They don’t have a choice, Caxton thought. They were murderers and gangbangers and women who were a danger to themselves. Three of them were on death row. She couldn’t trust them. She might have all the weapons, but they could easily mob her and overpower her and take away even that advantage.
It was just like Harelip had said. You had to contain the situation. You couldn’t leave your back unguarded for a second. And yet Gert had a point. Who was Caxton to deny these women a chance to defend themselves? Maybe they could even help her. If they would just pipe down, that would help a lot. It would let her think—
A booming, echoing thud came from the main door of the SHU, and suddenly there was silence. The shouting stopped, though the women stayed glued to the windows, every eye looking toward the door.
The thump came again. Then a high, cackling voice said, “Keep it down in there, ladies! We’re trying to sleep!”
The prisoners started in again with the noise instantly, but this time it was different. Before it had been howls of outrage and anger. Now they were screaming in fear.
19.
Take off your jacket,” the warden said, pointing a pistol at
Clara’s stomach. Clara didn’t protest. She removed her jacket and folded it over the back of a wooden chair. The warden gestured and Franklin came forward to fit a nylon cuff around Clara’s biceps. A strap held it in place around her arm. He pulled the strap tight enough to hurt, but Clara refused to give him the satisfaction of crying out. The cinch on the strap locked with a special key that he tossed over to the warden. She caught it with her free hand. Clara studied the cuff and saw that it had a small black box attached to it. Metal prongs from the box poked through her shirt sleeve and felt cold on her skin.
“This is the latest thing in compliance measures,” the warden told her. “We’re still trying it out. There were, admittedly, some side effects we didn’t like.” She stepped closer and brought her gun around in a wide sweep that missed smashing it into Clara’s nose by a fraction of an inch. Reflexively Clara threw her arm up to ward off the blow.
The pouch at her back gave off a deafening shriek. Clara howled in pain.
“There’s a motion sensor built into the cuff. If you try to make any sudden movements—say, if you try to run away, or if you attack someone, or just try to take the thing off—it’ll give you that warning tone. That lasts for one second. If you don’t immediately stop moving, it’ll hit you with a pulse of enough electricity to disable every muscle in your body.”
Clara frowned. “What are the side effects?”
The warden shrugged. “For one, when it goes off, you shit your pants. We’re not going to let that happen, though, are we? You’re going to be nice and quiet and obey the cuff. You can walk, slowly, but I wouldn’t try scratching your nose too vigorously. With this thing we can keep you close and not have to worry about watching you every single second.” The warden smiled. “It’s better than being hog-tied and gagged and thrown in a locked room, right?”
Clara wanted to spit in the woman’s face. “Why are you doing this?” she demanded.
The warden surprised her by giving her a straight answer. “I have colon cancer.”
Clara sputtered in surprise. “I’m—I’m so sorry.”
The warden ignored her sympathy. “I let it go too long before I got checked out, and now the doctors say it’s inoperable. There are all kinds of treatments they can try, but none of them are an actual cure. I’ve got this evil little blob inside of me that gets bigger every day and eventually it’s going to kill me. Maybe ten years from now. Maybe tomorrow.” She shrugged. “I don’t want to die. That’s not so hard to understand, is it? So when Malvern started contacting various staff members here at the prison, looking for someone she could manipulate, I shot up to number one on her list. Luckily for me.”