News at Seven Pt. 04

Author's note: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are the products of the author's imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

News at Seven: Part Four

Chapter One:

The newsroom was eerily quiet.

It was five am and even the most dedicated staff member - the overcaffeinated reporter, the most ambitious intern, wouldn't be appearing for a good hour at the very least. One studio over, they were already prepping for the morning show but that could have been a mile away for all the impact it had on this space.

Lauren moved through the empty studio with soft, careful steps. Sparse recessed lights cast a few blobs of dim illumination across the floor; barely enough for her to pick a path through the maze of cables that snaked along the ground towards various pieces of studio equipment.

Passing the head anchor's desk, she felt a twinge of mixed emotions. It was a prestigious position that countless reporters dreamt of occupying. To be the face of the broadcast, the face of the network in many cases. The power to reach out to an attentive audience, to inform them, to help shape their understanding of current affairs and even help shape their opinions on difficult, divisive subject matters.

There was definitely an allure there in the prestige and fame to be had.

But that wasn't the path she wished for herself. Without reporters in the field, finding and developing impactful stories, then anchors like Brad Wyman would just be empty, over made-up shells with nothing relevant to share to their impressionable, hungry viewers.

She took the stairs beside the control room that led up to the offices above. The desks here were as vacant as the studio beneath them, the muted glow of monitors in sleep mode adding a spectral tone to the abandoned atmosphere the office carried. Still, Lauren took a good look around before continuing on her way, as if she expected to see something different.

She'd been on an enforced mandatory break for nearly two weeks, as part of an agreement with Felix, the News at Seven producer, her boss and mentor. He had taken time off recently as well, having suffered a health scare.

Felix, despite his own issues, had seen she was struggling, and had provided a sympathetic ear to her problems, afterwards ordering her to take some time off, to clear her head. But the break had not been purely a vacation, Lauren having a requirement to satisfy at the end of it.

Lauren still needed to come up with an idea for a story, a significant one, if she wanted to be taken on as a full-time reporter. If she failed to do that, she'd remain an intern and find herself slogging it out with the others for recognition and to avoid the crappier jobs that went with the job title. Given the backstabbing nature of most of her fellow workmates, it was a melee she didn't want to re-enter.

That clock had been ticking for twelve days now. Though she wasn't supposed to be back in the office for another two days, she still didn't have anything approaching a lead on a story yet.

But that didn't matter now, because Felix had called her an hour ago, telling her to come in immediately.

Lauren passed the final row of desks, approaching the only lit office on the floor. Felix Fernsby, producer of News at Seven and recent survivor of a heart attack, was sitting behind his desk, idly turning a glass of water in clockwise circles, his head slightly bowed as he contemplated the thin trail of liquid he continually dragged the glass through and the pattern it made on the wood of the desk as he did so.

"Boss?"

Lauren closed the door quietly behind her, lowering herself into the seat opposite Felix. He'd dropped weight since his hospitalisation and there was something off about him, despite his normally grumpy demeanour, that elicited concern in Lauren.

Felix was wearing a rumpled white shirt over faded brown slacks, the pale fabric of the shirt washing out his drawn, tired face. From the wrinkled condition of his clothes, she was tempted to think he had slept in them... only he didn't look like he'd slept a wink in the past twenty-four hours. Like Lauren, he wasn't due back yet and she wasn't sure if he was still feeling poorly or was the pasty color in his cheeks just down to the early hour.

It wasn't just that Felix was intimately tied into her chances of journalistic success, that he'd been the first to give her an opportunity to go undercover as an investigative reporter. Felix had been there for her, stepping into the role of protective mentor (against his will but one hundred percent in line with his true nature). So naturally Lauren worried for him.

"Oh... kid, hey. Thanks for coming in," Felix muttered. Lauren shifted in the seat, popping open the buttons on her denim jacket as the warmth of the office began to make her uncomfortable. After Felix had called, she'd just thrown on the nearest clothes that came to hand. That was why she was wearing grey sweatpants, a pink t-shirt with the legend, "Say What Again... I DARE YOU" emblazoned on the front and her default black denim jacket over it. Her voluminous wavy red hair was pulled back into a loose ponytail, her pale freckled skin pinkening as the heat in the office brought blood back into her extremities.

"No problem, Boss. Look, if this is about you wanting to talk to me when nobody is around, about my story I mean... well I haven't quite got a decent lead pinned down yet. I thought I had more time and I was..."

She cut herself off as Felix began shaking his head.

"I didn't call you here for that," he said, finally lifting his eyes to meet hers though he continued to fiddle distractedly with the glass before him. "I had a story for you."

"Had? Past tense? You only called me, like, uh, like an hour ago. What happened so quickly to kill it?"

"I came to my senses is what happened. You aren't ready for this and I'm not ready to see you run yourself into the ground again. Wrong time. Wrong story. Sorry kid, I'll find someone else."

Lauren leaned forward, graceful as a cat uncurling itself, her green eyes narrowed with suspicion.

"All due respect Boss and not looking to run down my own reputation or anything, but if there was someone else you'd have called them before calling me."

Felix's lips twitched into a shadow of a smile.

"C'mon, talk to me... or at least tell me what the story was is before writing off my chances of being able to work on it,"

Lauren caught Felix's wary gaze and held it until he blinked, raising his hands in mock surrender, exhaling noisily.

"Okay so... actually, let's get a coffee from the machine. We can walk and talk," Felix decided, rising to his feet slowly.

Watching him, Lauren worried.

She was struck by this new frailty in Felix as he shuffled along the corridor to where the coffee vending machine stood. It had been less than two weeks since she'd last seen him but it was as if he'd aged ten years since then. Her journalist's intuition told her it wasn't just his recent brush with illness that had brought about this change.

Whatever the story was, it had left him shaken.

Felix remained silent until the machine dispensed his choice in coffee. He'd squinted at the screen while making his selection, then wrapped both hands around the paper cup, cradling it as though he couldn't bear the weight with a single hand.

While Lauren set about selecting her own coffee, Felix lifted his latte to his lips, sipped at it cautiously before he finally began to talk.

"I received a call yesterday evening from an old friend. Someone I haven't seen or spoken to since college."

"This an old friend or an old friend?" Lauren shot a cheeky grin over her shoulder towards her boss.

Felix gave her a flat look and Lauren jabbed at the coffee machine, glad to have a reason to turn away.

"Carol McKenna. She goes by Carol Liebermann now. And to answer your question, I don't tend to rank my friendships that way kid. She meant something to me back then and my respect and affection for her hasn't diminished despite the passage of time. Fair enough?"

Lauren collected her drink, raising a hand innocently. "Yes. Sorry Boss. Go on, she called you and?"

"She married a couple of years after college. Guy called Saul Liebermann. Financial type... nothing particularly interesting about him except he got picked up on embezzlement charges, currently eight months into a four-year sentence."

"And this... Carol, she thinks he's innocent?"

"No," Felix cleared his throat, perhaps reliving the embarrassment of the exchange he'd had with his old friend. It couldn't have been an easy conversation for her, having to discuss her husband's criminal activities.

"No, he did it. According to Carol, it was stupidity more than malice. One mistake after years of walking the straight and narrow. A moment of madness, recognised as such by everyone involved from the judge on down... but the law is the law and he had to pay."

Felix stared into his coffee, in no rush to drink it and seemingly in no rush to continue the story. Lauren cleared her throat, prompting him to take up the tale again.

"There's no doubt he is where he belongs, so that wasn't why she reached out to me. Her husband is being shaken down while in prison, beaten for money. She wants help, my help, exposing it."

Lauren leaned her back against the wall, rolling her shoulders that were stiff with tension and tiredness. She drank her coffee, processing what he'd just told her for a second before offering her thoughts.

"First question, what did she mean when she said he was being shaken down for money?"

"That he was getting beaten up by some other inmates. He doesn't pay, the beatings continue. Simple prison exchange in economics." The snort that Felix added to the end was full of the contempt he felt, the strong preying on the weak, an all too familiar sight for those who have reported on the darker sides of human nature. The curl of Lauren's lip showing her own disgust mirrored his.

"So why didn't he go straight to a corrections officer. Register a complaint?"

"I asked the same thing. According to Carol, which means according to Saul, guards witnessed one assault, and nothing came of it. Same story the second time. After that he started paying and who could blame him."

Lauren frowned. "Then there is a guard involved? Is that what you're saying?"

"At least one. Trust me, it wouldn't be the first time."

The hum of the vending machine was soft as Lauren considered this in silence. She'd always had a black and white outlook on life, right and wrong. The idea of someone in a position of power, someone meant to be a part of the justice system being one of the bad guys... it didn't sit well with her.

Lauren bit her bottom lip as she worked through options and ramifications even as she offered another suggestion. "Then his lawyer, the police? Surely his wife could have gone to them?"

"The payoffs happen on the outside of the prison. Carol drops cash at a PO box every week. According to her, Saul is terrified that anything official, anything his lawyer might pursue or an investigation started by the local PD, will leak before something comes of it. He's convinced Carol will be targeted then. You have to hand it to them; they have their claws sunk deep into this guy. He appears convinced that any investigation would require he be interviewed and that the people extorting him will find out. Saul won't risk Carol being hurt, he is prepared to pay out or get beaten as necessary, just so long as it doesn't blow back on her. I can't fault his way of thinking when it comes to protecting his wife at least."

Lauren was quiet, thinking a little higher of Saul the embezzler for that attitude.

"And Carol wants the station to expose it publicly?"

Felix nodded.

"Yes. Saul Liebermann isn't the only victim. It's too well set up for this to be the first time. Operations like this don't go around targeting just one inmate, the same way that it isn't restricted to a single offender being involved. If we... I, if I can expose it properly, with evidence or at least an eyewitness willing to testify, then maybe it forces an investigation without painting a target on Saul or Carol at the same time. If this isn't stopped, someone is going to wind up dying. Either someone who won't pay or someone who can't pay anymore."

Felix drained what was left in the paper coffee cup, crushing it. He tossed it towards a nearby bin, watching the cup sail past with a grimace. Athlete he was not.

"Then how do we get me inside? Not as a prisoner obviously. Administration staff?" Lauren scooped Felix's cup off the floor and tossed it cleanly into the bin earning another snort from him as she did.

"Didn't I already say? I changed my mind about getting you involved. We aren't talking about some punks in a street gang or someone illegally burying trash. This is a prison, filled with dangerous people, one of them possibly a prison guard. I'm not risking putting you in a situation like that. It's my issue, my friend. Not yours."

"Jesus boss, you think I'd be doing this for Carol or Saul?" Lauren shook her head with a laugh.

"Then why kid? There are easier, better stories out there that you can pitch to me and I wouldn't have held it against you if I asked and you turned me down on this."

"Wouldn't do it for them, probably wouldn't do it for you either boss... though I owe you a lot. I'll do it for myself," she answered.

"Yourself?"

"Yeah, because what sort of reporter would I be if I ignored a story right in front of me." Lauren folded her arms across her chest, the determined look on her young pretty face steadfast, though her heart was pitter-pattering in her chest, her brain aghast at the decision her mouth was making.

"Kid..." Felix looked set to talk her out of it, despite the pride on his face at her words.

"Nope... no time to waste on that. Now tell me your plan for getting me into prison."

Chapter Two:

Lauren checked herself out in the full-length mirror that hung on the back of the bathroom door.

The uniform for correctional officers in the state of Virginia was very much about function rather than form.

Her shirt was dark navy and long sleeved, department patches and insignia sewn neatly onto the fabric. A name-tag bearing her undercover surname - Price - sat above the right breast pocket. Underneath she had an option to wear a dark navy t-shirt if the weather required it or, as in the current heat, a sports bra.

Her duty pants matched the shirt in cut and color. Heavy black duty boots and a baseball cap emblazoned with the departmental insignia rounded out the uniform.

Pulling on the cap over her tied back hair, Lauren did a couple of half turns from side to side, studying her reflection critically. At least she looked the part.

