Chapter 3: Chapter 3
The bathroom air was thick with ammonia and unsaid things. Bode stood rigid under his mother’s hands, her touch a brand that seared through three years of numbing isolation. He could feel the fine tremor in her fingertips.
“Eleanor,” Vince repeated from the doorway, his voice like gravel under pressure. “Enough. This isn’t the place.”
She ignored him, her eyes locked on Bode’s. “Why didn’t you call?” The question wasn’t an accusation; it was a plea for any reason, any story she could hold onto. “I called every jail in three states. I wrote letters that came back stamped ‘Return to Sender.’ Your father said to let you go, that you’d made your choice, but I never stopped. I had to know if you were even alive.”
Each word was a stitch pulled from a deep, festering wound. Bode’s throat worked. He’d told himself it was mercy, this radio silence. Spare them the shame of collect calls from a prison block, the hollow small talk over a recorded line. He saw now it was just cowardice. A final, selfish act of running.
“I’m here,” was all he could grind out. Pathetic.
Vince moved then, crossing the small space in two strides. He didn’t pull Eleanor away roughly, but his hand on her shoulder was firm, an anchor. “He’s here because the state put him here. In a uniform that means something. And you being in here jeopardizes that.” He finally looked at Bode, his gaze flat and hard. “Your mother shouldn’t have to see you like this.”
That cut deeper than any direct insult. Like this. On his knees in a public restroom, smelling of bleach and piss. The golden boy turned janitor.
Eleanor allowed Vince to guide her back a step, but her eyes never left Bode’s face. “Are you eating? You’re so thin.”
“I’m fine, Mom.”
“Where are you sleeping? Is it safe?”
“It’s a camp. It’s fine.”
“Stop,” Vince said, the word cracking like a whip. He was looking at Bode, but the command was for both of them. “This isn’t a family reunion. It’s an interruption of a corrections program. One more minute and I have to report it.” He turned his wife gently toward the door. “Go wait in the car. Please.”
There was a lifetime of obedience and fractured love in the way she finally nodded, casting one last, devastated look over her shoulder before vanishing into the bright apparatus bay.
The door sighed shut, leaving Bode alone with his father. The quiet was worse.
Vince didn’t leave. He stood there, a monument to disciplined anger, his hands clenching and unclenching at his sides. “You see what you do?” he said, his voice low and ravaged. “You vanish. You leave a hole. And then you drop back in, and instead of filling it, you just tear the edges wider. She’s been hanging by a thread since Riley. Now she’s seen you in a convict’s uniform, cleaning a toilet. What was that supposed to do? Make her feel better?”
“I didn’t ask her to come,” Bode shot back, the old defiance sparking.
“You didn’t have to! You just have to exist, and she feels it. Like a phantom pain.” Vince ran a hand over his face, the deep grooves around his mouth seeming to darken. “I can’t protect her from this. From you. My own son. A thief.”
The word hung in the chemical air. Thief. It was true, technically. But it was also the smallest, palest part of his crime. The accusation felt like being accused of littering after committing murder.
Bode said nothing. What was there to say? You’re right. I’m worse than you know.
Vince took his silence as surrender. He looked suddenly, profoundly tired. “Finish up here. Then report to Lopez. He’s inventorying hose couplings in the storage loft. Keep your head down. And do not make me regret for one second that I didn’t fight to have you assigned to another county.”
He left, the door closing with a soft, definitive click.
Bode stood in the silent bathroom for a full minute, listening to the blood roar in his ears. He picked up the brush from the murky water, his knuckles white. He scrubbed the porcelain until it gleamed, the abrasive rhythm the only thing holding his thoughts at bay.
The storage loft was a dusty cathedral of forgotten gear and spare parts, hot and still under the corrugated metal roof. Sunlight slanted in through high, dirty windows, illuminating swirling motes of dust. Lopez was there, as promised, a clipboard in hand, methodically counting boxes of brass couplings.
“Donovan. Over there.” Lopez pointed with his pen to a towering stack of rolled hose on heavy wooden pallets. “Need to verify the lengths and condition. Unroll, inspect, re-roll. Tags are on the ends.”
It was mindless, physical work. Exactly what Bode needed. He lost himself in the heft of the hose, the rhythmic pull and fold, the tactile check for dry rot or cuts. The dust coated his throat. Sweat plastered his t-shirt to his back within ten minutes.
