I gripped Reese’s hand harder. “Will you please tell me,” I said in a soft, calm voice, even though inside I was a complete mess.
He met his girlfriend’s gaze and nodded. “Okay.” But he kept eye contact with Reese as he spoke, as if he needed her moral support to get him through. “It started like she described. Three other inmates jumped him. He was by himself in what looked like some huge, industrial laundry room, pushing one of those cloth laundry cart things. It was obvious the guy in the middle was the ringleader. Jeremy and the other one were just followers, doing his bidding.”
I nodded when he paused to collect his breath. He glanced at me once then returned his attention to Reese. “The leader guy…he was the one who’d attacked Knox before. He told Knox it’d been too long since he’d had a piece of his...”
“Sweet ass,” Reese provided helpfully. “It’d been too long since he’d had a piece of Knox’s sweet ass.”
“Thank you,” Mason murmured at her, his lips twitching in amusement. But then he checked on me, and his grin died flat. “Anyway, Knox told him they’d have to kill him if he ever let that asshole touch him again. So the asshole said he accepted his offer, and just like that, the other two jumped him. Knox was able to shove his laundry cart in one guy’s path, but Jeremy...he had this knife—”
“Shiv,” Reese offered helpfully.
“Right.” Mason nodded. “So Jeremy swung his shiv at Knox and caught him right here, in the ribcage.” When he cradled his own side, I sucked in a breath, cradling mine as well and remembering how I’d seen that scar on Knox.
Reese wrapped her arm around my shoulders, and I leaned into her, needing all the support I could get.
“Knox was fighting him off barehanded, until the other guy caught him from behind and stuck him in the thigh with his own shiv.”
I covered my mouth with both hands, and Reese began to rock me back and forth.
“After they pulled the blade out, they kicked him right where they’d stabbed him, until he went down on one knee. He kept swinging at them, though. But they caught him by the hair and dragged him across the floor until they had him sprawled on his stomach.”
“He still had hair then?” No idea why I focused on that. I guess it was just safer than thinking about the worst of what I was hearing.
Mason nodded. “It was quite a bit longer. I don’t blame him for shaving it off after that. I would’ve too.” With a shudder, he kept talking. “While two of them struggled to hold him down, punching on his arms and head and the bloody gash on his leg, the third guy—the leader—ripped down his pants.”
“And then he...he...he just raped him,” Reese said. “I mean, just like that. Not that I expected foreplay or anything, but one second Knox was struggling on the floor with that monster kneeling behind him, and we were cheering for him, almost expecting him to break free, fight back, and kick all their asses. Then the next second, that asshole yanked down the back of Knox’s pants, pulled himself from his own, spit in his palm to lube himself, and just...rammed it in.”
I flinched and slapped my knees together as I wrapped my arms around myself.
“Sorry.” Reese winced and rubbed my arms. “But that’s where I stopped watching.”
“The other two just keep beating the shit out of him,” Mason murmured. “When Knox started to scream for help, the one—not Jeremy—kicked him in the throat. Man...” He closed his eyes and touched his own neck. “I thought it crushed his windpipe, because he started struggling less and choking more. For a minute, I thought he died, while that asshole leader just kept...going to town.”