaths of the autumn air, I turned to Digger, eyebrows raised. "What was it you needed to talk to me about?"

"Alright. I was in the warden’s office today, cleaning up like I usually do, right? I was only there for maybe an hour when the door opens and a guard comes in leading Ice."

I turned to her, my interest fully captured. "What?"

She nodded. "It’s true! Ice looked like she was ready to tear the whole place apart, and twice as bad when she came back out! I almost peed my pants, I swear!"

"Did you hear what was said between them?"

"Some. I couldn’t get it all. People were comin’ in and out of the office and I had to be real careful ‘bout listening in, you know?"

Resisting the urge to throttle the woman for not getting to the point, I simply nodded encouragingly for her to continue.

"Anyway, she goes in and the guard leaves. Which is really surprising, cause the guards usually go in with the prisoners when they’re brought up to see the warden, ya know?"

Her plaintive look seemed to demand some response, so I forced a smile to my face. "I understand, Digger. Please continue."

"Alright. So anyway, being as I was alone for the moment, I picked up my polishing rag and went right up to the door, making like I was polishing the knob and nameplate, you know? And I heard the warden tellin’ Ice that he was on to her about somethin’. And Ice told him that she didn’t know what he was talking about. Then another guard came in, so I pretended to be working and didn’t hear anything until the guard left. When I got back to listenin’, Ice was telling the warden that she was gonna stop everything. I didn’t know what she meant, but the warden sure did, cause he started yellin at her."

"What was he saying?"

"He was yellin’ something about how she wasn’t gonna stop anything if she knew what was good for her. Said if she didn’t shape up and fly right, things were gonna start getting real bad for her. He even said that he’d make it so that her little girlfriend would get transferred to Hell’s Kitchen. I didn’t even know she had a girlfriend. Did you?"

My throat became dry again as my heart skittered in my chest. The reason behind Ice’s warning became frighteningly clear to me. Hell’s Kitchen was the nickname of another Woman’s State Prison in Pennsylvania, and rumored to be one of the most dangerous of its kind in the country. Almost every woman released from the prison either made it out in a pine box, or immeasurably changed from the experience. And not for the better.

My emotions must have shown on my face because Digger grabbed my shoulder and shook me. "Angel? Angel, are you ok? You look like you seen a ghost."

"No. No, I’m fine. Did you hear anything else?"

"No. The warden musta called for his guards, cause one came in right after that and took Ice away. Man, she sure looked like she was ready to rip someone a new asshole. And since I’m kinda partial to mine, I played like a houseplant and kinda shrunk into a corner till she left."

"Did the warden say anything after she left? Make a phone call or anything?"

Digger shrugged. "I don’t know. By that time, all I wanted to do was finish cleaning and come down and tell you what I heard. I figured with you and Ice being friends and all, maybe you’d know what was goin’ on." She looked toward the fence, where the guards were looking down from the towers. "I’d better get goin’. Don’t wanna get in trouble for being out here. Talk to ya later?"

"Yeah . . .sure, Digger. See you later."

She grinned and waved. "Bye, Angel."

"Bye, Digger."

Turning from the doorway, I slowly walked across the yard and up to the fence protecting the outside world from me. My thoughts were a clutter racing amok in my mind like a dog chasing its tail. It wasn’t hard to fill in the missing spots in the conversation between Morrison and Ice. The warden had obviously found out about the investigation into Ice’s missing transcript, which was something I had been desperately trying to avoid. He most likely called her out on it and she responded by threatening to pull her contributions from his little automobile laundering scheme, which in turn led to his threats toward her and her friends, myself included.

This was not what I had in mind when I begged Ice to at least look into the possibility of reopening her case. In hindsight, her warnings to me on this very topic were crystal clear. Why I hadn’t heard them at the time I’ll never know, but I didn’t. My mind was on the injustice she’d suffered, sparked by her sadness that we wouldn’t always be together.

I’ve always been somewhat of a crusader. It’s been part of my nature since I was very young and making up plans to free the dogs from the local humane society. I’d thought, however, that I’d gotten over the ‘leap before you look’ philosophy while still a girl. Apparently, I needed to study up a bit more because I’d obviously blown it, big time.

Threading my fingers through the links, I rested my forehead against the cool metal, trying to come up with a way to make things better. Ice had every right to be angry, though she had agreed to my attempting to get her records. Still, I hadn’t told her that I’d given in to Corinne’s suggestion about using her reporter friend to help with the search. And I had no doubt that that was what brought the whole matter to a head.

I was deep in my thoughts when Sonny approached, laying a compassionate hand on my shoulder. "Are you alright, Angel? Was Digger bothering you?"

Swallowing back the tears in my throat, I pasted a semblance of a smile on my face and turned to her. "I’m ok. And no, Digger wasn’t bothering me. She just had some news to share with me."

"Was it about Ice? I saw her coming in from the warden’s office looking like she was ready to kill someone."

Not trusting myself to speak, I nodded in affirmation.

"Shit. Is there anything I can do to help? Maybe get together with the others?"