She turned back to her bed, lifting the heavy, leather utility belt, fastening it into place around her waist. It would carry keys, radio, restraints, gloves and a host of other items that she'd apparently need on the job.

It could also conceal, stashed in one of the pouches a miniature camera and a small audio recorder. Tools she might need for her real job, but not one's she'd risk carrying into the prison just yet. She'd get the lay of the land first.

Once Felix had laid out his plan to get her into the prison, Lauren had found herself trapped in an intensive world of study that she hadn't experienced since finishing in college.

Felix had a friend in the academy where correctional officers received their training. They must have been a pretty good friend as Lauren found her records entered into the academy database within a day, receiving a goodwill package of her uniform, equipment and training material the same day.

She had attacked the material at once, absorbing topics concerning security procedures, communication, safety protocols, emergency response, conflict management and elements of the legal foundations applicable to the job.

Before turning to Journalism as her major in college, she'd started out in drama. Going undercover for Lauren was less an act of deception and more like taking on a role for a play. Now, instead of memorizing lines, she was committing procedures to memory. Real correctional officers received over four hundred hours of instruction, Lauren needed to get as much down as she could in just forty-eight hours.

Felix's friend, a grizzled twenty-seven-year veteran called Lead Sergeant Mulcahy, the only name he offered her, turned up a day after she'd received the materials. For two straight days he drilled her relentlessly, focusing on procedures and self-defence, the things manuals couldn't properly teach.

With a healthy dose of scepticism, he had finally declared her:

"As ready as this skinny ginger snap is ever gonna be'.

Academy trainees had to complete a minimum of one hundred and twenty hours of field training before they were able to graduate and Mulcahy had arranged for Lauren's assignment to take place at the prison she intended to investigate.

"Don't sweat it if you forget things. New fish always do, that's why you'll be assigned a training officer. They'll make sure you don't fuck up too badly."

Those had been Lead Sergeant Mulchay's final words of encouragement before he'd stomped away, muttering darkly to himself with 'Damn fool Felix' tripping from his lips with a regularity to match his stride.

That had been yesterday.

Today was her first shift.

Lauren gave herself one final inspection before picking up a backpack that she filled with manuals, exactly as any trainee might do. The morning was warm despite the early hour, but she still pulled a jacket on over the uniform, not wanting her neighbours to see it, sparking questions she'd prefer not to field.

Her neighbours were the other people staying at the motel that lay just three miles from the corrections facility. It was a good hours drive from her place and Lauren hadn't fancied the commute every day, preferring to make use of the time saved by being this close to stay on top of her investigation or failing that, to revise the manuals should she find herself in danger of making a mistake while undercover.

Making the short journey, she pulled her rented car into the parking lot that lay before the grim visage of the prison. Chain link fences topped with razor wire, forty-foot-high walls whose institutionally grey color added to the general aura of hopelessness that the prison inspired.

Her bag slung over one shoulder, the ID Lead Sergeant Mulcahy had provided her with in her hand, Lauren made her way on foot towards the entrance.

Gaining entry was a simple matter, her arrival expected. The two men at the entrance barely glanced at her shiny new ID, their attention lingering instead on her trim figure and attractive face. Both eagerly introduced themselves and repeatedly mentioned they'd see her again soon on shift.

Following directions provided by the two guards, she quickly found herself in the administrative block of the building, standing outside an office door marked 'Shift Sergeant'. Lauren tapped on the glass pane of the door, a voice barking out permission to enter.

Stepping into the office, Lauren saw it was a spacious room, or it would have been without the four desks in the center of the room and numerous filing cabinets lining the walls. Behind one of the desks sat a man in his late fifties, grey hair cut in a short stiff brush that, along with his dark uniform and stiff posture, gave him a military air.

"Price?"

"Yes sir. Lauren Price."

Lauren offered her hand for him to shake which he did in a firm and brief fashion.

"I'm Sergeant Allerton. Welcome to Cullen Correctional facility" he said introducing himself. He gestured towards a chair.

"Take a seat."

Lauren eased into the chair, nervous now. The Shift Sergeant didn't acknowledge her for a couple of minutes, the contents in a thin brown folder taking his attention. She resisted the urge to start gnawing on her nails as she waited.

First contact like this, it was when things could unravel.

As the centre of attention and unfamiliar to her 'audience', Lauren's every word and movement as a correctional officer would be under critical scrutiny and any misstep at this point would undo all the effort that had been made to get her undercover.

Finally, Allerton looked up.

"Right. Price... I've been reviewing your academy records. Not exactly impressive, are they?" His voice was matter of fact, any disappointment clearly Lauren's to shoulder.

"No Sergeant."

"No excuses for me?"

"None Sergeant," Lauren answered. It would have been nice if Felix or Mulcahy had warned her they were going to portray her mediocre as a cadet. It made sense given the tiny prep time she'd had, but still a heads up would have been nice.

"Well, that's something at least, I can't stand bullshit or bleating. I'm assigning you to LCO. Williams, he'll be responsible for your field training while you are with us."

Allerton leaned back in his chair, his fingers coming together to form a steeple on his chest, pale grey eyes unblinking.

"Here's the first piece of advice I give new officer's when they start here. There is a reason why we have each other's back in this job. If we don't function as a team, then someone gets hurt. Listen to Williams, he's a Lead Corrections Officer for a reason. Trust him, and don't give him a reason not to trust you."

"Yes Sergeant, I understand," Lauren said, her hands clutched together in her lap.

"Everything okay with you? You seem nervous," Allerton's eyes seemed to miss nothing.

"Fine... well, I just don't want to mess up is all. First day and all," Lauren said, plenty of truth in that statement.

"Like I said, stick with Williams and you'll do fine. You don't know how to do something; you call it out. Inexperience I can work with. Lying I can't. This is going to be a steep learning curve for you in an environment that isn't conducive to schooling. You'll learn fast or you won't last, either way you won't be my problem then."

"I'll do my best not to let you down Sergeant," Lauren said, her nervousness around selling herself in her undercover role now replaced by fear over the actual role she'd be playing.

"Good." He depressed the button on the handsfree mic clipped to his shirt front, the extension cord belonging to it connected to the walkie talkie on his belt.

"Williams, need you at my office." Static crackled before a male voice answered affirmatively."

Sergeant Allerton got to his feet, moving around to Lauren's side of the desk before leaning casually against the edge of the desk.

"Second piece of advice I give to new people. There are two teams here, the people who get to leave at the end of their shift and those who don't have that luxury."

Lauren listened carefully.

"You got ideas about justice, reform, redemption... keep them to yourself. Focus on doing your job and remember what team you're on." He folded his arms. "You'll see every kind of inmate in this place. Black, White, Latino. Murderers, pimps, dealers, rapists, armed robbers, burglars and a host of other losers. Doesn't matter why they are here. They all fall under one of two categories. Most just want to do their time, make parole and get back outside to their lives. Some, well they didn't want to live by societies rules before they ended up here and now, they are here, they still don't like walking the line. You are gonna need to figure out for yourself who is who, you'll need to do it quickly and then act accordingly."

A knock sounded at the door.

Instead of responding verbally, Allerton stepped across to pull it open. A corrections officer stepped inside, removing his baseball cap as he grinned at Allerton to reveal mid length light blonde hair. His face was boyish, the grin infectious and Lauren hoped he was her training officer.

"Williams meet Price. You'll be conducting her field training." Allerton paused long enough for Lauren and her trainer to exchange smiles and a handshake before continuing.

"I'll walk you through her academy assessment later, for the moment take her on a tour of the facility and call in when you're done, I'll give you your assignment for the shift then."

"No problem, come on then Price, let's hit the locker room first," Williams said, opening the office door, Lauren following with a nervous nod towards the watching Allerton as she did so.

They walked down the corridor together, Williams checking over his shoulder that nobody was around before he began talking.

"Did he give you the warm welcome? The whole 'there are two teams here' speech?"

Lauren laughed as Williams adopted Allerton's distinctive gruff manner of speaking.

"Yeah, I got the whole show. Is he always that intense?"

"Pretty much. But he's a good shift lead and you do the job; he'll have your back."

Williams led Lauren to the women's locker room, waiting outside as she stowed her bag into her assigned locker. As she re-emerged, he gave a low whistle as he checked her out in an obvious manner.

"Problem?" Lauren felt anyone choosing this career would have no issue with confrontation, so she crossed her arms and waited on Williams's response.

"Woah, no, not me. No offence, just looking like you do... you're gonna get a lot of comments coming your way from our reluctant residents."

"Yeah well, sticks and stones and all that," she said with a confidence that was all for show.

"We good?" Lauren nodded in answer.

"Great, well let's leave the highlight of the tour till later. If we head down here, we can access the lower levels first, work our way up."

They passed through the first security gate Lauren had encountered, Williams using his mike to request access. When the iron gate clanged shut behind them, she felt a hint of unfamiliar claustrophobia hit her, the sensation that she'd moved into a new world where freedom was an unknown luxury.

"Welcome to paradise," Williams muttered beside her as if reading her mind.

Lauren had read up a little on Cullen Correctional before arriving. Not her normal deep dive, her other preparations for this undercover role not giving her the time for that. She recalled it had been built in the early sixties and standing inside the building it looked every year of it. The administration building had appeared in good order, freshly painted and so on. Here though, paint was visibly peeling from the cinderblock walls, floor tiles cracked and chipped.

The collar on her uniform seemed tight all of a sudden and she ran a finger inside it, popping open the button on the crisp new shirt when the sensation continued. There was something fetid in the atmosphere, a smell she couldn't identify.

"You get used to it eventually," Williams said as he noticed the crinkling of Lauren's small nose.

"Promise?"

"Well... that's what they told me when I started, still waiting for it to happen though."

"How long have you been here?" Lauren figured Williams was about five years older than herself, his good looks getting multiplied by a factor of five thanks to his easy, perfect smile.

"Three years now. By the way, call me Ian."

"Lauren."

"Nice. Suits you. Hey, who was your lead instructor at the academy?"

"Sergeant Mulcahy," Lauren answered automatically.

"Really? I thought he was strictly admin these days."

Lauren shrugged and looked for a way to shift the conversation. She really hadn't done enough due diligence for this assignment.

"Are we taking the elevator?"

"Nope, it's been out of order a couple of months now," Williams sighed. "We're over here," and he pointed to the door leading to the stairwell.

They went down two flights of stairs, Lauren feeling the cool of the concrete surrounding in the air as they descended. The air was rich with smells, bleach chief among them.

"Lower level is mostly inactive," Williams explained as they walked. "Transport holding, solitary, overflow if things get ugly in the main wing."

The access at the bottom wasn't on a control circuit, her escort using a key to open the barred gate which shrieked as they moved against the grip of rust.

Lauren stepped into a corridor lined with solid metal doors; observation hatches open on some of them. Small scratches on the concrete floor showed where the food slots on the doors were located.

"Creepy right? Like something from an old movie," Williams commented as he passed her by, walking down the corridor.

"Totally," she said in agreement, her shoulders shivering at the idea of being confined down here.

Catching up with Williams, Lauren peeked into one of the cells they were passing, Bare concrete. Steel toilet. A narrow cot bolted onto the wall.

"You were saying it's mostly inactive down here?"

"Yeah, empty right now, thank God." He pointed to a camera on the ceiling. "Cameras down here are garbage, if we do use this level then procedure means we have to station a pair of Officers to keep an eye of things."

"No working cameras down here. That's crazy," Lauren said peering at the one he'd pointed out.

"Electrical systems here are older than my dad," Williams said. "State keeps promising money for upgrades. State keeps lying." On cue, a fluorescent tube crackled, flickered before stabilizing again.

They reached a larger chamber sectioned off behind iron bars. Inside were several metal benches fixed to the floors and some old cots secured to the walls.

"This is transport holding. There's a ramp over there that leads to where we keep transport vans. If we've a few inmates going on court runs or being assigned to another state facility or medical centre, then this is where they wait."

"And we'd station Officers physically in the room because there is no surveillance capacity?"

"Exactly right." Lights flickered on and off again, Lauren stiffening instinctively as they did.