He was halfway through the second massive roll when the loft door creaked open again. He expected Lopez with another task.
It wasn’t Lopez.
Carver leaned against the doorframe, picking at his teeth with a sliver of wood. He looked around the cluttered space with a mock-impressed whistle. “Cozy. Private.”
Bode’s muscles coiled. He let the hose in his hands go slack. The loft, at the far end of the station, was isolated. The steady background noise of the engine bay was a distant hum.
“What do you want, Carver?”
“Just checking in. Making sure you’re adjusting.” Carver pushed off the door and ambled closer, his boots scuffing the dusty concrete. He stopped by a rack of old, discarded turnouts, running a finger along a cracked rubber coat. “Firehouse life. It’s something, ain’t it? All this shiny gear. All this trust.” He said the word like it was a joke. “They give you an axe yet?”
Bode kept his body loose, ready. “Inventory duty.”
“Right. Of course.” Carver smiled. “Gotta prove you can handle the tools. Might be a while before they let you carry a Halligan. Or ride the rig.” He took another step, now within arm’s reach. The scent of stale sweat and something sour, like old nicotine, came off him. “See, that’s my problem. I’ve already proven myself. Did my extra time. Played nice. And I’m still on garbage detail. Cleaning gutters for old ladies. While you, the fire captain’s kid, gets to play house in his daddy’s station.” His pale eyes glittered. “Seems unfair. Don’t you think?”
“I don’t think anything about it.”
“No. You just keep your head down. Do your time.” Carver’s voice dropped, conversational, deadly. “Like I said in the mess. Dangerous business, firefighting. Lot of ways to get hurt. Even on inventory.” He glanced at the towering pallets of hose, each one weighing several hundred pounds. “Something could shift. Snap a leg like a twig. No one would blame a faulty stack. Just a tragic accident for a poor, rehabilitated convict.”
The threat was explicit now, wrapped in the mundane. Bode felt a cold clarity wash over him. This wasn’t posturing. Carver was a planner. He’d done two years in the hole thinking about this.
“You touch me, and you go back for life,” Bode said, his own voice low and steady. “You’re on your last chance. You really wanna burn it on me?”
Carver’s smile didn’t waver. “Who said I’d touch you? Like I said. Accidents happen.” He looked Bode up and down, then chuckled, a dry, rustling sound. “Have a productive day, Donovan.”
He turned and sauntered out, leaving the door open behind him.
Bode stood motionless, the dust settling around him. His heart was a frantic drum against his ribs. He looked at the unstable-looking pallet next to him. It wouldn’t take much. A strategic kick when his back was turned. An “accident.”
He finished inspecting the hose, his senses on high alert, every noise from the bay below making him flinch. The work took twice as long. When Lopez finally called up that his transport was waiting, Bode’s shirt was soaked through with sweat that had nothing to do with the heat.
The bus ride back to camp was a blur of green and shadow. Bode replayed Carver’s words, his eyes, the casual way he’d laid out a potential death as a workplace hazard. You walk soft.
As he stepped off the bus into the camp clearing, a corrections officer waved him over. “Donovan. Phone call. Administrative building. Two minutes.”
His mind raced. His lawyer? Something had gone wrong with the transfer request already?
He was led to a small, windowless room with a bare desk and a black rotary phone. The officer pointed to it. “Pick up. Line’s live.” He stepped outside, leaving the door ajar.
Bode picked up the heavy receiver. “Hello?”
There was a long pause, filled with static and the sound of someone’s shaky breath. “Bode?”
It wasn’t his lawyer. It was Jake.
The sound of his voice, after the day he’d had, was like a sucker punch to the gut. Bode’s free hand gripped the edge of the desk.
“What do you want?” he said, the words stripped of everything.
“I…” Jake sounded hollow, scraped out. “I saw your mom leaving the station today. She looked… I had to call. I got the number from the camp roster.”
“Congratulations.”
“Don’t,” Jake whispered. “Just… don’t. I can’t do this. I can’t see you here and just… pretend.”
“Then don’t look.”