"No. Thank you though. This is something I need to work out with Ice."

"Are you sure?"

"Positive."

Sonny squeezed my shoulder, smiling slightly. "Alright then. You know where to look if you want to talk, right?"

Covering her hand with my own, I returned her smile. "I do. That means a lot to me, Sonny. Thanks."

"You mean a lot to us, Angel. Don’t forget that, alright?"

"I won’t."

Despite the gravity of the situation, or perhaps because of it, her words made me feel a little better. I hadn’t been as close to Sonny as I had been to Pony and Critter. But after the stabbing, we became friends. Beneath her somewhat rough and tumble exterior, she was a sweet, kind and caring woman who was always available to help someone in need.

Of course, she was also an armed robber, the only female in a bank and armored car robbery ring who met their demise during a botched bank hold-up. Everyone in the band was killed by the SWAT team except for her. She said that the only reason she remained alive is that at first the police thought she was a hostage and not one of the robbers. She almost got away with it too, until one of the actual hostages pointed her out as she was leaving the building.

Giving me a final pat on the back, Sonny turned and walked back to the weight area where the rest of the Amazons were congregated. As I looked out onto the black parking lot, part of me damned my insatiable curiosity, for it was what led me out to this very spot those months ago to see what Ice was looking at. If I had not walked up to this very fence, I would not have seen the warden and Ice’s betrayer, and perhaps none of this would have ever happened.

But another part of me jumped all over that maudlin thought. If I hadn’t seen what had happened in the parking lot, Ice most likely would never have taken me down to the chop shop that fateful evening when she bared her soul to me. We might never have made love in that very room.

Had I destroyed the trust she had so painstakingly given me with my zealotry? In my quest to right an injustice, had I ruined everything between us that I had fought so hard to build? I took a deep breath and mustered my courage.

There was only one way to find out.

*******

Ice was sitting on her bed, back ramrod straight, her hands resting lightly on her thighs. Her feet were flat to the floor and her eyes were closed as if in meditation. The air was still around her. Even the always present hum of the fluorescents seemed subdued in her presence.

I stood there, watching her for long moments in silence, knowing somehow that she was aware of me, yet not wanting to shatter the seemingly peaceful scene. I worried at my lower lip with my teeth as I tried to stand against the signals my body was sending me to leave and not look back.

Just as I was about to give in to my panic, her eyes snapped open, bathing me in their pale blue fire. "Is there something you need?" she asked, her voice calm and uninflected.

I stayed outside the boundaries of her cell, not sure where I stood with her. The feeling was uncomfortable for me as I had considered this place a haven of sorts. What could I say to make her understand? What words could I use to make everything better? There seemed to be none adequate enough. The two secrets I held within burned me like a brand.

"Well?"

I decided to wait and hear what I was going to say with my own ears. The dam broke. "I just wanted to tell you that I heard . . .about what happened with the warden. And that . . . ." I trailed off as Ice rose to her feet, her face a mask of rage.

"I’ll kill that bastard!"

"No! Ice, wait!" Moving to block the door, I held my hands up. "It wasn’t the warden. It was . . . it was Digger. She was in the office when he called you in. She overheard some of the conversation. She was worried and so she came to talk to me about it. Honestly!"

To her credit, and my utter relief, Ice didn’t try to come through me. Instead, she narrowed her eyes. "What did she say." It wasn’t a question.

Taking a deep breath, I replayed the conversation for her as best I could, trying not to put my own spin on things in case I was wrong. As I spoke, I could see the tension gather in the long lines of her body until she fairly radiated it as if from her pores. My heart picked up in response. When my voice finally trailed off to silence, she simply stared at me, though I knew it wasn’t me she was seeing. Her hands were fisted so tightly that I could see the white of her bone pressed against the tan of her flesh.

"Ice?" I asked tentatively.

She blinked once, slowly coming back from wherever she’d gone in her rage. Her shoulders slumped slightly. "You weren’t supposed to know," she half-whispered.

I smiled a little. "I’m glad I do."

"I’m not."

Chancing it, I took a half-step closer to her, reaching out and laying a hand on her muscle-knotted forearm. "I am. I think I have a right to know when I’m being used as a Sword of Damocles to hang over your head."

That got a small smile out of her. "Only one of many swords, Angel."

I grinned back. "Maybe, but I’m just egotistical enough to believe that I’m one of the bigger ones," I teased.

"The biggest." She tipped me a ghost of a wink as the tension began to release from her body, easily felt through my fingertips.

Becoming serious once again, I gripped her arm with more fervor. "Ice, I need you to know that I’ll willingly go to Hell’s Kitchen if it means you can continue your fight to get out of this the right way."

"Your right way, Angel. Not mine. And no. I will not let that happen. As I’ve told you before, I’ll deal with Morrison in my own way and in my own time. You just concentrate on getting yourself out of this slag heap the ‘right’ way, alright?"

"Ice . . . ."