"About ready to move on?"

"Please," she responded.

The upper levels of Cullen Correctional facility felt more alive, but not much better for that.

Williams guided her through the intake processing, administrative offices, the canteen and the small medical centre that served the facility. All the while he kept up a running commentary, his delivery laid back and personal in its approach, Lauren warming to him all the time.

The canteen for the inmates smelt of overcooked vegetable and bleach. A dozen inmates in orange jumpsuits with white aprons over them shuffled through food prep under the watch of a number of officers. Lunch wasn't far off so they were too busy to notice Lauren and Williams passing through.

Eventually they passed through a series of controlled gates to reach one of the main cell blocks, Lauren's apprehension pronounced as they stood before the last gate.

"Rule number one. They can smell discomfort and fear and get off on it. So don't feed the animals."

Lauren nodded, opening and closing her fists a few times, driving away the tremble that had taken hold of her fingers.

"Open up on 13C," Williams said into his mike.

The gate slid open and they stepped into the other side.

Noise crashed into Lauren from every direction and her first thought was that a riot was in progress.

Shouting. Metal clanging. Laughter that sounded feral.

Rows of barred cells rose three stories high around an open central floor space. There were dozens and dozens of men housed here.

And it seemed like every one of them noticed her immediately.

"Fuck me!"

"Well damn!"

"Yo... Red!"

"Officer. Can I get a bed check?"

"Look at that hair..."

"Fuck that. Look at that ass..."

The waves of comments continued as Williams moved along the walkway, Lauren following. Lewd suggestions, crude requests, kissing noises, grunts and evil laughter.

Lauren thought she's kept her expression flat, composed. Treating the tirade of abuse as mere background noise. She mustn't have been as successful as she'd hoped because Williams leaned in to whisper 'relax'.

They began passing open cell doors, Lauren using the corner of her eye to take them in, keeping her face forward as she matched Williams's stride for stride.

"I think I'm in love," someone grunted from a cell.

Five paces, step after confident step.

"Bitch I'd roll on dat ass all night," another voice came from a cell.

Williams stopped instantly, Lauren matching his movement, turning her own head to look at the latest commentator.

Dark thinning hair slicked back over his skull, rodent like features and darting eyes. The smile that had been plastered on his face slipping into a sickly expression.

"You got something you want to share Moreno?"

"Uh, no, no Sir."

"Thought so." Williams held the inmates gaze a moment longer before turning on his heel, walking back towards the exit, Lauren once again keeping pace with him.

"Rule two. You can't respond to everything but when you do, own the situation." He spoke in a low voice but Lauren was practically glued to his side so she heard it all.

"You know him? By name I mean. Do you know them all?"

"After three years, yeah I know most of them, the ones with the longest sentences especially."

A sobbing sound, from the level above them caused them both to slow.

"Should we look into it?"

Williams paused, he seemed to be gauging where exactly the sound was coming from, from which particular cell. His hand hovered over his chest mike for a moment before falling to his side.

"No. No I'll have someone else follow up. Let's go to the control room, you'll be spending some time there if I know Sergeant Allerton."

The control room was a welcome change after the cell block. The comfort of functioning equipment, the solidity of the doors into the room, it suited Lauren that this might be where she'd work for the next while, at least until she cracked the story and could leave Cullen Correctional behind.

Banks of monitors lined the walls, displaying nearly every corridor and cellblock in the prison while radios crackled constantly.

A trio of officers monitored the screens with far from rapt levels of concentration, already the first few hours of the shift dulling their focus. The squawk of a radio as someone requested access through a gate would make at least one of them flinch before they dialled back in their attention and answered the request.

"Nice to see the electrics work here," Lauren said.

One of the operators snorted without taking his eyes off the bank of monitors in front of him.

"Say that again when we've a heavy rainstorm."

Williams guided Lauren out of the room swiftly, moving her before she could ask any questions.

The last stop on her tour was the facility's exercise yard.

It was the size of a football field, enclosed by high chain fences topped with razor wire, two guard towers at either end overlooking the inmates enjoying the fresh air.

Lauren surveyed the yard and the men in it. Tension lingered beneath everything, invisible among the groups of men exercising, smoking or just pacing across the cracked asphalt... but it was there.

"Is there something wrong?" Lauren looked up at Williams who had picked up on her disquiet, his eyes sweeping the yard. His hand twitched again against his mic just a few moments before a cry of pain broke the tension in the yard.

Lauren managed to catch a glimpse of two large black inmates kicking a prisoner who had fallen to the ground. Before she could make out any faces, a wall of orange was thrown up around the scene as the other occupants rushed to watch what passed for entertainment in prison. Whistles blew and a few correctional officers rushed to break things up. Though it took a shouted warning on the PA system of one of the guard towers before the prisoners surrounding the violent scene began to disperse.

Beside her, Williams checked his watch.

"Alright. Tour's done."

*

Back in the small break room, Lauren sat with a Styrofoam cup of vile coffee in front of her.

Williams had gone upstairs to review her academy files with the sergeant, to decide of what parts of her training needed reinforcing no doubt. Not that she'd actually had any academy training.

For the first time since entering the prison that morning, Lauren was alone with her thoughts.

And those thoughts were grim.

Aside from the fact that she had very little to go on, without details from Saul Liebermann as to who had attacked him here, the prison was a hostile environment. On other assignments, her looks had actually been a bonus, lowering the guard of the people she was investigating. Here, her looks were likely to draw danger to her.

One other unsettling thought kept creeping into her mind. That below her, in the oldest, dankest part of the prison, the lights were flickering on and off again.

Williams rejoined her a while later, getting them both fresh cups of what passed for caffeine laden drinks. He went through a brief round up of what he and Sergeant Allerton felt was the best way to integrate her into the work rotation. While Williams mostly worked the cell blocks, he'd start her off in the control room to let her find her feet, bringing her on brief patrols of the inmate areas each shift to allow Lauren to become more familiar with the reception she'd enjoy on an ongoing basis with the prison population.

They returned then to the control room, Lauren spending the remaining hours of the shift observing only. She found herself one part bored by the task on watching the monitors, one part terrified of the examples of humanity she was observing.

At shift end, Lauren only had to grab her bag and jacket from the women's locker room, this meant she was able to lie in wait for Williams when he exited the men's locker facilities dressed in his civilian clothes.

"Hey, you need something?" He didn't seem surprised to find her waiting on him.

"No, not really. I was just wondering if you'd like to grab a drink? Celebrate my first day on the job."

To Lauren, grabbing a drink with him was a deliberate move on her part to extract information from him. Bit of alcohol and an attractive girl giving you her complete attention... guys just couldn't help but talk in that scenario. Perfect way for her to pick up on gossip regarding the team of officers she'd be working with. Rumours and speculation couldn't always be trusted, but they could often point the way forward for an investigation.

"Yeaaahhh," he drawled. "Listen... I get it, I really do and you know what, when your field training is done, totally on for drinks and whatever. Just right now, think we need to keep it strictly professional."

The smile he delivered the speech with was laced with... was that pity? Was he feeling sorry for her, for not taking her up on the offer for a drink?

Lauren gave him a casual smile in return and a nod. She hoped the sound of her gnashing her teeth didn't carry to him as he walked away. Yes, he was cute and all but not so cute that he got to assume a friendly gesture from her was anything more than that.

Chapter Three:

The control room smelt of burnt coffee and feet.

Lauren was on her seventh shift since arriving at the correctional facility, in the space of ten days, and this was her second shift 'flying solo' on the monitors.

Williams had noted her eye for trouble on their tour and after coaching Lauren for a couple of shifts on the procedures and technical details involved in locking and unlocking cells and the electronic gated entrances that controlled the access to buildings and the flow of movement in the prison, he'd been confident enough in her grasp of the details to allow her to be more proactive in handling systems with only minimal supervision. Basically, since she was capable of managing the task, he'd simply sat back since then, enjoying his hours of leisure while Lauren learned the ropes, 'learning by doing' as he noted more than once.

"Rule number one," LCO Williams said from where he sat, his sock covered feet up on a second chair, his boots stowed beneath him. "If nothings on fire and nobody's bleeding, don't go looking for work." He wiggled his toes inside the sweat-stained socks he wore and Lauren grinned without turning away from the screens she was watching.

"I thought rule one was 'Don't feed the animals'," Lauren quipped.

"A good officer has rules for every eventuality and a great officer understands they need to be fluid," Williams declared, swinging his feet off the chair and starting to slip his boots back on.

"I got a rule for you. Wash your fucking feet," one of the other officers on duty commented.

"Haters. I am surrounded by haters," Williams declared mournfully. He moved to join Lauren, bending his neck so that he could whisper to her conspiratorially.

"Listen, I've got some money riding on a game. You okay here if I head down to the break room, catch a few innings?"

Lauren looked over at the other two officers manning the control desks. For a moment she imagined spit bubbles forming on the lips of one of them, as if he were asleep.

"Yeah, I think I can cope."

*

Lauren waited a couple of minutes after Williams had left before adjusting her seat slightly and logging on at the terminal beside her.

It had been no small relief to find her training would focus on the soft operations side of being a correctional officer as she started off. That was how Williams described this aspect of the job, 'soft'. The 'hard' label was reserved for the work on the prison tiers, direct interaction with the inhabitants of the prison. Each shift Lauren had been obliged to complete two sets of 'inspection rounds' in the company of her training officer. What that entailed was walking patrol either in the cell blocks or occasionally in the exercise yard.

It didn't matter the location, the volume of noise that greeted her appearance each time never slackened. The emotions in the taunting, jeering, catcalling didn't surprise her. These men were hardened by their incarceration, and their drives and desires had only become more acute over time. Her presence was just another reminder of the difference between them as guests of the State in this correctional facility and the rest of mankind, free on the other side of the high prison wall.

What had surprised her was that she wasn't the only female guard stationed here and yet a lot of the convicts acted like they hadn't seen a woman in decades.

"You're new," Williams had said when she'd brought up that point. "And... no offence... a hell of a lot better looking than the other women working here." He'd muttered something else, 'hard-faced fucking lesbians' or something like that but she'd gotten the gist of it.

All that meant was that working in the control room, despite dealing with archaic systems and Williams' feet, was a damn sight more comfortable than other aspects of the job.

*

The prison database was almost as old as her. Green text over black backgrounds, nested menus, records scattered across the ancient systems. It had taken her two hours yesterday, when Williams wasn't around, to get some kind of grip on it.

She pulled up a search bar and typed in her request.

Incident reports. Use of force. Medical team requests.

She paused, wondering where her starting point should be. Finally selecting the records for the last five years.

The system churned away, names populating the screen in bright green columns. Inmate names, prison numbers, cell assignments, reporting officer and disciplinary outcomes. There was too much information there, so she narrowed the results by eliminating any prisoners who'd been released. That dropped the results by over thirty percent, but it was still too large a subject pool.

Lauren turned her attention back to the monitors, watching as Williams sauntered down the corridor leading to the break room. A request came in to open a gate on the section of the facility Lauren was responsible for. She confirmed the identity of the officer via the camera monitoring that gate before she buzzed him through.

Satisfied everything was still quiet, she turned back to the terminal. Her fingers danced over the keyboard, Lauren eliminating anyone who'd only had a single incident of violence during that time frame.

That was better. The list of names dropping to just twenty-four men with multiple incidents against their names.

She pulled out a small notebook from her utility belt. The first few pages were full of scribbled notes referring to prison procedures, her notebook posing as a cheat sheet for her role as a correctional officer. Further in, she began copying down the names on the screen.

Notes taken, Lauren gave her monitors a cursory inspection before going back to her investigation.

This time she used the same prompts but reduced the time frame to the last twelve months. This time she generated a list of nineteen names. Lauren checked them against the names in her book, circling the four that hadn't been on report.

If someone was utilizing the more aggressive prisoners in an extortion scheme, they wouldn't be filing reports on them. She had four names now that bore looking into. Violent men rarely became peaceful, not without age, injury, isolation or religion playing a part. One guy, maybe. Two, possibly. But four, all becoming angels?