“It’s not that simple!” Jake’s voice cracked. “You think I want this? You think I don’t wake up every night seeing her? You left. You got to run. I had to stay. I had to live in this town, with your parents, with the ghost of you both, knowing what I…” He stopped, choking on the sentence.
Bode closed his eyes. The memory was right there, vivid and cruel. The riverbank. The argument. Him and Jake, fists clenched, voices sharp with a betrayal that felt world-ending. Riley, turning from them, running up the path, upset. They’d been so wrapped up in their own confrontation, they hadn’t seen the loose rock, hadn’t seen her slip. They’d just heard the cry, the terrible, brief silence, then the splash.
“What do you want from me, Jake?” Bode asked, exhausted.
“I don’t know.” A long, static-filled sigh. “Maybe I just wanted to hear your voice. To know you were real. To tell you… I’m sorry. For everything that happened before. And I’m sorry you’re here now.”
The apology was a stone dropped into a black lake. It changed nothing. It moved nothing.
“Sorry doesn’t get the mud out of a jumpsuit,” Bode said, and hung up the phone.
The plastic click echoed in the silent room. He stood there for a moment, listening to the dial tone morph into an angry, persistent beep. He pictured Jake in his tidy apartment above his dad’s hardware store, holding a dead phone, surrounded by the normal, quiet life Bode had obliterated for both of them.
The corrections officer stuck his head in. “Time’s up.”
Bode walked back to Bunkhouse Three. The evening routine unfolded around him—men showering, writing letters, playing silent games of chess. Manny was meticulously folding a bandana. He glanced up as Bode passed, gave a slight, almost imperceptible nod. Walk careful.
Bode lay on his cot, hands behind his head, staring at the same knot in the wood grain. His body ached from the day’s labor. His mind was a scrambled radio, picking up signals of pain from every direction—his mother’s shattered face, his father’s contempt, Carver’s icy promise, Jake’s broken apology.
He reached under the cot, his fingers finding the spine of East of Eden. He didn’t pull it out. He just touched it, feeling the solid weight of the book, the slight raised edge of the photograph hidden inside.
Remember you are loved.
In the dark, with the sounds of other men’s restlessness around him, the words felt less like a comfort and more like a sentence. Love was the thing that made all this pain possible. It was the anchor, not the sail. And he was drowning in the depth of it.
And he was drowning in the depth of it.
The following days bled into a grueling montage of muscle ache and hyper-vigilance. Bode moved through the station like a man navigating a live minefield, his shoulders perpetually hunched, his eyes constantly tracking. He flinched at the sudden crash of a locker door, jerked his head at the sound of a chainsaw grinding to life during a training evolution. Every shadow in the equipment loft felt deliberate, every raised tool a potential projectile.
Vince noticed. He said nothing, but Bode would catch his father’s gaze lingering on him from across the bay, a calculating frown etched between his brows. It wasn’t concern; it was a risk assessment. A jumpy firefighter was a liability. A jumpy inmate was a problem waiting to happen.
Jake noticed too. He’d linger by the sink when Bode was mopping, his voice a low, persistent murmur. “You look like hell, Bode.” Or, “We need to talk. Actually talk.” When Bode just scrubbed harder, Jake would try a different tack, his tone artificially light. “Remember that time we tried to build a raft out of driftwood and it sank in thirty seconds? Riley laughed so hard she snorted soda out her nose.” The memory, meant to disarm, only felt like a knife twisted in a fresh wound. Bode’s only response was to wring the mop out with white-knuckled force and walk away.
At camp, the only reprieve was Manny. Their friendship wasn’t built on words but on a silent, mutual recognition of hard time. They’d work side-by-side during community service, scraping old paint off a community center wall under the watch of a bored CO.
“Your old man’s watching you like you’re gonna bolt,” Manny said one afternoon, not looking up from his scraper. Flecks of white paint dusted his tattooed forearms.
“I’m not gonna bolt,” Bode grunted.
“Not what I said. I said he’s watching you like you are.” Manny paused, leaning back to survey his work. “The other one, too. The firefighter with the puppy-dog eyes. He called the camp phone again last night. Gibbs told him to stop clogging the line.”
Bode scraped a long, curling strip of paint free. “He’s got nothing better to do.”
“Man with a conscience is a dangerous thing,” Manny said softly. “Heavier than a bag of bricks. Weighs you down. Makes you do stupid shit to make it feel lighter.” He finally glanced at Bode. “You carrying his bricks, too?”