She laid a finger over my lips. "No, Angel. No more. I asked you to stop and I meant it. This is my problem. Let me deal with it. Please." Removing her finger from my lips, she gently pried away from my tight grasp on her arm, then turned back toward her bed. "I just wish I knew how he learned about it."

I felt myself color. "Um . . .about that . . . ."

She turned back to face me ever so slowly. "Yes?"

My blushed deepened, me ears burning hot with embarrassment. "Well, it was just that I was so frustrated and Corinne was so persistent and . . . .:"

"Corinne?" Her face was becoming dangerous once again.

"It wasn’t her fault!" I interjected, raising my hand again. "It was mine. I take full responsibility here."

"Spit it out, Angel. What’s going on?"

Scratching the back of my neck, I sighed, giving in to the inevitable. "Well, I was tired of getting the run around from those bureaucrats at the Hall of Records. Everywhere I looked, every letter I sent, every call I made, it was always the same thing. Nothing. I finally got so frustrated that I okayed Corinne’s suggestion about her reporter friend . . . ."

"Her what?"

"Her reporter friend?"

Her fists clenched again. "Damn it, Angel!"

"I know, Ice. I know. It was stupid. And I shouldn’t have done it. But I was just about to tell her to call it off when you walked into the library today. It’s all taken care of now. I promise."

Shaking her head in amazement, she snorted out a breath of air. "What am I gonna do with you?"

I winced. "Forgive me?"

"Do I have to?"

"It would be nice. I promise I won’t do anything like this again without speaking to you first."

She smirked. "Don’t make promises you’re not sure you can keep, my little crusader. C’mere."

I gratefully walked into her open arms, grinning widely as she wrapped herself around me in a warm hug. "You’re lucky I love you, Angel," she said against my hair.

"Yeah," I sighed. "I sure am."

********

The winter rolled along and brought a flu epidemic with it. It raced through the Bog like a lightening-sparked wildfire, leaving almost no one standing in its wake. While all the hospitals in the area were full to overcrowding, the only place the inmates were allowed to be treated, the County hospital, had shut its doors tight to all but the most severely afflicted. And that didn’t include any of us.

In the space of days, the entire prison became an infirmary. The guards had also been hit hard and were operating at half staff. If there was any time to have a replay of the riot of last year, this would have been it. Fortunately for everyone involved, any potential troublemakers were too busy puking their guts up to plan or take part in such a venture.

The infirmary overflowed by day two of the epidemic and most of the prisoners were left to fend for themselves as best they could, some even spending hours in pools of their own body fluids when fever made them too weak to make their way to the commode. The guards put in repeated requests for help, but all were ignored by a warden who believed that sickness was God’s vengeful wrath upon sinners.

I was one of the lucky ones. I had myself a tall, dark and absolutely gorgeous nurse who attended to my every need. Granted, my needs at the time weren’t as stimulating as they might have been normally, but I’ve never been one to look a gift horse in the mouth, and having Ice treat me with such loving tenderness in my so called hour of need wasn’t going to make me start anytime soon.

Ice kept me clean, warm and dry when the drenching sweats of night-time fevers alternated with the bone wracking chills that came with the rising of the sun. She sat with me and held me when the spasms of coughing stole the breath from my lungs and the will from my body. Her strong fingers were gentle on my skin as she massaged the wrenching gut cramps that hit with unpredictable and vengeful force.

Even within the terrifying depths of my feverish delirium, I knew she was there and took strength and comfort from her solid presence. I felt surrounded by a blanket of love and caring; no more so than when the sound of her humming an old lullaby would soothe me into a dreamless sleep.

It was a week later when my fever finally broke, leaving me weak and shaky as a newborn. I awoke to find my head pillowed in Ice’s lap, her fingers brushing through my sweat-drenched hair in a hypnotic and pleasurable rhythm. My scalp tingled to her gentle touch.

I blinked my eyes open, wincing at the over-bright glare of the glowing lights. A second later, her hand left my hair and instead shaded my eyes. Her smile was crooked and sweet. "Hey, stranger. How ya feeling?"

"Like that heavy bag out in the yard must feel after going a few rounds with you," I managed to croak out through an aching throat and cracked lips.

"That good huh?"

I just groaned.

"Do you think you can sit up if I help you?"

"Do I have to?"

"You’re pretty dehydrated. You need to drink some water at least."

"I don’t think I could hold it down. My stomach feels like it’s been dragged behind a horse or something."

Ice shifted behind me, gently pulling me up so that my head rested against her chest. When she had me settled, she reached over and grabbed a styrofoam cup filled with water and held it to my lips. "C’mon. Just a sip."

Wincing, I took a small sip into my mouth. It was cool against my parched lips and soothing to my scorched throat and I swallowed it eagerly. My stomach stayed quiet, so I took another sip, and then another until I’d finished half the cup.

Pulling the cup away and resting it on the communal nightstand, Ice dried my lips with a soft cloth, then smoothed my hair from my forehead before wrapping me in an embrace and resting her chin on the crown of my head. "Is it staying down alright?"