At least two, perhaps all of them were now looking like viable suspects.

There was another check she could run to confirm her suspicions.

She typed in Saul Liebermann, the system spitting out his cell and block assignment.

Now she checked the four names who had apparently switched from being prone to fights with fellow prisoners and even correctional officers to become model prisoners over the last year or so.

All of them were in the same block as Saul Liebermann.

It wasn't definitive... hell even calling it a tentative link was probably pushing it but Lauren knew she was right. Call it her investigative instinct or a reporters sixth sense, she knew that by getting these names she had made her first step in putting together a story.

One by one she looked at the records of the men she'd identified. The terminal didn't support mugshots but their files painted a picture by themselves.

Avery, DeShawn - Age thirty-nine. Serving a twenty-five-year sentence for armed robbery resulting in serious bodily harm, assault on a police officer, carjacking.

Booker, Jackson 'Jax' - Age fifty-three. Serving a twenty-five-year sentence for drug dealing, sale of illegal weapons and pandering sexual services of prostitutes.

Elliot, Vernon - Age forty-two. Serving a life sentence for two counts of aggravated murder.

Turner, Malik - Age forty-five. Serving a sentence of twenty years for six charges of assault, one charge of kidnapping.

All the men had served a minimum of six years of their sentences to date with a couple already into double figures for time incarcerated.

Lauren leaned back. As sure as she was, would Felix buy into her conviction? Could the lack of evidence be a form of evidence in its own way?

She turned towards the two officers working the control room with her.

"Hey. Schultz."

"Yeah, what's up?" The heavyset man furthest from her didn't turn around as he spoke. He was a fifteen-year veteran of the corrections department and aside from that and his tendency to grouse about the discomfort of sitting on the chairs in the control room with flat ass cheeks like his, Lauren knew from Williams that he was a capable officer. He had in fact been Williams TO when he'd started here.

"Ask you a question?"

"Jesus Price... what do you think your TO's for?" Schultz turned his head from the monitors long enough to register Williams absence before turning back with a long-suffering sigh.

"Fine. Ask."

"What's the deal with reports?"

"What do you mean?"

"Like, does every incident get reported or are some ever skipped?"

Schultz snorted.

"You asking me for the academy answer? You should know it."

"I'm asking for the real answer."

He chuckled, elbowing the man next to him.

"Cute when they start trying to walk on their two legs for the first time aint it?"

The big man ran an experienced eye over his monitors before turning ponderously in his swivel chair to face Lauren.

"Lot of reasons why reports don't get filed," he said.

"Like?"

"First reason is that someone decided to make their life easier not having to fill in a report. Could be a minor infraction by an inmate, not worth the hassle that comes with it."

"Well, what if it wasn't a minor infraction. What if, for example, it was an assault and someone got hurt?"

He stroked his chin.

"Then that comes under the second reason. Maybe the inmate who committed the assault had some extenuating circumstances. Family issues, he was provoked, he got a touch of cabin fever maybe. If it was a one-time thing, other guy wasn't hurt too bad, you might overlook it. Especially if it was out of character. You don't want to fuck up a guy's chance on getting parole for a small error in judgement."

Lauren nodded, her real question still not answered though.

"Okay, I get that. But say the inmate who commits the assault is in for a long sentence, no chance of parole coming up. Say they've a history of violence, why would a report not get filed then?"

Schultz looked uncomfortable with that proposed scenario, and he turned back to his station.

"That wouldn't happen, academy rules are to be followed in that situation," he said, his tone indicating the questions and answers routine was at an end.

"Sure. Got it. Thanks."

Lauren turned back to her own screens once more.

Right. Again, while not definitive, she had her suspects and given what Schultz had just said, even a sceptical Felix would accept the odds of all four convicts turning over a new leaf at the same time was low. Now all she needed to do was identify a culprit among the staff working at Cullen.

New search entry.

Officer assignments for the last twelve months.

Lauren reduced the names once more, this time selecting only those who'd been working in the same block that housed Saul Liebermann.

Twelve names.

Top among them was Lead Corrections Officer Ian Williams.

Glancing at her monitors, she saw her TO on his way back to the control room. Lauren quickly cleared the terminal screen and logged off. She'd have to think about next steps anyway, decide what path she'd follow tomorrow if she got some more privacy on the prison server.

The next day was to be Lauren's last for the week, she was down for three days off after it. That gave her twelve hours to make some progress before she was stalled by being off site.

She'd thought about where to go next, deciding that despite Williams friendly nature, she couldn't discount her suspicions surrounding him. The way she'd observed him acting that first day, walking away from sounds of an inmate in distress, not reacting quickly to the fight in the exercise yard... there were questions surrounding him and Lauren needed to find answers.

Lucky for her, he'd apparently had some joy betting on the game the day before, celebrating his good fortune a little harder than he should have, suffering for it this morning.

"Why don't you call in sick. I'm okay here," she offered.

"You sure?"

"Of course."

Williams smiled wanly, pushing off from the wall he'd been leaning against for support.

"Schultz, you okay babysitting Price for the shift? I'm gonna call Allerton, tell him I'm sick."

A scowl. A grunt. Enough for Williams who left the control room with more of a spring in his step than when he'd entered.

Lauren tracked his passage through the corridors, waiting for him to leave the building before she got down to accessing the database again.

Logging into the terminal, she manoeuvred through the obsolete system till she reached personnel records.

You'd have thought that it would be password protected. Of course, you'd have thought the idea of camaras that don't work in a correctional facility wouldn't occur either.

Lauren opened up all of the files for the twelve names of the officers who worked the cell block where Saul Liebermann was incarcerated. One by one she went through their records, leaving Williams till last out of a perverse need to do so, like a child leaving the largest birthday gift to be unwrapped at the end.

Employee ID: Williams, Ian M.

She followed the same logic she'd used on the other eleven names. Employment status, length of service, disciplinary notations before delving into the payroll section.

The first thing she noticed was that he was divorced. Strange, she hadn't gotten that vibe off him and he seemed young for it to have happened. Looks like the divorce had been finalised nine months before, an alimony garnishment active on his wages from that point.

Another strange thing, there was no updated residential address. Could he still be living with his ex-wife? Lauren assumed in a job like this, they'd want to keep up to date records on home addresses for serving officers.

She kept digging through his payroll attachments, looking at overtime, deductions... bingo! She found a utility reimbursement application in the benefits section for an electrical bill. Different address than the one listed in his personal section, an apartment complex.

"Ahhh Schultz... can you cover me for a few minutes. Bathroom break."

Lauren left the control room, heading to the nearest restroom so she could make a phone call undisturbed.

Felix picked up on the second ring and Lauren asked him to follow up on the second address listed for Williams. He'd need to check with the county property database, see what contact number was tied to the apartment, something Lauren couldn't do easily from her seat in the control room.

She paced up and down in the restroom, flicking faucets on and off as she waited impatiently for Felix to get back to her. When her phone rang, she had it pressed to her ear before the first trill of the incoming call sound had been completed.

"Well?"

"Yeah. He's renting the apartment. Pretty nice place according to the Landlord and way beyond what he should be able to afford with garnished wages. And get this. He pays in cash."

"Oh my God. Thanks Felix. I need to get back. I'll call you later."

Lauren hung up, walking swiftly back to the control room.

"What's the story? You've been gone ages," Schultz groused.

"Uh sorry. Woman's trouble."

"For fucks sake, I don't need details like that. Jesus, just... just cover your monitors okay and spare me the biohazard lecture."

Lauren did just that, looking intently at a monitor that showed a short, pudgy looking man sitting by himself, nervously flinching on the screen as a large black inmate passed by him closely.

'Hang in there Saul,' Lauren thought to herself. 'We are going to nail these fuckers.'

Lauren was finally finishing up her week's shift, already her head back in the city. She planned on driving straight to the newsroom to meet with Felix, and after that, a night's sleep in her own bed sounded like a little slice of heaven.

Leaving the locker room, she saw Sergeant Allerton waiting for her, a friendly smile on his face.

"I'm glad I caught you, got a minute?"

"Sure Sergeant, how can I help?"

"Tomorrow night's shift, a number of officers have called in sick, some sort of stomach bug going around. I'm trying to round up some people to work overtime as coverage. I'd normally ask Williams but he went home early. Schultz told me you handled yourself well today without your TO around. Able to do it again tomorrow? I'm sure the overtime bump will come in handy."

Lauren could hardly deny the character she was playing would jump at the chance of overtime and the opportunity to impress her shift lead. It wasn't exactly how she'd envisaged spending one of her night's off but she could always use the time to work on some more background information for the story.

"No problem, Sergeant, I'll be here," she said.

"Excellent. You've impressed me this week. Keep it up."

She watched him walk away, posture ramrod straight, every inch the career corrections officer.

Over the past week Lauren had learned just how hard the job really was, and men like Sergeant Allerton had earned her respect. He handled the inmates firmly, treated his officers professionally and carried himself with quiet authority.

When the story finally broke about Williams and the extortion racket, she hoped decent officers like Allerton and Schultz wouldn't get dragged down with the one officer who was a disgrace to his profession.

He turned the corner out of her sight and Lauren headed out to the parking lot. She had a lot to discuss with Felix, and she wanted to get started on it so she could get some sleep.

Her meeting with Felix ran on longer than she'd thought it would, on account of him wanting her to end her undercover work at the prison now.

"You've done enough. The lead you've got, this guy... Williams? Williams... yeah, it's a strong lead. We sit on him, find the money trail, build the evidence that the cash he's spending has been coming from illegal activities. I'll tip off my contact with the state police, give them time to get their own investigation up and running before we run the story. It will look like an internal investigation brought him down along with whoever he implicates. That way there is no blowback on Saul or anyone else this group might be leaning on. Most importantly, you get out safe and sound."

He was quite animated as he made this point, walking back and forth behind his desk, waving a printed copy of Lauren's findings in the air as he spoke, only consulting them once to confirm Ian Williams name. Felix was so caught up in delivering this decision that he didn't notice Lauren's face.

"I don't think that's the right call boss. First off, if I disappear like that, it might spook the guy. If it had been anyone else I'd get away with pulling out now, but we've been working side by side for over a week. He is going to wonder why. Second, he's... well he comes across as a nice guy. Likes his gambling and his drinking a bit too much, but he's friendly, open and a talker. Give me time and maybe I can get him to let some things slip. Could shorten the investigation and pad the story if I manage to get something."

Felix stopped, considering this for a full five seconds. Then he shook his head.

"I'm not worried about Williams. You seem to have a good read on him and he might not be the brains behind all this; he might just be a cog in the machine. What's worrying me are these beauties."

He tossed a file towards Lauren, sheets spilling from it. Rap sheets on the four convicts Lauren had identified as the most likely to be involved in the physical beatings that were the core part of the extortion game being played. She lifted them, for the first time getting to put faces to the names.

"I'm in the control room, I'm nowhere near these guys," she objected as she looked at the arrest photos of the men.

"And what if Williams gets nervous? Questions will do that to a man. What if he arranges to have one of these convicts put a knife in you?"

"Jesus boss, think you might have watched 'Shawshank' a few too many times," Lauren said with a laugh. She put the files back down, having committed the men's faces to memory. Black, all of them having a quality about them, dangerous and comfortable with the violence in their lives. The photos were from when they'd been arrested, most of them ten years ago. Still, she didn't think she'd have any problem recognising them again and she could keep an eye on them from the control room.

"Give me another week at least. I've the audio recorder, let me try get some tape on Williams, I can challenge him on his behaviour, not following up on incidents. See if I can get an idea how much he might be losing with his gambling; it will help reinforce his financial irregularities when you push the case onto the state cops."

It had taken another twenty minutes, Lauren stubbornly standing her ground, adamant that her job wasn't done yet, before Felix finally conceded that she had the right of it. They took another few minutes hashing out what research Felix would do in the meantime, and what tact Lauren would employ when she saw Williams next.