Bode didn’t answer. He just kept scraping, the metal tool singing a dull, screeching song against the wood.
Saturday arrived, a pale, listless morning. Visiting day. A tangible energy hummed through the camp—men shaved with unusual care, tamed their hair with cheap gel, paced near the main gate hoping to see a familiar car. Bode felt no such anticipation. He expected nothing, wanted nothing.
He stayed in his bunk, propped against the wall, trying to lose himself in the weathered pages of East of Eden. He’d reached the part about timshel—‘thou mayest’—and the weight of the choice felt like a taunt. The bunkhouse was quiet, almost empty. Sunshine fell in a bright rectangle across his thin blanket.
The door swung open, banging against the wall. Bode looked up, expecting Manny.
It wasn’t Manny.
Four men filled the doorway, silhouetted against the harsh light. Bode recognized their shapes, their manner. Bunkhouse Two. Carver’s bunkhouse. He knew them in the way you know dangerous weather—by the pressure change in the air, the specific quality of the silence that followed them in.
He was on his feet before the book hit the floor, his body wired with a cold, immediate understanding. This was it. No loft, no accidental falling equipment. This was direct.
He didn’t get to speak, to challenge, to even assume a fighting stance. They moved with a brutal, practiced efficiency. Two grabbed his arms from behind, yanking them back. A third drove a fist, not into his face, but deep into his solar plexus.
All the air left his body in a soundless, agonized wheeze. His legs buckled. The men holding him drove him forward, slamming him face-down onto his cot. The metal frame shrieked in protest. A knee dug into the center of his back, pinning him. A hand twisted in his hair, mashing his cheek into the rough wool blanket.
He thrashed, a frantic, animal struggle for breath and leverage. It was useless. Their weight was everywhere, immobilizing. The taste of blood filled his mouth where he’d bitten his tongue.
“Hold his arm,” a voice grunted. It was cool, clinical.
One of them yanked his left arm out straight, forcing it against the cot, palm up. Bode arched his back, tried to wrench it free. A fist connected with his kidney, a bright nova of pain that stole his strength for a crucial second.
He saw the needle then. It caught the sunlight, a glint of terrible silver. It was already fitted to a small, plastic syringe, filled with a clear liquid. The man holding it didn’t look like a convict in that moment; he looked like a pharmacist, focused and detached.
“No,” Bode choked out, the word a ragged scrape. He threw his weight again, a last, desperate heave. The hands on him clamped down like industrial vices.
The man with the needle leaned over him, his breath hot and sour in Bode’s ear. “Carver says welcome back,” he whispered.
Then the needle slid in. A sharp, intimate prick at the crook of his elbow, a sensation he hadn’t felt in years but his body remembered with terrifying clarity. It was fluid, practiced, obscenely easy.
He froze. Every muscle locked. The fight didn’t leave him; it was simply overridden by a deeper, more primal recognition.
The thumb depressed the plunger.
A cold flood, foreign and familiar all at once, entered his vein. The man held the needle in place for a three-count, ensuring every drop was delivered, then pulled it free with a swift, professional tug.
“Special delivery,” the man said, straightening up. “Carver went to a lot of trouble. Wanted to make sure it was the real thing. Same cocktail you were so fond of before the state forced your vacation.” He dropped the used syringe onto the blanket beside Bode’s face. “Enjoy the ride, snitch.”
The weight lifted off him all at once. The footsteps receded. The door banged shut.
Bode rolled onto his side, gasping, clutching his arm. A single bead of blood welled from the tiny puncture. He stared at it, at the syringe lying next to him like a spent shell casing. A cold numbness was already spreading from the injection site, a wave of artificial calm that felt like being buried alive.
He knew what came next. The slow, chemical unwind. The false peace. The hunger it would wake up, a monster he’d starved for years, now roaring back to life in his guts.
He tried to push himself up. His limbs felt heavy, disconnected. A warm, syrupy fog began to cloud the edges of his vision, softening the sharp fear, blurring the bunkhouse walls.
From what felt like a great distance, he heard the main gate buzzer sound, signaling the start of visiting hours. Someone outside laughed. A car door slammed.