"No trouble yet," I replied, reveling in the feeling of her arms around me. Looking around, I noticed that the bed next to mine, usually occupied by my new roommate of one month, was empty. "Where’s Edie?"

"She was a bad asthmatic. The flu hit her hard and they didn’t get her to treatment fast enough. She didn’t make it."

"What?" I stiffened in Ice’s embrace. "She’s dead?"

"I’m afraid so."

If I had any moisture in my body to spare, I would have cried. I hadn’t know Edie all that well, but she seemed like a nice, quiet, well-spoken woman who, like many of the rest of us, simply wanted to do her time in peace. Because she roomed with me, she was spared some of the almost ritualistic hazing that befell all new inmates, and for that I was happy. And now she was dead. A young woman taken down in the prime of her life by the flu of all things. I sighed, then thought of my other friends, particularly the elderly librarian. "How’s Corinne," I asked, inwardly dreading the answer.

Ice snorted against my hair. "That old battle axe? She’s fine. Down for two days and then right back up again. She’s got the constitution of an ox."

I laughed, weakly elbowing her in the side. "Sounds like someone else I know. Were you sick?"

I could feel her shrug against my back. "Nah. Couple days. No big deal." I came to find out later that she had been horribly sick for almost four days, yet came down to care for me each and every day, despite her illness.

My eyelids grew heavy as I snuggled into her, though, like a sleepy child on Christmas Eve, I struggled to stay awake.

"Sleep," she whispered, pulling me in close against her. "Your body needs to heal."

"I’ve slept too much already," I complained. "I wanna try and stay awake for a little while. Please?"

My head warmed as she chuckled against it. "I’m not your mother."

"Wish you were sometimes," I mumbled before succumbing to the demands of my body and falling into sleep once again.

*******

When I next awoke, I found myself propped on my side, facing Ice who was sitting on the other bed, reading quietly. I tried to sit up, but quickly gave that effort up as futile as my body decided to shout out its protests quite loudly. Ice looked up quickly and put her book down, coming to kneel beside my bed. "Good morning."

"Morning."

"Sleep well?"

"Well, it wasn’t bad. For a nap."

She laughed. "Awful long nap, Angel. You’ve been out since yesterday afternoon."

My eyes widened. "Yesterday afternoon?"

"Yup. Told you your body needed the rest."

"And you were right. Again," I grumped.

"How do you feel?"

I took stock of my body, realizing that Ice was, indeed, right. "A whole lot better than I did yesterday."

"Good. You look better too. Your cheeks have a little more color to them," she replied, gently stroking the bodyparts in question, to my immense pleasure. "You have the softest skin."

Of course, I blushed in response to that, which no doubt increased the color to my face; a fact which Ice noted with an amused smirk and one raised eyebrow. Which, of course, only caused me to blush that much harder.

"Thirsty?"

"Yeah. My tongue feels like sandpaper."

Raising up to sit on the bed, she gently lifted me up beside her and we repeated the same process as the day before. This time I managed to drink the whole cup without my stomach rebelling in the slightest. It seemed I was well on my way to recovery.

Ice nodded in satisfaction. "Later we’ll try some broth and tea, courtesy of Corinne."

"Alright." Much as I hated to admit it, I was worn out even by that weak attempt at sitting. But this time, I was determined to remain awake and enjoy Ice’s tender companionship. "How about telling me a story?"

Her voice was doubtful. "I don’t know any stories, Angel. At least not any nice ones."

Sick I might have been, but not too muddled not to recognize a perfect opportunity when it was resting in my lap, as it were. "Then tell me a not nice one. Maybe about some of the times when you were out on your own?"

She stiffened against me. "Those aren’t nice at all, Angel."

"I know, Ice. But I’d like to know more about you. And how can I if you won’t share them with me?"

"Some things are better left up to the imagination."

I kept quiet, acknowledging her position, determined not to push against her inflexible barriers this time. My headstrong nature had caused enough problems between us already.

"This really means something to you, huh?"

"Yes. It really does. But not enough to make you upset, Ice. Never enough for that."

When she started speaking again, her voice was so soft I thought I was hallucinating it at first. "When my parents died, the only one left to care for me was my grandmother. I was twelve at the time and she just didn’t have the energy needed to raise a young girl. She was pretty frail. I overheard some of the lawyers talking to my grandmother during the funeral. They were going to make me a ward of the state and put me in an orphanage."

"Oh, Ice . . . ."

"Yeah. I might not have known much at that age, but I did know that I wasn’t about to let myself get stuffed into a home."

"What did you do?"

"I ran. I waited until everyone was caught up in other things and I took off. The funeral home wasn’t too far from my house, and my parents had given me a key when I was five, so I bolted for home. I went inside, grabbed some clothes, stuffed ‘em in a backpack, took my mother’s ‘fun’ money from her hiding place, grabbed Boomer, and left."

"Where did you go?" I shifted a little to get more comfortable against her chest. My arms, neck and shoulders were aching from residual fever and days of enforced inactivity.