Eventually Lauren made it back to her place. She wasn't physically exhausted. Most of her shift was spent sitting behind a control booth, opening gates and watching monitors.

It was the mental strain that had her feeling crushed.

Previous undercover assignments had only required she play a role. This time she also had the burden of performing a job convincingly while immersed in a world saturated with violence, despair and institutional dehumanization. Every sound, every smell, every catcall and shouted insult from the orange clad convicts reminded her where she was. A twelve-hour shift felt endless under those circumstances.

She wrapped herself around a pillow, clinging to it in her sleep like a child seeks comfort clutching their father's leg.

Spending the day in bed, only leaving it to answer nature's call, to refresh her pot of green tea and to throw together some grilled cheese sandwiches, left Lauren feeling more like herself.

Things were looking up. The story seemed to be in the bag, the rogue's gallery involved was the sort that drove up viewership. Handsome, likeable member of the criminal justice system involved with a yet to be determined number of hardened criminals... the victims criminals themselves.

She felt she'd proven to Felix her ability to work under pressure and to get the job done, and that meant that her promotion out of the ranks of the interns was looking likely.

All that and despite the intimidating nature of the correctional facility and its incarcerated occupants, Lauren had remained unscathed by it all. A little stress and strain from getting the job done, sure, but evidently a good night's sleep and some me-time had put a lot of that to rights.

*

Lauren tossed the backpack with her uniform and gear into her car. She needed to get a move on if she was going to be on time for the overtime shift, she'd agreed to. It was an hour's drive under good conditions, and the afternoon traffic didn't look to be light, so she'd need to leave now to avoid being late.

She tuned in her favourite radio station, turned the music up loud and hit the road.

Just over seventy minutes later she was pulling into the parking lot at the correctional facility. She still had twenty minutes before the shift started, plenty of time. The guards at the entrance were unfamiliar to her, a different shift pattern but seeing her ID she was waved through quickly.

Lauren headed directly for the female locker room, finding herself the only one in there. She was a past master when it came to the art of the quick change, pulling on the heavy navy coloured canvas pants, the uniform shirt and the boots at speed. She'd discovered the control room to be quite stuffy so she'd taken to just wearing the shirt, discontinuing the habit of an under shirt or even a bra beneath it.

Snapping her belt in place she lifted the flap on one of the small pouches to remove the digital audio recorder she'd secreted there. It had a 128GB storage capacity and a great battery life. According to the tech guy at the news station, it was capable of twenty-four hours of continuous recording. The question was, how much would it pick up inside her belt pouch? Tonight felt like a good opportunity for a test run. She'd turn it on, do some normal interactions and get an idea how close she'd need to be to someone in order to pick up their voice with clarity.

Setting it to record, Lauren placed it back into her belt, checking twice that the flap wasn't going to open and the recorder fall out as she walked. She'd have a tough job explaining that away. With a final look in the mirror, Lauren pulled her baseball cap into place, locked her civilian clothes in her locker and went to start her shift.

Chapter Four:

As the locker room door banged shut behind her, Lauren skidded to a stop in the hallway. Leaning against the wall not ten feet from her was a familiar figure.

Not Williams, thank God. Lauren needed to get her game face in place for when she next encountered him.

No, it was Sergeant Allerton, who having spotted her was now covering the distance between them in a couple of strides.

"On time. That's what I like to see."

"Hi Sergeant. What are you doing here?"

"You think you're the only one happy to get an overtime bump in pay? When you get to my age, you take any opportunity to pad out the pay packet."

He paused then, fiddling with the clipboard in his hand.

"Listen, I might have been a bit short with you when you started here. Maybe I read too much into your academy scores. Everything I've heard since says you've been on the ball, paying attention, asking the right questions."

Lauren appreciated the compliment, but feeling a bit like the fraud that she was, for accepting his attempt to build a bridge between them.

"Not that you know the job yet of course, but I have a good feeling. Anyway," he said, perhaps a little embarrassed with the conversation, especially having it in the corridor like this.

"Anyway, I wanted to say. Any questions you have for me; I am here to answer them."

"Thanks Sergeant." A thought rapidly coalesced in her mind. If anyone would know the rights, wrongs and the pulse of this place it'd be Sergeant Allerton. Now of course she couldn't tell him about what Williams was up to directly, but if she thought through some questions, she might get a handle on how Williams was orchestrating the beatings, identifying the targets.

"There might actually be a few things... just some stuff I am trying to get my head around... so yeah, I might have some questions for you."

"I thought so and isn't it just your lucky night because I have rostered you to work with me for the shift. Plenty of time for you to pick my brain."

They shared an awkward chuckle for a moment and then he was all business.

"Right, we've a transfer going out tonight. Three convicts who've requested moves to prisons closer to their homes on compassionate grounds. That had been granted and there is a prison truck arriving for them at midnight. I want to check the holding area before we move them down there, make sure there are no weapons or contraband stashed there since the last transfer."

He began heading towards the stairwell to the sub-level, a startled Lauren having to jog a handful of paces to catch back up with him.

"Isn't that unusual, a transfer at midnight?"

"Yes, it is. It was supposed to go through earlier but there was a problem with the truck. Apparently one of the prisoner's lawyers is a real pain in the ass and is likely to make trouble if the transfer doesn't occur on the date specified. We're good so long as his ass is in the truck before midnight passes."

It kind of made sense to Lauren, not that she had any legal knowledge regarding the movement of prisoners. Her forty-eight-hour cramming session before arriving hadn't exactly equipped her for situations like this.

She followed him down the dimly lit stairwell and into the service corridor beneath the main prison building, the soles of their shoes squeaking faintly on the concrete. It was only when a light flickered that Lauren remembered the electrical and camera faults down here, the disquieting atmosphere that came with the smell and chill.

Allerton walked slightly ahead of her, keys jingling in his hands.

"Bit of a difference being here on night's," he said casually, seemingly unaffected by the difference himself.

"Keep waiting for some masked maniac carrying a chainsaw to burst out at me," Lauren said half-jokingly. "Not that I'm the dumb blonde who walks into the basement alone."

"Good girl, good attitude."

The reached the steel security gate, one of the few that wasn't controlled electronically. Allerton fitted his key, opening it with a metallic groan.

"When do I get issued a key," Lauren said, more curious than anything.

Lead Correction Officers and above are the only ones with the keys to the kingdom," Allerton answered.

Lauren filled that away, Williams was an LCO and having access to every gate in the facility would give him the means to set up beatings. She wondered if the archaic computer system logged who passed through which gate and when? Probably not.

After she passed through the gate, Allerton slammed it shut, locking it behind them. It seemed overkill as there wasn't anyone down here yet but she reasoned it was policy and good practice to secure gates at all times. Still, the hairs on her neck rose with the trapped feeling that came with a locked door behind you.

"Right, no point checking the solitary units, we'll head straight to the holding cell, give it a proper inspection and then I can greenlight moving the prisoners down here."

Lauren nodded, following after him. An uneasy feeling coiled in her stomach as she passed the silent solitary cells.

They rounded the corner, the holding area exactly as Lauren and Williams had left it on the tour her first day. Bolted cots and benches in a steel barn enclosed area. There didn't look like there was any place to hide weapons or any illicit, illegal items but who was she to argue with someone with the sergeant's experience.

"Give it a check, I'll observe," he said.

Lauren stepped inside, starting with the blanket lined cots, patting them down first, squatting afterwards to check beneath them.

The sound of a match striking made her turn her head, a plume of cigarette smoke obscuring Allerton's features for a moment as he exhaled.

"Bad decision, one of the worst in my life, taking these up," he said.

Lauren grunted in agreement, going back to her search.

"Kind of like the bad decision you made," he continued.

Lauren stopped moving.

"Wh-what do you mean?"

"Don't play me as stupid, it insults us both," she heard Allerton say.

She straightened back up, turning to face him.

What friendliness had been there was now washed clear of his face.

"A week in and you are sniffing around personnel files. My personnel files," he said. "Not subtle, not smart."

"I don't know what you mean," Lauren said. She came out of the holding cell, trying to act unconcerned and simply confused by the allegation. Allerton was swallowing it though.

"No?" He tilted his head. "You logged into the records a few times. Looking at reports, discipline reports. Then you started digging into personnel and payroll systems. Oh, you tried to cover your tracks, pulled a whole heap of other files alongside mine but you didn't fool me."

"No, you don't understand, it isn't about you, it's..."

He held up a warning figure, cutting her off, face now a grim mask. Slowly, the finger wagged from side to side in rebuke.

"Don't do that. Just don't. I knew the Warden had it in for me, looking to find someway of pushing me into early retirement. He planted you here, had you checking on me. Reports? Yeah, I can see you starting there, looking to see if I messed up. That didn't worry me overmuch. No, it was when I called the academy directly and was told you were never enrolled there, that was a red flag. Oh, it could have been a clerical error, I mean who wants to pretend to be a prison guard?"

He stopped as if expecting an answer, but Lauren was like a rabbit in the headlights, mind and body frozen in fear.

"Then I see the system logs, see you checking on finances. Spotted you spending a long time in the restroom after... that was when you were updating the Warden on what you found?"

"Please... it isn't... I've never spoken to the Warden," Lauren found her voice though not her courage.

"Hmm maybe you haven't told him anything yet," Allerton said.

"I-I haven't," Lauren managed to choke out.

"And you won't?"

"I won't. I promise," Lauren said.

Somehow, she'd gotten caught up in Allerton's paranoia regarding the Warden. All she needed to do was prove to him this wasn't about him losing his job, it was about Williams and his corruption.

"Bullshit," Allerton said with quiet menace.

"No, honestly... I'm looking into..."

"You're looking into my protection business," he said simply and Lauren's unspoken words withered on her tongue.

She'd gotten it wrong.

Not Williams.

Allerton.

"I-I... I won't say anything," she said, trying to convince him with the tears welling in her eyes.

"You know what your problem is? The same one the Warden has. He thinks he runs this prison. He doesn't, he runs meetings, Paperwork. But real power? That's mine. He might think he's my superior but when it comes down to it, he's just better paid than me. So why shouldn't I make some extra money, I earned it after all."

Allerton stepped in close, Lauren flinching as his hand came up. He didn't strike her though, just removing her radio set from her belt and where it was clipped to her shirt.

"Now. I need to make it clear to you. If you stay working here, trying to build some sort of case for the Warden... well things won't work out well for you. If you try go to the cops, same thing. The inmates I've been collecting off, they know they can be gotten to just as easily on the outside as they can in here. So, they pay and keep their mouths shut. All you need to do is keep that mouth of yours closed tight as well."

"Sure, yes, absolutely. I don't want any trouble," Lauren said. She had given up on the idea of convincing him she wasn't working for the prison warden. He needed to hear what he wanted and she just needed to get out of this situation unhurt.

"Yeah well, I find when extorting someone, an object lesson is best delivered at the start. Then there is no confusion. Now that usually comes in the form of a good beating... but I don't want to hit you."

Lauren breathed out in relief, unaware she'd been holding her breath.

"No, for a sneak and a liar like you, pretty as you are, I have something else in mind."

He turned his head, calling out over his shoulder.

"Boys... dinner time!"

Lauren heard the scrape and grind of unoiled hinges swinging, a clang as a heavy lump of metal hit concrete.

The solitary cells.

Then came footsteps.

Multiple footsteps.

Slow. Heavy. Unhurried.

She let out a hiccupping sob of alarm as four large men entered the area. All were clad in orange prison issue jumpsuits; all were black and to a man they each wore a feral smile on their faces.

Lauren recognised them of course, the five prisoners she'd suspected of colluding in the assault on Saul Liebermann. DeShawn Avery, Jackson 'Jax' Booker, Vernon Elliot and Malik Turner.

"Now, these boys are going to have fun with you for the rest of the shift. They know how not to leave marks; it was being sloppy with evidence that got them sent down in the first place. They've learned their lessons since. Ten years or more stuck in this place will do that to a man. Ten years to think about how they messed up, ten years to miss the better things in life, money, good food and a pretty woman."

