“She attacked me,” Duke said, rolling on the floor, swearing, his face covered in cleaning powder. “Betsy attacked me.” He struggled to get up, still holding his balls, no one helping him. “That woman is a psych patient. She shouldn’t even be here. She’s a danger.” He tried to roll over, to stand up, but he forgot his pants and underwear were around his ankles. He tripped and fell, straight down, naked butt up.

No one helped him up. He swore again, rolled over, then bent to pull up his pants over his rapidly swelling groin, hardly able to see because of the cleaning powder in his eyes. “I need water for my eyes! Water! Water!” He stumbled out. “Get me water!”

“I didn’t attack him,” Betsy said, scared now, defeated, because she knew she would be in isolation by that night, probably for months. She wrapped her arms around her skinny waist and stared at all the guards, begging Coralee with her eyes to believe her.

“Duke made Carson leave so he could take me to my cell. He shoved Carson, and Carson hit the floor. Go talk to Carson. Duke knows there’s a blind corner here that the cameras don’t reach. He pulled me in and shoved me against the shelf.” Betsy didn’t know it, but her eye was black and swelling rapidly. She also had a swelling cut across her cheek that was bleeding down her neck. She was pale.

“I defended myself because he was going to rape me. That’s why his pants were down around his ankles.”

“I believe you, Betsy,” Coralee said gently. She’d seen it all in the few years she’d been here. She couldn’t wait to get out and go to law school. She’d seen sick, dangerous inmates, and she’d seen sick, dangerous guards. “This will never happen to you again. I’m sorry.”

Betsy bent her head, leaned against the shelves, and passed out, her head a mass of pain. Coralee and two other guards caught her and brought her to the infirmary, where for once she had a kind nurse and a kind doctor. They let her stay two extra days to rest.

She was not sent to isolation.

* * *

Duke was fired from the jail by his uncle. Duke about lost his mind, he was so mad. He shoved everything off of his uncle’s desk before he left. He would immediately tell his mother and she would give his uncle a piece of her mind! Wouldn’t she?