I felt a moment of weightlessness as I was borne up easily in Ice’s arms, then settled down to sit between her legs, my back once again against her chest. The sheet was tucked around my breasts and warm hands lowered themselves onto my shoulders, beginning a truly wonderful massage.

My muscles turned to liquid beneath her skilled touches, the pain fading like a distant memory. My head lolled back to rest against her shoulder as her hands continued to probe, soothe and caress in an orgy of sensation. It was bliss.

"Oh God," I groaned as the massage softened and turned sensual. "Where did you learn to do that?"

"Assassins need to keep loose. We can’t afford muscle cramps. It screws up our aim."

"Oh."

"Yeah. ‘Oh’."

"I guess there really are some questions that I don’t wanna know the answers to, huh?"

"Most likely."

I allowed my eyelids to drift closed so as to better appreciate her welcome touch. There was nothing overtly sexual about her movements, but I felt energized just the same, her hands waking dormant parts of my body in pleasing tingles. "You’re not trying to divert my attention from the subject at hand, are you?" I mumbled.

"Would I do that?" Her voice was innocence personified.

"Mmmm hmmmm."

She laughed. "Well, actually, I was just enjoying touching you. But if you want me to stop. . . ."

"Oh no. You can keep doing that till your hands fall off. You won’t hear me complaining."

As her hands moved beneath the sheet to continue their dance across my skin, she cleared her throat and picked up her tale once again. "To answer your question, I headed west. There was a decent stand of woods at the back of the house that I knew from previous experience led to the highway. It hadn’t really sunk in that my parents were gone yet. I tried to tell myself this was just an adventure and that worked for awhile."

"Kids are really good at pretending."

"Yeah. I was pretty lucky in that way. My parents encouraged my fantasy life." She shrugged. "I think it was an art thing."

I hid my smile. "Must have been."

"Anyway . . . ." The timbre of her voice let me know that my ruse had been discovered. "I made it out to the highway pretty quick. After that, it was just a matter of waiting for the right ride to come along."

"You hitchhiked?"

"Well, I didn’t exactly walk from Baltimore to Pittsburgh, Angel."

"Don’t you realize how dangerous that was?"

"Of course I realized it, Angel. I was young. Not an idiot. But what choice did I have? My parents were dead and I wasn’t about to sit around and wait to be shoved in some home somewhere against my will. I saw the opportunity to get out and I took it. I didn’t really have much time to think about anything else, even if I had been thinking clearly, which I wasn’t."

Hearing the defensiveness in her tone, I reached down and clasped both of Ice’s hands in my own, briefly stopping their delicious motion. "I’m sorry, Ice. That was incredibly pretentious of me to say."

She sighed. "It’s alright. It was a stupid thing to do. But I knew enough not to accept rides from certain people. Boomer was a pretty good judge of character as well." I could hear the smile in her voice. "I got pretty lucky. It was near the end of summer and a lot of kids were going back to college. I managed to hook three rides, the last one all the way to Pittsburgh. I had intended to go further west, but for some reason, just wound up staying here. I guess when you’re a kid, even a few hundred miles seems like a world away."

"What did you do then?"

"Well, my options were kinda limited. I had about five hundred dollars of my mother’s money and that could last a long time, especially considering I didn’t need to pay for a roof over my head. Not too many people would rent to a twelve year-old, you know?"

"But where did you live?"

"Here and there. Pretty much any place that would keep the rain off would do. Abandoned buildings, highway underpasses. Places like that."

"Weren’t there shelters?"

"Sure. But that would have been, to my mind anyway, just like being in the orphanage. I didn’t want to be hemmed in. So I stayed away. I was able to live almost six months on the money I’d taken. It probably would have lasted longer, but I didn’t know anything about living on my own. When you’re twelve, five hundred dollars seems like a gold mine. You don’t think it’s ever gonna run out."

I nodded in agreement. On the rare instances I received cards with money in them, I felt wealthy beyond the dreams of kings. And invariably I’d wind up blowing the whole thing in an orgy of gumballs and cheap paperbacks.

"When the money ran out, there weren’t a whole lot of options for me. I could have joined a gang, but I’ve never been much of a follower. Plus, girls weren’t treated any better than non-paid whores, so that was out for me. I tried shoplifting food and stuff, but it isn’t easy to be inconspicuous when you’ve got a hundred and fifty pound attack dog at your side."

Her hands, which had resumed their lazy caress of my body, abruptly stilled and I felt a small shiver of dread flow down my spine. Suddenly, I was sure I didn’t want to hear her next words. Suddenly, I wanted to be anyplace but where I was.

I battled down my fear. After all, this is what I had asked for, right? Right. Whatever I was going to hear would give me insight into the woman with whom I’d fallen in love, and no matter what it was, that was something I wanted more than anything.

Behind me, Ice took several deep breaths. I could feel the strong beat of her racing heart against my back and knew that whatever this secret was, it frightened her worse to say it than it frightened me to hear it.

Minutes ticked by before she softly cleared her throat. "Anyway," she said in a horse voice, "word on the street was that there was this guy who’d pay decent money to take . . .pictures of kids. Boys, girls, it didn’t matter." She cleared her throat again. "As long as they were young. The younger, the better, in fact."