"You-you can't leave me here... with them," Lauren pleaded. "Please, I told you, I won't say anything to anyone."

"And I believe you. But I'll believe you even more in the morning when I come fetch you. Now, you all play nice."

Sergeant Allerton turned and left, his shining leather boots squeaking loudly in the silence he left behind him.

The distant clanging sound as Allerton slammed shut the security gate, leaving Lauren trapped, acted like a starters pistol at a race, the four men suddenly moving.

They fanned out, encircling Lauren.

She moved in response, turning, trying to watch them all.

"Look at her move, sexy bitch."

Jackson, the pimp and armed robber, moved closer, Lauren backing away in response. He was massive, six foot five at least and heavily built. Lauren had scanned his file briefly, recalling how he had been an enforcer for a gang in his youth before moving into selling flesh and drugs. Age had added weight around his middle, but that girth just made him look more imposing. His eyes were set deep in his face, and an overdeveloped brow ridge gave him an unsettling appearance.

"Pity she aint a real guard. Bin dreamin' of fuckin' a real guard." That was DeShawn, the youngest, the armed robber. He was at least six foot three, with a dense, compact build from spending every day of the ten years he'd been in prison lifting weights. His time exercising had given him a hard body; the hardness of his face was courtesy of the prison environment. What ever youthful softness had been there when he was sentenced to this place was long gone.

"You thinkin' of fuckin' fat Schultz?" Malik, the kidnapper. He looked like a boxer, heavyweight division. Six foot two, two hundred and sixty pounds, enormous hands on the end of long arms and a chest as thick as a barrel. He'd changed since the mugshot Lauren had seen. Nose broken and part of his left ear torn off in a ragged fashion. The brutality of life inside made real by the wounds on his body.

"Fuck you Malik," DeShawn spat.

Jackson took a fast step towards Lauren and she lurched in the opposite direction instinctively. The grey in his close-cropped beard made him look old but the speed with which he moved was in complete contrast to his outward appearance.

"I'm thinking I want to feel this ginger bitch's cunt squeezing my dick," Jackson growled.

"You ain't the only one Jax,' Malik said in agreement.

That was it then.

Not a punishment beating.

Would that it was that simple.

Allerton had left her here to be used and abused by these men till the end of shift. Lauren's heartrate increasing exponentially as she worked out that Allerton wouldn't be returning for eleven hours.

Vernon, the murderer, stamped a foot on the floor, on edge, Lauren scurried away. He was tall, six foot three, and much leaner than the others. Everything about him screamed 'predator'. The long limbs, narrow waist and overall wiry build. Hollow cheeked and possessing cold eyes that were narrowed as he stared at Lauren. He was the only bald man in the group though it appeared shaven for effect rather than bald through nature. Dark tattoos scrolled from the sides of his head, down over his neck to disappear behind the collar of his jump suit.

Then she realised they'd been herding her. Herding her into the unlocked holding cell.

Lauren backed up until she was in the middle of the large cell. The men entered after her, one by one taking back up the encirclement of the young redheaded reporter.

"You don't want to do this," Lauren said, eyes darting from one dark face to another in search of someone who might be reasoned with.

The flat stares she received dashed that hope at once.

"Listen... listen to me," she said. "You'll get into serious shit if you keep this up."

This earned her a laugh at least, dry chuckles crackling like autumn leaves under foot.

"Serious shit?" DeShawn actually wiped a tear of mirth from one eye. "Where the fuck do you think we are? Disneyland? We're already in shit, living it every fucking day."

"And you're the best thing that's happened since we got in here," Malik said, his tongue licking thick lips in anticipation.

A rabbit surrounded by wolves, Lauren looked around frantically for a means of escape, a way of defending herself. There was nothing though.

The lights above the cell flickered on and off briefly, reminding her that the cameras here were out of order. Allerton would make sure nobody made their way down to the sub level of the prison. There was no cavalry coming to rescue her and no pity to be found in any of the hardened convicts surrounding her.

From the sudden slump in her shoulders, one of the men recognised her acceptance of sorts for her situation.

"That's right. Now you can fight, kick and scream if you like... I reckon a couple of us might enjoy that." Jackson said. "Or you can go along, take the dick that's coming to you, loosen up enough an' I reckon you'll like it. Now what's it gonna be? Struggle and pain or submission an' some pleasure?"

He took the sight of a single tear rolling down Lauren's pale cheek as an answer.

"Good enough. Get down on your knees, time for you to see what real men look like." He turned to DeShawn, flicking a finger at one of the cots.

"Grab a couple of mattresses. No need fucking up knees on this fuckin' floor."

DeShawn and Vernon grabbed two of the narrow, thin prison mattresses and tossed them to the floor at Lauren's feet.

Sniffling with emotion, she cuffed at her eyes with the heel of her hand, then dragged the back of her hand under her nose. She had no choice here; she was going to be fucked whatever happened. Maybe playing along would lessen the trauma and there was always the hope that a decade or more in prison might have taken some of the iron from their dicks. The fact that they were between seventeen and thirty-one years older than her... maybe their age would play in her favour, possibly affecting their performance capabilities.

She could only hope.

Lauren got on her knees, the grime of the mattresses apparent to her as she lowered herself onto them. At the sight of the attractive young white woman kneeling, the men crowded forward... with the exception of Jackson.

"Fucks up with you Jax?" Vernon said as he shouldered himself into pole position, directly opposite Lauren.

"Four's a crowd. I'll wait my turn," the former drug dealing pimp answered, settling himself on a bench to watch the show.

Vernon grunted, unconcerned at Jackson's behaviour so long as he got his. He pulled at the fly of his prison issue jumpsuit, revealing a long thick cock that was as black as the heart in his chest.

Lauren gulped audibly as DeShawn and Malik followed suit, releasing their own dicks from their incarceration of their clothing. Before this, she'd slept with eight men in total, five of them black. Now she was set to almost double her black cock experience in a single night.

Her hopes that prison, diet and age would have unmanned these inmates was in vain. Each wicked looking club of flesh was already hardening menacingly in anticipation of enjoying her soft, tight body.

"Suck dat dick," Vernon snarled, his right hand snaking out to slap Lauren's face, breaking her out of her temporary trance at the sight of so much flesh.

"Watch that shit," Jackson called out from his seat on the bench. "Allerton said no marks. Now I'm sayin' it too."

Lauren opened her mouth, taking Vernon's cock into the warm embrace of her lips and tongue. That Vernon, a double murderer, was prepared to take orders from Jackson was surprising. Then, she didn't know much beyond her quick reading of their rap sheets. Then again, this wasn't really the moment to be pondering on the hierarchies in Cullen Correctional Facility.

"There you go, now you getting' it," Vernon groaned, those cold eyes of his rolling back as Lauren's mouth wetted over half his big cock as she worked her mouth down it.

"Get them hands workin' bitch. We ain't in a drive thru here, dis ain't a 'serve one customer at a time' situation," DeShawn complained. She felt one wrist then the other grabbed, her arms pulled to either side before her hands were filled with cocks. Lauren fondled and stroked both straight away, the sting in her right cheek still vivid, still a reminder that hesitation wasn't going to be rewarded here.

"Nyuch- glurk - mmmph," she spluttered around Vernon's shaft.

"Share sum of dat, lemme get ma dick wet at least," Malik said. He slapped the baseball cap off Lauren's head, pulling the hair-tie free for good measure, her voluminous, wavy red hair springing loose to fall onto her shoulder. Lauren squealed around the cock filling her mouth and flattening her tongue when Malik grabbed a handful of her hair roughly.

He pulled her off Vernon's dick, turning her head via his grip on her hair, splitting her mouth wide open with a jabbing thrust of his black cock.

Once bitten, twice shy, Lauren immediately grabbed at Vernon's saliva coated cock, fisting along its length before he could lose patience with her again.

From the other side, a hand, DeShawn's, moved to grope her breasts through her uniform shirt.

"Slut ain't even wearing a bra," he announced to the others.

"Way she sucks cock, I think she got dicked down proper by a brotha before now. Dat right? You already a fan of dark meat?"

"Uhhh- uh-huh," Lauren answered Malik's question with his cock shifting forward, seeking the back of her throat.

His hand leaving his inspection of her uniform cloaked chest, DeShawn seized the hair on the back of Lauren's head this time, impatient to have his dick sucked. Lauren opened her mouth, and as her lips embraced the circumference of his shaft, he began thrusting his cock forwards and backwards, still gripping her by the hair.

"Gack... nhhphh... gock," Lauren choked on hard flesh as he fucked her face, her eyesight blurring with tears, hand searching blindly for Malik's dick till he grabbed her forearm, his fat cock slapping wetly against the palm of her outstretched hand. Lauren's fingers wrapped around the flesh and she commenced stroking it.

Seeking to verify DeShawn's discovery, Vernon's fingers gripped the front of her shirt and Lauren heard a button pop free, bouncing on the concrete floor of the cell. The rest of the buttons stayed sewn in place but they still opened under the pressure Vernon put them under, Lauren's pale torso revealed as the convict quite literally tore the shirt off of her.

He cast it aside, big hands diving down to fondle her tits. Sandwiched between the three men, she fancied that she could feel their hot, excited breath on her freckled skin. Lauren kept her gaze on the cock she was sucking, trying not to connect it with the grizzled criminal it belonged to. If she didn't have to meet their implacable, lust filled stares, then she could just about keep the fear inside her bottled up. Her self-possession was strained through by the way Vernon's fingers set to torturing her nipples with rough plucking motions and pinches.

Soon she was back suckling on Vernon's cock, her jaw aching from DeShawn's face fucking. Lauren's arms were tiring from jerking on two cocks for what seemed hours but was, in reality, less than five minutes. She didn't dare stop though, understanding they would need little real motivation to take out any frustration they might feel on her, that knowledge was the fuel that kept her performing.

"Chase after it bitch, get it all in you," Vernon said, hips pumping slightly as he forced an extra inch into her mouth. "Shit, this girl sucks better than those faggot white bois back on the cell block."

"Looks a whole lot better too," Malik said, his hands now leaving Laurens tits, her nipples hard from his touch, where he had taken over from Vernon. He slapped her hand free of his cock, displaying a bent towards casual violence in his actions. With his big shaft jutting from the front of his jumpsuit, he stooped awkwardly, reaching for Lauren's waist so his hands could begin to work on the snap release of her utility belt.

"Well, she got all her teeth for one thing," DeShawn said. "How you find dem titties?"

"Ripe an' firm," Malik answered, Lauren's utility belt sliding over the curve of her ass as he opened it. "Lookin' to suck on 'em soon as I get her nekid."

He popped open the button on her pants waist, straightening up with a small groan after that.

"Get your cock out'a her mouth for a minute, I want to finish stripping her."

Vernon and DeShawn backed off a pace as Malik hauled Lauren onto her feet. She wanted to cover herself with her hands but knew it'd be a futile gesture. And so, her arms remained by her side as the older black man behind her hauled her pants and panties down to the knees.

"Real ginger," Vernon said as the flash of Lauren's trimmed pubes.

Malik put his arms around Lauren's waist, lifting her feet from the ground with a bruising strength that left her winded as he squeezed her. DeShawn quickly stripped the boots off her feet so that socks, pants and panties could follow her shirt into the corner of the cell.

Still with her in his arms, Malik carried Lauren's nude body to the nearest metal bench, setting her down so that she lay along its length.

The shivering wave that hit her then was down to the cold metal against her skin and the look on Malik's face as he squatted at the end of the bench, pumping his own cock in his hand.

"Lift her legs up," he said, strong black hands gripping her smooth legs almost instantly, lifting them up, back and apart. Her pussy was exposed to the convict's gaze, as defenceless as Lauren herself.

A thick finger probed her with callous indifference. Malik holding it up a moment later.

"Wet already," he said simply.

Lauren groaned internally at that. Not that she wanted to be ridden dry, but the idea she was coming across as a willing participant upset her.

Even though she was wet, Malik bent forward to lick at her labia and clit, spitting on both then for extra lubrication.