Bode lay back on the cot, the world tilting sideways. The ceiling rippled like water. He thought of his mother’s face in the bathroom, of timshel, of the river’s sound.
The chemical tide pulled him under, and for the first time in years, he stopped fighting.
The world softened at the edges, the rough wool of the blanket becoming a cloud against his cheek. The panic, a constant drumbeat since he’d stepped off the transport bus, dissolved into a warm, viscous puddle somewhere in his gut. He could feel his heartbeat in his fingertips, a slow, thick thud that seemed to echo in the empty bunkhouse.
A door slammed somewhere, the sound arriving late and wrapped in cotton. Someone shouted a greeting, the words melting together into a pleasant murmur. He tried to remember why he should be worried, why the syringe on the blanket beside him was a bad thing. It was just plastic and metal. A tiny drop of his blood at the tip winked in the sun like a ruby.
Then the itch started. Not on his skin, but in the center of his mind. A whisper of memory, sharp and clear against the chemical fog. Riley, not at the river, but earlier. She was twelve, maybe, and she’d stolen his favorite Patriots hoodie. She was swimming in it, grinning at him from the hallway, her eyes bright with mischief.
"Bet you can't catch me, slowpoke."
The memory was so vivid he could smell the fabric softener on the stolen hoodie. The pain of it was a clean, sharp slice, deeper and more precise than any dull ache of guilt. He’d chased her, laughing. He’d caught her. He’d swung her around until they were both dizzy.
A dry sob hitched in his chest. The drug pushed it back, smoothed it into a sigh. It offered a different memory, one his body craved. The first warm rush after a long dry spell. The absolute, unwavering certainty that everything was okay, that every mistake was just a smudge on a beautiful window.
His mouth watered. He shuddered.
Footsteps approached, heavy and real. The bunkhouse door swung open again. Bode tried to turn his head. The movement was slow, oceanic.
Manny filled his vision, a concerned frown cutting through the peaceful haze. “Donovan? They said you skipped chow.” His eyes, sharp and missing nothing, flickered from Bode’s face to the crook of his arm, to the syringe on the blanket. The frown vanished, replaced by a flat, hard understanding. “Ah, hell.”
“S’nothing,” Bode mumbled. His tongue was thick. “Just resting.”
Manny moved fast. He kicked the syringe under the cot, then leaned in close, his voice a low, urgent growl. “Listen to me. You got about ten minutes before you start painting rainbows on the walls or puking your guts out. They dosed you. This isn’t a friendly high. This is a setup.”
Bode smiled lazily. “Feels okay.”
“It’s supposed to! That’s the point!” Manny hissed. He glanced toward the door. “Random UA is tomorrow morning. They know the schedule. You pop positive, you’re violated. Back to a cell before lunch. And Carver? He stays clean, he stays out. Neat, right?”
The logic was a distant tower, seen through fog. Violation. Cell. The words had weight, but they couldn’t penetrate the warm insulation wrapping his thoughts. He focused on the way the sunlight made dust motes look like galaxies.
Manny grabbed his shoulder, gave him a sharp shake. “Get up. We have to move. Now.”
The jolt connected. For a second, the fog ripped. Bode saw the cold calculation in Carver’s plan. It wasn’t about a beating; it was about removal. Permanent, bureaucratic removal. A chill, entirely separate from the drug, spider-walked down his spine.
“I can’t,” he breathed. His limbs were concrete posts.
“You can.” Manny hooked his hands under Bode’s armpits and hauled. “Walk or I drag you. Your choice.”
Some ancient, stubborn instinct fired. Bode’s legs scrambled for purchase. He got his feet under him, swaying violently. The room tilted, the cots elongating into funhouse mirrors. Manny’s grip was the only anchor.
They stumbled out into the blinding afternoon. The light was a physical assault. Men lingered in small groups, chatting with visitors in folding chairs. The scene was a vibrant, noisy painting Bode was no longer part of.
“Through the trees,” Manny muttered, steering them toward the thicket behind the mess hall. “Just walk.”
Every snap of a twig was a gunshot. Every rustle of leaves was a CO coming to check. The drug cycled between serene detachment and sharp, animal paranoia. One moment, the green of the firs was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen. The next, every shadow held a waiting needle.
“Why?” Bode slurred, tripping over a root. Manny caught him. “Why you helping?”