I couldn’t suppress the shiver of revulsion that ran through me at her words. "A pedophile." More things made sense to me now. Like why Cavallo would set Ice up using the lie of pedophilia, something obviously guaranteed to get her fire up.

"Yeah. Into selling child pornography. By that time, I’d started going through my growth spurt and looked older than I was, but I needed the money and figured what the hell. It seemed as good an option as any. After all, what harm could a few pictures do?"

"Jesus, Ice . . . ."

"Yeah, well, I didn’t think about those things then. I just needed money and it seemed an easy way to get it. So I got directions over to his place and took Boomer with me. Figured with Boomer there, he couldn’t make me do anything I didn’t want to do."

She pulled her hands from under the sheet and I sensed she was going to try and distance herself from me during the rest of this tale. I grabbed her wrists as I’d done before, demanding contact with my body to let her know that it was safe to tell me her story. "Please, Ice, go on. I need to hear this and I think you need to tell it. It’s been festering inside you too long."

Relaxing slightly, she allowed me to pull her arms back around my body and laid her cheek against my hair. "He was an older man, maybe mid or late fifties. Longish greasy gray hair and always a day’s growth of beard. He lived in a really seedy apartment in a run-down building on the outskirts of the city. I tell you, if there were a quintessential pedophile, this guy would probably rate a picture in the dictionary."

When I didn’t laugh, she sighed. "Yeah, I know. It isn’t very funny."

"Not by a long shot."

"Are you sure you wanna hear this? It’s not something about me you really need to know."

"Ice, I want to hear it. I think it’s very important that I do. Please."

"Alright. Anyway, the guy didn’t seem to have enough money to buy decent furniture or even a mop or vacuum cleaner, but he had this extremely expensive studio in one of the bedrooms. The photographic equipment alone must have set him back big time, let alone the lighting and other stuff. I went up to the door and knocked and when he opened it, I thought Boomer was gonna take his head off. The guy almost peed his pants, though by the look of them, I doubt anyone would have noticed. He asked me what I wanted and I told him. He said that the dog had to say outside. To which I replied, of course, no dog, no pictures. He thought about it a minute, then let us both in. The apartment was dark and smelled like a gas station bathroom."

"I bet you were pretty scared, huh?"

"Scared isn’t the word. I was terrified. But I just kept telling myself that both Boomer and I needed the money. It got me into the studio. He didn’t talk much. Just told me he’d give me twenty five dollars if I’d get undressed and sit on the bed so he could take pictures of me."

"Twenty five dollars?" I gasped.

"Yeah. Doesn’t sound like much, does it. But it was a huge deal for me, considering I had about quarter to my name by that time."

"So you did it."

"Yeah. I had Boomer sit in the corner and I stripped down to nothing. He just kinda stared at me for awhile, then told me to sit down. He shot a few pictures. Then he began to put me in some pretty suggestive poses. I just kept reminding myself how much I needed the money."

I could feel the sting of tears as they leapt into my eyes. Ice rubbed her hands briskly up and down my arms, comforting us both.

"After he was done," and here she took another deep breath, "he offered me another twenty five to have sex with me. I took him up on it. Fifty dollars could keep me alive for a week, if I played my cards right. My virginity didn’t seem that high a price to pay, given what I’d already been through."

That did it. The sob broke out before I could even attempt to stop it. Ice immediately wrapped me in her strong arms, kissing the crown of my head and rocking me. "Don’t cry, Angel. Please don’t cry. It happened a long time ago."

It incongruity of it all hit me hard. That a young woman who’d given up her innocence for the price of a few meals would be holding and comforting me, a woman who’d never had to worry about food or shelter, made my tears of sorrow turn to tears of shame.

I tried to pull away, but she only held me closer, stroking my tangled hair in an almost desperate way as she continued to beg me not to cry.

My shame and sorrow quickly turned to burning anger. I raged at the man, and so many others like him, who had preyed on the innocence of my friend and untold hundreds, if not thousands, of other young children just like her, forced by tragedy to trade something so overwhelmingly important for a pittance.

I longed to lash out at the image in my mind. The image of Ice as she was in that photograph; young, pure, beautiful being posed and fondled and invaded by a slathering, unnatural beast masquerading in the guise of a man. My body followed through on what my mind so desperately wanted and before I knew it, my tightly clenched fists impacted sharply on warm skin.

My eyes flew open in stunned disbelief. Ice stared down at me, shock naked on her beautiful features. She released me quickly as if my body burned and stood up from my bed, the stoic mask quickly settling over her face.

"Oh God," I moaned.

"It’s alright, Angel," she said in a totally calm tone of voice. "It isn’t something I haven’t imagined doing to myself a dozen times over since it happened." Her eyes were hooded. "I was right to have wanted that story kept where it belonged. I’m sorry you had to hear it."

"No, Ice! God no. Please, listen to me. It wasn’t you I was lashing out at. It was him! That monster that took your innocence away from you."