As the big cock pressed inside her, Lauren felt glad he'd done that.

"Oh, that's tight... fuck that's tight," he moaned as he pressed his cock in further. He threw a few strokes into Lauren, paused briefly to adjust his position and then began fucking her.

As the cock pounded into her, deep penetrating thrusts that set the walls of her pussy to undulating and trembling, Lauren's legs twitched in the grip of the men holding them high.

"Uh... Uh... Uh," she grunted in time to the strokes.

The hands holding her legs released them, Lauren holding them up and out in an automatic response to the big dick feeding her body.

"Uh... Uh... Uhhhhhhnnn," Malik went deeper, slapping her breasts as he did so, Lauren moaning in shame, pain and pleasure.

Before she could get her head around the third ingredient to her moan, Vernon twisted her head slightly to the side as he stood beside the bench.

"Don't worry about dat," he said, "get your mind an' your mouth on dis." He slapped his cock against her lips. Her mouth opened in another anguished moan and this time she let her tongue stick out, Vernon slapping his dick on it, enjoying the spittle he scattered from her tongue with his action. He pressed his cock into her mouth properly, Lauren closing her lips and sucking on it noisily.

"Nasty... nasty, nasty, nasty," Vernon said in judgement of Lauren.

Her eyes fluttered open, head twisting slightly, as once again an electrical fault sent the lighting in this sub level of flickering wildly. Above her she could see the stained concrete ceiling, damp patches forming shapes. She tried to calm herself, letting her eyes find objects in the irregular patterns as she had done back as a child, staring up at the clouds in the sky.

The moment passed as the big black cock in her mouth reasserted its demand for her full attention, bulbous head pressing against the top of her mouth. She closed her eyes and suckled on it, her enthusiasm not as forced now.

Lauren found her right-hand gripping DeShawn's cock then, the tired muscles of her arm forgotten under the stretch and strain her vaginal muscles were suffering as Malik found his momentum, slamming into her viciously.

The men were all alphas, and it was only their shared desire to wring as much from this opportunity as possibly that stopped them wasting time squabbling over whose turn it was to sample Lauren's body.

That and possibly Jackson's occasional grunt of displeasure when someone got too enthusiastic.

Vernon replaced Malik between Lauren's legs, the predatory looking black man using speed over the raw power Malik had used. His hips rocked back and forth, throwing in bursts of frantic energy whenever he heard Lauren's moans pitching higher.

With Malik's dick now in her hand and DeShawns in her mouth, Lauren was finding it hard to keep straight with all the sensory data her mind was being fed. Her body at least seemed to work well in auto mode, keeping her hand moving, mouth sucking and pussy gripping, a sexual juggling act.

It wasn't just the physical sensory feedback either.

Her mind was swamped with the noise in the cell. The concrete added an echoey aspect to the grunts and moans from her and them, along with the dirty talk. There seemed to be comments and commentary going the whole time, one or other of the men talking at any given point. Her ears rang with the likes of 'slut', 'cunt' and 'bitch' labels, 'tight', 'wet' or 'phat' compliments or 'take it', 'faster', 'get after it' instructions.

Then there was the smell. She'd never been so surrounded by maleness in her life. Now she had three black men, unwashed convicts, who exuded sweat, sex and an undefinable manly musk, all of it seeping into her nostrils as they crowded around her.

It left her disorientated and confused.

Her body had moved beyond mere acceptance of what was happening. She could feel her flesh responding and revelling in the power and cruel dominance of these men.

Emotionally she hated being in their power and the helplessness of her situation. The fact that they were such a stain on humanity and that they had free use of her body.

Ying and Yang between her flesh and her feelings.

Lauren's sharp intellect was no help. Logically it sided with her emotions, hating every moment, every touch of their hands on her skin. The intuitive side of her brain soaked up every thrust from a hard dick into her open pussy and greedy mouth.

With such a conflict and in the intensity of the situation, it came down to Lauren's lizard brain to cast the deciding vote. Fight or flight? Fear or aggression?

Her primitive, instinctual side focused on hunger and need. And Lauren discovered an appetite inside her for black cock.

Vernon had been fucking her a full five minutes, DeShawn toying with her mouth, working his hard cock into the hollows of her mouth, pushing it in to distend her cheek. Lauren hadn't cum yet but she'd been on the brink for a while. With the men changing positions, the stress and an edge of revulsion that no amount of deep dicking could completely eliminate, she'd hovered over the point of climax for a good while.

"I'm up now, gonna fuck this bitch's peach ass," DeShawn declared as he stirred his dick in her mouth.

The idea of getting ass fucked by DeShawn's thick dick was what she needed.

Lauren gurgled incoherently around his cock, her pussy shuddering as its stretched muscles gripped tight to Vernon's pounding assault. She came and came hard.

Neither man seemed to notice.

"After the ass again," Malik taunted DeShawn.

"Fuck you muthafucker. I ain't queer."

DeShawn pulled his cock from Lauren's mouth, ignoring the mewling sounds she made as she rode the descent of her orgasm. Vernon surrendered his position between her legs with a mocking grin.

The youngest of the inmates turned Lauren over, getting her onto all fours on the bench. She had to grip the sides tightly, her muscles still quivering from her release.

The tight button that was her asshole was smeared already with perspiration and the runoff from her sopping wet pussy, DeShawn's cock a mess of saliva. He seemed to feel that was all the lubrication he needed or cared enough to provide her with. Lauren's hair fell like a rich autumnal curtain over her face as she bowed her head and gritted her teeth in anticipation.

The firm pole of his cock pressed against her sphincter and both Lauren and DeShawn grunted as he forced himself inside. He clutched her hips and began to work himself in deeper, fighting the resistance of her tight ass.

"Uhhh, uh, too much... too much," she moaned.

"Dat's what you get. You put yourself here, trying to fuck with our business. Now it our business to fuck with you," Vernon said from off to the side.

"Uhhhh.... No, uhhh, deeeep," she wailed.

"Vernon, come over here, shut dis bitch up. I'm tryin' to work here," DeShawn said. He slapped her viciously on the ass, the sound of the blow stinging her ears as pain blossomed cruelly, taking away her focus on the cock invading her briefly.

"Slow... uhhh, urrrgghhh, slow, uh, uh," Lauren said trying to reason with the criminal.

"Sure bitch, suck me slow," Vernon said, forcing the bulbous head of his cock between her lips.

"Nyuk, myck, glurk, glock," Lauren slobbered on his cock, the one burrowing into her ass now moving back a couple of inches.

That was all the warning her body had before DeShawn began fucking her. He set about opening her ass up with unrestrained fury. Fingers digging deep into the soft curves of her hips, only easing the grip up momentarily in order to deliver a smack to her ass cheeks. Left or right, it was dealers' choice, but within a minute of him ramming in and out of her butt, both pale globes of flesh were angry red.

"Loosen up there. You bite my dick an' I'ma gonna knock your fucking teeth out," Vernon growled, Lauren's sharp white teeth nipping his cock as the ass fucking sent her down a road of pleasure with sudden sharp curving bends of delicious pain and discomfort.

Lauren's knuckles flared white as she held onto the bench with a strength born of panic and pleasure. She bucked back against DeShawn's thrusts, Vernon grabbing the back of her head to keep from being spat free of her lips.

"Uhhhhhh... fuuuucccckkkk," she yelled cumming hard from the ass fucking.

"Let me get in on dat shit," Malik said. DeShawn and Vernon didn't object to the man's request, both pausing to allow him to get engaged.

He slid onto his back on the bench, Lauren, freed of the other two cocks temporarily, drawn up into his lap, her pussy sliding onto his stiff cock till she felt her pussy filled to maximum capacity.

They didn't move, Malik's hand gripping her by the throat as she squatted on him, drawing her down till his dead eyes terrified her from a few inches distance.

"Uhhh," she croaked out a moan as DeShawn re-entered her ass, pushing in deep from the start.

He began to work her ass again, Malik raising his hips occasionally but mostly the thrusts from DeShawn and Lauren's counter movements as she pressed back into him was enough to shift his cock around within her pussy.

"Uh, uh, arrrgh." DeShawn grabbed Lauren's hair, pulling hard on it as he fucked her. She tilted her head back for some relief.

Seeing her head come up, Vernon stood beside her, big cock bobbing with the need to find relief.

As the two cocks stuffing her sawed in and out of her body, Lauren found her head twisted left as Vernon took to using her mouth the way the others were using her pussy and ass.

With a mouthful of cock, her bleating cries of discomfort were indistinguishable from her mewling wails of passion and release as her pussy convulsed, hips bucketing, her body sandwiched by hard bodied prisoners as she came two more times.

The urgency that was the backbone of the manner in which they fucked her had ceased to be a mystery to Lauren. At first the painful, frenzied thrusts had made her think of a virgin, someone inexperienced who thought thrashing their body in and out was the key to good sex. Then it had occurred to her that the wildness of the pounding was born from the rage and deprivation these men lived with every day. As horrible as it was to find herself at their mercy, part of her could understand the bruising ferocity with which they used her, even if she couldn't approve or condone it.

DeShawn finished first, the speed he'd pounded her ass with making it almost a certainty that he would. She felt him, not needing his cry of 'cumming in you, fucking slut' to know he was flooding her ass.

That left Malik and Vernon. One in her pussy, one in her mouth. As DeShawn had pulled out of her, Lauren was able to ride Malik more vigorously and she threw herself back, squealing like a piglet when another climax took her. He grabbed her bouncing tits roughly, kneading them as he began to unload inside her.

"Uhhhh fuck, god dammit... shit... muthafucker... dats it... yeah... take it cunt," he yelled, cursing up a storm as he shot his sperm into her womb.

Lauren trembled, writhing in slow circles in his lap, feeling the heat between her legs as warn cum was sent deep into her. Then Vernon, impatient for his own finish, pulled her head down, holding on like her locks were a leash. He pulled on his own shaft, hand a blur before grunting and shoving the head back into her open mouth.

She lapped around the head, tongue tracing the pee slit, then his cum was oozing out, dripping onto her tongue where it lay heavy until she swallowed it back. Another milking motion of his hand sending fresh spunk for her to consume.

Relief of a sort washed over her.

She'd done it.

She ached, muscles strained to their limits, her jaw worn out, her arms exhausted, the dull throb of pain in her ass cheeks still very sore.

But she had taken it, taken what they could throw at her. She was going to get through this. Fuck them and fuck Allerton... she was going to get through this.

*

"My turn."

Lauren's heart leapt while her stomach plummeted.

She'd forgotten about Jackson.

The old con, the most physically intimidating of the four men, rose ponderously to his feet. His three compatriots were either beside Lauren or were directly under her, their lurid orange prison clothing standing out as garish beside the young woman's pale flesh. A tinge of pink had spread throughout her naked body, a byproduct of her heaving orgasms. The sweetly rounded buttocks that sat now on Malik's thighs, reddened still from the punishing slaps delivered by DeShawn.

"We left the smokes and drinks back in the cells. The three of you fuck off for a time, let me have a moment with l'il missy here."

"Why the fuck do we have to share an' you get private time?" DeShawn stuffed his softened cock back into his clothes even as he rounded on Jackson, squaring up as he waited on the big man's answer.

"First, it's gonna be a long night and everyone gonna get their fill so there is no reason to get in my face boy," Jackson said. "Second, you smacked her around an' you were told not to, so best not draw any more attention to yourself. An' third... best you walk away now, cool off some before I decide this conversation is boring me."

Lauren swung her leg over Malik, a clumsy dismount from his lap that left her bare assed and sitting on the concrete floor. The cum that the big cocks had thrust so potently into her was already seeping out of her well used orifices. Yet despite her uncomfortable seat and the sensation of their seed escaping her body, she found her attention fully fixed on the confrontation between Jackson and DeShawn.

DeShawn had backed up a couple of steps as the older man had spoken, the calm delivery seeming to shake him as completely as if he'd been yelled at.

"All I'm sayin' is..." DeShawn muttered defensively before trailing off as Jackson rolled his shoulders showcasing his powerful build.