Manny didn’t answer at first. He forged ahead, his own breath starting to rasp. “Saw my kid brother drown when I was nine,” he said finally, his voice tight. “Took me thirty years and a bad mortgage to start drowning myself. You’re not there yet.” He shot Bode a look. “Don’t get there.”
They reached a small, fast-moving creek, its chatter filling the silence. Manny stopped, propping Bode against a mossy boulder. “Water. Drink as much as you can. Puke if you have to. Sweat the rest out.”
The water was ice-clear and brutally cold. It shocked his system. He drank until he gagged, then dry-heaved into the ferns, his body shuddering with the effort. The chemical warmth fought back, a stubborn inner fire. He splashed water on his face, on his neck, on the tiny puncture wound.
Time became elastic. He faded in and out, sitting by the creek, shivering as the sweat poured out of him. Manny stood watch, a silent sentinel against the trees.
When the first deep tremor hit, Bode knew the peak was passing. The false peace receded, leaving behind a jangling, raw-nerved anxiety. His thoughts began to reassemble, sharp and poisoned with dread.
“They’ll test me,” he said, his voice hoarse. “It’s in my system.”
“Maybe,” Manny said. He knelt, his face grim. “You need a story. One they might believe. You got in a fight. Someone stuck you with a dirty needle.”
“They’ll ask who.”
“You don’t know. It was from behind. In the bunkhouse. You passed out. Woke up here, disoriented.” Manny’s eyes were hard. “You stick to that. You vomit your guts out at their feet. You act scared and pissed. You’re the victim.”
“They won’t buy it.”
“They might if you sell it.” Manny looked back toward camp. “We have to go back. Before they do headcount.”
The walk back was a thousand miles. Every sound was amplified. As the camp clearing came into view, Bode’s heart hammered against his ribs, a frantic drum screaming guilt. He was damp, pale, shaking.
Gibbs, the deputy with the mustache, spotted them immediately. He pushed off his patrol car and strode over, his eyes narrowed. “Where the hell have you two been?”
Bode opened his mouth. Nothing came out.
Manny stepped forward. “He got sick. Real bad. Found him puking in the latrine. Thought he had heat stroke. Took him to the creek to cool down.”
Gibbs’s gaze swept over Bode, taking in the sweat, the tremors, the haunted cast to his eyes. It was the look of a man who’d seen a thousand variations of this. He stepped closer, too close, and sniffed. His lip curled.
“You reek of sick,” he stated, not a question.
Bode nodded, a quick, bird-like motion. “I don’t know what happened,” he whispered, the words tumbling out. “I was in my bunk. Felt a sting. In my arm. Then everything got… wrong.” He met Gibbs’s eyes, letting the raw, drug-frayed fear show. “I think someone stuck me.”
Gibbs went very still. His eyes darted to Bode’s arm. “Show me.”
Bode rolled up his sleeve. The puncture was a faint, angry red dot amidst the fading bruises from the men who held him down. It was surrounded by the smeared residue of creek water and dirt.
For a long moment, Gibbs just stared at it. The camp noise faded into a buzz. Bode held his breath. He could feel the UA form, the violation order, the cuffs, all hanging in the balance of this man’s skepticism.
Finally, Gibbs let out a long, tired sigh through his nose. “Get to the infirmary. Now. I’ll need a statement.” He pointed a thick finger at Bode’s face. “And you. You are on lockdown. No work detail until this is sorted. You step one toe out of line, I don’t care how it got in you, you’re gone.”
He turned and walked away, already reaching for his radio.
Bode’s legs almost gave way. Manny’s hand steadied him, a brief, firm pressure on his elbow before letting go. It wasn’t over. The test was still coming. The story was fragile.
But for now, he was still here. He took a shuddering step toward the infirmary, the chemical fog replaced by a clear, crystalline terror. He had traded a quick ejection for a stay of execution, and the weight of what he had to maintain—the lie, the performance, the sheer sobriety—felt heavier than any prison wall.
As he walked, he caught a glimpse of Carver across the clearing. Carver was leaning against a bunkhouse, talking casually with another inmate. He didn’t look over. He didn’t smile.
He simply raised a hand and scratched the side of his nose, a slow, deliberate gesture that felt like a promise signed in the evening air.