"Angel, my innocence left the minute I found out my parents had been killed. He didn’t take anything that I didn’t give freely."

I sat up straight on the bed, bringing the sheet up with me. "Freely?!? As freely as a bear gives up its life when it walks into a hunter’s trap?"

"A bear doesn’t know it’s walking into a trap, Angel. I knew what I was doing."

"Ice, bears and all kinds of other animals are lured into traps all the time. Just like young children are lured into cars by the offer of candy or some other treat. You weren’t any different. You went because he offered you something you needed. Money to stay alive."

Though she didn’t say anything, I knew my words were penetrating that thick shield of guilt that she wore, twisted around herself, like a shroud. Her body relaxed slowly and I thought I detected just the faintest glint of gratitude in her eyes. I held my arms out and, to my great surprise, she came into them, allowing my embrace.

I moved back on the bed, gently guiding her down with me and, for the first time since we’d met, she allowed me to hold and comfort her. I molded her against me, stroking her hair and murmuring nonsensical phrases, feeling oddly maternal, as if I were soothing the young girl Ice had once been. And, in a way, that’s exactly what I was doing.

She didn’t cry. I think all of her tears had been used up long ago. But I knew that there was some deeply hidden part of her that was taking comfort in my love just the same, and that knowledge filled me with an elemental joy. After all, I had asked for this. Strove for it for two years now. To know the woman behind the mask. And here she was, snuggled tight against me, her head on my chest, showing a naked vulnerability that I had never thought to see. It was a gift of such immense proportion that mere words will never do it justice.

When she began speaking again, I was surprised, but held her close and listened to her cathartic words, knowing that I was most likely the first person ever to hear them spoken aloud.

"When it was over," she began, her voice soft and faintly muffled as she spoke against my chest, "he gave me the money he promised and told me I was welcome to come back anytime. He also said that, if I wanted, he could give me the names of other people who would be able to ‘give me a hand’ in the same way he did." She sighed. "I didn’t much care at that point. I had my money and the only thing on my mind was finding a place with a hot shower and plenty of soap. I was sore and dirty and just wanted to get as far away from him as I could."

Taking a deep breath, she pulled away from my embrace, sitting back to lean against the wall of my cell, though she kept us connected by laying a hand on my thigh. "The money ran out pretty quickly and I found myself going back to him. Pretty soon, I was going to his friends as well. Some paid better, some not as well. Some wanted sex, some didn’t. It didn’t seem to matter much anymore."

She ran a steady hand through her midnight hair. "It went on for three years, almost. By that time, I’d gotten too mature to be of much use to the pedophiles anymore, but there was this man in Chicago who had apparently purchased some pictures of me and wanted to see me very badly. He was offering five hundred dollars and free airfare if I would come and pose for him. I did some asking around and found out that this guy was pretty reputable in certain artistic circles. I saw it as a one-in-a-million chance, and took it. The only problem is that I needed to leave Boomer behind."

"What did you do?"

"I’d developed, I suppose you could call it an acquaintance, with one of the corner store owners in the city and Boomer seemed to like him well enough. He promised me that he’d keep Boomer in the store to act as a guard dog until I came back, no charge. Seemed like a fair deal to me."

As her voice trailed off, a premonition stole through me, humping my skin into gooseflesh. "Ice . . . ."

"Yes?"

"Corinne told me that you . . .well, you went crazy after your best friend was killed. She was talking about Boomer, wasn’t she."

The tears I thought used up sprang into her eyes then, magnifying their luminescence. "Yes," she whispered in a choked voice. "It was Boomer. There’d been a break-in at the store where he was staying; local street thugs looking for drug money from the till. Somehow, they overpowered Boomer and took him out. When I got back, I heard that they tortured him to death over three or four days, then threw what was left of his body in front of the store as a warning."

She blinked once, freeing the tears from her eyes. They rolled down her cheeks silently as her gaze became lit with the fire of rage. "I knew who did it. They weren’t shy in their boasting." When she grinned, it was like a shark displaying a mouthful of deadly teeth to a baby seal. "I stalked them for a month. I learned every little detail of their day-to-day lives. When one of them even so much as took a piss against a brick wall, I knew about it. I was patient. Very patient."

Her fingers mindlessly plucked at the sheet trapped around my body. She didn’t even seem to be aware that I was still in the room, and I made myself as still and quiet as possible. I didn’t want that rage turned on me. "My patience paid off. I found out they were having a little get together of the whole gang in honor of the leader’s birthday. It was gonna be in an abandoned warehouse on the outskirts of the city and everyone would be there." She laughed. "They just didn’t plan on having an uninvited guest."

Her hand convulsed suddenly, trapping a corner of the sheet against her tightly clenched fingers. Her face was a grinning death’s head mask. "I killed them all. Slowly. I wanted them to hurt just like the defenseless animal they had tortured to death. I wanted them to feel pain. Exquisite pain. I wanted to see the fear in their eyes and smell it coming out of their pores. I thrived off of their screams. I laughed when they begged for mercy. They were less than nothing in my eyes and that’s what I made them. Stains on the floor."

When Ice started her tale of her killing spree, I felt my still-weak stomach knot up. By the time she had finished, I found myself hung over the bed, expelling water and bile into the basin she’d left there, my guts heaving and threatening to turn themselves inside out.

Ice’s warm hands came down gently on my back, rubbing in circles as the last of the dry heaves left my system weak and reeling. When I was sure I was done, she handed me a rag and I wiped my mouth, then sat up slowly. "Sorry about that," I croaked around a raw and aching throat. "That hit me unexpectedly."

She nodded, cupping my cheek. "I told you it was a pretty ugly story."

"Yes, you did. But I needed to hear it as much as, I think, you needed to tell it."

Ice snorted. "I never need to tell that particular story, Angel. Believe me when I tell you that getting it out in the open hasn’t made me feel any better about what I did. The courts were right. I did murder them. Intentionally. Calculatingly. In cold blood. I may have regretted it afterwards, but regret doesn’t erase my actions."

"Do you?"

"Do I what?"

"Regret what you did?"

As she looked at me, her eyes were very serious. "Yes, Angel. I regret it very deeply. Though part of me revels in what I did to those kids, a bigger part feels very guilty. But regretting my actions won’t bring them back any more than it will bring Boomer back. And regretting my actions won’t stop me from doing it again. If you need proof, just look at what I almost did to Psycho when she killed Josephina. I’ll never be able to control that part of myself. I’m not even sure that I want to." Smiling sadly, she tilted my chin up. "I am who I am, Angel. All the regret in the world won’t change that."

Placing my hands over her larger ones, I gently drew them away from my face, kissing each before clenching them in my own. I looked deeply into her eyes and began to speak. "Ice, I know you believe that. That you’re nothing but a murderer. But you’re not, you know. You are so very much more than that."

Chafing her hands gently with my thumbs, I smiled. "You might think that what happened with Psycho proves your point, but it really proves mine quite nicely."

Ice tilted her head. "How do you figure that?"

"You could have killed her. I know you were ready to. But you didn’t."

"I would have, if you hadn’t been there."

"Maybe. But that’s not the point. The point is, you didn’t."

"Because you stopped me, Angel!"

"Exactly how did I stop you, Ice? Did I physically overpower you? Did I pull you off of her and fling you across the jail?"

"No."

"Right. I simply talked to you. I reminded you of things you already knew. I only appealed to the goodness already in you, Ice. Nothing more than that."

She opened her mouth, then closed it again. I could tell by the expression on her face that she very much wanted to argue the point. "But . . . ." Her voice trailed off.

I smiled more broadly, doing my own impression of a shark moving in for the kill. "No ‘buts’, Ice. You’re a good woman underneath all that bluff and bravado. You know it. I know it. There are things that you’ve done which are horrible, some might even say evil. But you’ve also done some wonderful things. Things that even people who are supposedly ‘good’ all the time would never think or try to do. Yes, there’s a side of you that’s fueled by an intense rage. And there’s another side of you that’s capable of great things. What you have to do is choose which side rules your actions."

"It’s . . .not that easy, Angel."

"No, it isn’t. And maybe that’s part of the reason why I’m here. Why we’ve become such good friends. Because I can see that part of you that maybe not many others know is there. And maybe I can help you bring it out more often in situations where rage is the only thing you know to turn to."

Ice shook her head. "Those are noble sentiments, Angel, but . . . ."

Releasing one of her hands, I placed my own hand on her chest, palm down over her strongly beating heart. "This . . .is a good heart, Ice. It’s an honorable heart that’s been beaten and bloodied. Let it heal. Let the rage and the guilt of the past go. You’re right when you say that those emotions won’t bring anyone back. Don’t let them kill you too. You’ve been dying inside for too long already."

"I don’t . . . ."

"Ice, let me help. Let me try to make you see the person I see every time I look at you."

With a sad smile, Ice gripped my hand as she stepped away, lifting it up and brushing her lips against my knuckles. "I don’t think that’s possible, Angel. But thanks. It means a lot that you would want to do that for me."

Leaning in toward her, I placed my hands lightly on her hips. "Let me try, Ice. At least give me that. Please?"

I found myself falling into her eyes once again. "Alright," she said after a moment, her voice deep and warm. Leaning over, she sealed her words with a gentle kiss. Then, grinning, she stood, gripping my legs and swinging them fully onto the bed. "And that, my dear, concludes story hour. Off to bed with ya. I’ll have some tea and broth ready for when you wake up."

She untwisted and smoothed out the sheet, then tucked it up under my chin. Brushing the hair from my eyes, she placed a kiss on my forehead, then straightened up, tipping me a wink. "Sleep. Now."

"Yes, Ma’am!" I grinned.

"You’re learning." Smirking, she turned to leave.

"Ice?"

"Yeah?"

"Thanks."

With another wink and a casual wave, she left my cell. I fell asleep almost immediately, a smile on my face.