"Fourth... you know my name, right? You want me to make you say it?"

"No... no, it cool. I was just askin' is all," DeShawn said, licking his lips nervously.

"Then it's all good. Go get a drink an' a smoke, get yourselves ready for a second jump in a while."

Malik and Vernon, Malik especially, seemed to enjoy watching DeShawn cut down to size so easily by the big man. Both wore happy grins as they left the holding cell, DeShawn trailing behind them as they took themselves off in search of refreshment.

Lauren scooted back a couple of feet while everyone's attention was off of her, reaching the mattresses on the ground, sitting on them, her legs curled under her. Even as she held her arms crossed over her chest, she knew how patently pathetic it would look to the big man who'd remained in the holding cell with her. If he could cow down hardened criminals like Vernon and DeShawn, what hope lay for her in adopting a defensive pose?

When the sound of the other men's footsteps had faded, Jackson finally turned his attention back towards her. He crossed to the nearest bench from where she sat, lowering himself down onto it with all the majesty of a king ascending his throne.

"What's your name girl?"

"Lauren," she replied at once.

"What's your real name?"

"It's Lauren, Lauren Price."

A small stubborn streak made her cling to the surname she'd adopted for the investigation.

He raised an eyebrow at this. With his overdeveloped brow ridge, it lent a threatening cast to his face. Somehow, he seemed to pick up on the lie and yet, since it was mixed with the truth, he wasn't able to call her on it with complete confidence.

Jackson leaned over, pulling off shoes and then socks, and to Lauren even these most prosaic of movements seemed to carry an air of menace, a deliberate calm before a storm.

"Well Lauren, you can call me Jax. Know what I'm in here for?"

She nodded; there was little to be achieved in acting like she didn't.

"I'm gonna give you some advice. What age are you? Twenty-five?"

"Twenty-two," she answered truthfully.

"Twenty-two... fuck. Well, here's some wisdom from a fifty-three-year-old. When you are great at something, stick to it."

He pushed the shoes and socks beneath the bench, sniffing at his fingertips absentmindedly before focusing on her again.

"I thought I was the man. Thought I could do no wrong. Figured the big money was in high end retail, pushing drugs and guns. I got greedy and greedy got me acting stupid. So now I'm here and I'm gonna be a fucking senior fucking citizen before they let me out."

She nodded. Frightened and yet fascinated. Even naked, freshly fucked and in the bowels of a prison, her inquisitiveness, that was at the core of her soul as a reporter, was piqued at hearing his story from his own lips.

"I should have stuck to what I was great at. Started off as enforcer for a gang... I was good at that, real good. But what I was great at was running my girls."

His eyes had turned to the bars of the holding cell as he spoke but they drifted over her for a moment, a crinkling at one corner of his mouth the only sign that something had pleased him.

Lauren, unaware, had dropped her arms from where they were crossed at her chest, leaning forward ever so slightly as she listened to him.

"For me, what I asked from my girls was to work hard, give me the respect I was due and never lie to me. And that's important, keeping expectations simple. You understand?"

Lauren nodded, mentally filing this all away, filler for her story.

"Good, just so you remember that, no lies."

He stood then, a slow ascension to his feet, Lauren's head tilting back as she followed with her eyes, his almost six and a half feet seeming larger still as she sat on the mattress at his feet.

"Now the thing to remember is it ain't a one-way street. My girls gave me what I asked of them, but I had to bring something to the table for that to happen. So, first thing I brought was security."

He unzipped the front of his prison issue jumpsuit, freeing his arms from it so that fell to his waist.

To Lauren, he seemed to fill the space before her with his broad shoulders, barrel chest and thick neck.

Yes sure, there was a thickening at his waist but it just seemed to highlight the strength of the man, much like a single blemish can bring overall beauty into sharper focus. His chest and arms were heavy with dense muscle, forearms thick enough to bend the bars of the cell they occupied.

The dark skin he'd revealed was a map of his violent past, perhaps his present too. A diagonal scar across his left ribs that ran into the fold of muscle and flesh above his hip. A ragged scar, deep rather than long, high on his right arm. A knife wound, not a bullet wound. Though he had those as well, Lauren counting two on his front, suspecting more lay behind him.

It was the scars on his hands, forearms and elbows that really caught her attention. A myriad of small blemishes, souvenirs earned from blows delivered and received, countless fights he'd been in and emerged as the winner.

There was nothing frail about this man. He might have spoken about becoming a senior citizen but that wasn't reflected in his body. She could only imagine him in his prime but it was easy to see how he could intimidate the other men. Jackson simply looked dangerous.

Dangerous but Lauren could see how someone could look to him and feel secure.

"Second thing I brought to the table was pleasure," Jackson said, his tone conversational and yet Lauren discovered herself to be lulled into a trace of sorts by the combination of her emotionally wrung out state and the deep bass of his voice.

The big man hooked his thumbs into the gathered orange fabric around his waist, pulling down on it till it crumpled beneath his knees.

Lauren's head bobbed slightly as she followed the motion of the appendage between his legs, it also bobbing as Jackson stepped out of his jumpsuit to stand nude in front of her.

His lower body was also strongly built, though without the heavy musculature of his chest and arms. It was also relatively free of old wounds, at odds with the rest of him, a single narrow scar from what she supposed was a knife slash on his right thigh.

Scars and toned physique were not what drew her eye however.

Jackson's endowment was more than generous. It was a good inch, inch and a half, longer than DeShawn's, Vernon's or Malik's lengths. Despite it not being fully hard yet, she was confident in this appraisal, Lauren's eye growing more practiced at estimating these things over the last few months.

Again, she considered it best to take him at his word, he looked a man capable of providing a woman with a great deal of pleasure.

Her frank interest didn't go unnoticed by him either, in fact he appeared to have been watching for it.

Jackson offered Lauren his hand, hoisting her to her feet with a gentle tug of his arm. He didn't release her hand though, instead leading her by it across the spacious holding cell till they reached one of the cots that still retained a mattress.

"You want to know the third thing I provided my girls?"

She nodded, head craning back to look up into his face as he stood a hairsbreadth from her.

"Fulfilment."

"Oh," Lauren replied. The answer caught her unawares. She'd expected something cruder. Her first thought was that such a large boast was the product of an ego as big as the man himself. Looking into his brutish features though, Lauren saw no sign of the conceit someone like DeShawn might carry, all she could see was an overwhelming self-confidence.

"You could let me go you know. With the others gone, you could get me to the security gate," Lauren said, trying to take some of the initiative back.

"Now you know that isn't going to happen. Allerton has the key, you... all of us... we're going nowhere till he gets back."

She knew he was right, had known it before she'd even said it.

"You can't escape from here. Same way as you can't escape what's inside you," Jackson continued.

"What do you mean by that?"

He huffed out a short laugh at the trace of indignation in her voice.

"I mean, I saw the look on your face when you were cumming like a little maniac earlier."

"There was no look," Lauren protested weakly. "You think I'm happy being held here against my will? Getting fucked by a group of convicts? I'm not crazy, but you must be if you think that."

Jackson picked at a scar on his chest, fingernail plucking the puckered skin. He didn't look away from her, just stood there in silence, allowing tension to grow between them.

"There was no look," she said again, voice pitched lower than last time, Lauren feeling to urge to speak no more than thirty seconds into his silent routine.

"I know what I saw. Same way I knew when I laid eyes on you that there's more going on here than Allerton thinks. Nobody wants to be here, guards included. Fact you are here means you came here for a reason..."

"I already told Sergeant Allerton, I'm not going to talk, I wasn't here spying on him..."

He held up a finger, pressing it to her lips so that she stuttered into silence.

"Remember what I said? I expect no lies from my girls."

Lauren drew in a shuddering breath, suddenly very aware of how her nipples had popped out, the throb in them and in her crotch as her pulse picked up."

"I'm not one of your girls."

"You think? Like I said, I seen the look you had. It wasn't nothing to do with your feelings about where you were. Wasn't just about who you were with. It was all about what was being done to you."

"N-no."

"See now you lying to yourself. That's nearly as bad as lying to me. Tell me, don't you want to feel secure?"

"S-sure, everyone wants that."

"That's good," he replied, the finger he'd pressed to her lips pushing a strand of her red hair away from her cheek, tucking it behind her ear. Lauren feeling a shiver run through her at the touch. "And don't you want to feel pleasure?"

She didn't reply, but the gathering momentum of the rise and fall of her chest seemed to satisfy Jackson's appetite for an answer.

His hand brushed across her cheek, over her jawline and down till a hand that looked big enough for a baseball to hide in, settled in a possessive grip on the back of her neck.

"Security... pleasure... and getting yourself fulfilled as well. How's that a bad thing?"

To hear him say it, it all sounded perfectly reasonable. A salesman offering you zero interest on a new car loan. A preacher telling you Jesus wanted you to treat everyone the way you wanted to be treated in turn.

It sounded good.

But there was always a catch.

The salesman doesn't mention the small print on the promotional deal. The preacher failing to recognise the flaw in his sermon, that not everyone will share the same principles as you do.

Lauren knew there was a catch in Jackson's pitch.

She just wasn't sure how much she cared at that particular moment in time.

Her lips parted, a mumbling sound emerging, her tongue stumbling over her body's decision.

"Good girl," he said, releasing his hold on her neck, sinking down to sit on the cot. "Come show me some affection now with that mouth of yours."

Lauren settled onto her knees, the alarm and urgency when she had done so earlier now absent. She was no more accepting of this fate than she had been when Allerton set her up, but Jackson... Jax... he had a way about him. And he wasn't wrong either about her, he'd picked up on her inner discord. His voicing it, talking about the look on her face... it didn't reflect the potency of the conflict going on inside her. Ignoring it, well that was easier said than done, the incompatibility of her moral standpoint and her baser needs just coming back louder, shouting for attention, for resolution.

If she couldn't forget about it, not for the moment, then all she could do was distract herself from it.

Lauren reached for Jax's huge cock.

"Nope... just use your mouth, show me how you love it," he instructed.

She placed her hands behind her back, left hand holding her right wrist before lowering her face onto his stiffening cock. Lauren had meant to simply open her mouth, to take him inside. Except that she didn't. Rather, she let her lips and tongue score down the length of his thickness until Lauren's nose pressed against the root of his shaft.

Sniffing the odour of his exceptional masculinity, Lauren dragged her tongue upwards, coating the underside of his cock in saliva. Her hair bounced on her shoulders as her lips parted around his head, swallowing one, two, three inches of black dick. The swelling of his flesh continued as she worked on the top half of his cock, blood continuing to add rigor to the ebony flesh.

Once he was totally hard, she moved back down, past the base of the dark tower that was his dick, the redhead pressing her mouth against his nut sack. Once again, she took some of his body inside of her, mouthing on the heavy testes, drooling so much that the greying pubic hair that circled the root of his cock in a dense ring grew damp and matted.

"Mmmh, see I knew you had it in you to be like one of my girls," Jax said, breathing deeply as she worked lips and tongue onto the slightly curved length of his pole.

Lauren chose not to answer. There was a burst of unruly laughter from the solitary cells, echoing in the cavernous space of the holding cell. She'd forgotten about the others, Jax having that effect.

Reminded of them now, Lauren thought it best to work on finishing Jax off quickly. Perhaps if all four of them had been sated, she could drag out some time before they came sniffing around her again. Any way she could diminish this coercive fucking, well that was a win. She needed simply to keep her shit together until morning, Allerton returning by then to release her.

It all sounded so simple in her head.

"Looking to get fucked?"

How the hell did he seem to know what she was thinking all the time? A lot of Lauren's confidence came from her self-belief that she could adopt any character, any role, playing it flawlessly in order to uncover a truth in a story. That this Jackson Booker was able somehow to reach inside her head, read her thoughts like it was written on a sheet in front of him, that cut at what fragile confidence she had left to her.

"No," she answered, eyes down, tongue pressing back against his balls.

"Still lying to yourself... I'm thinking maybe you're some sort of lawyer, those fuckers are all just lies, half-truths and bullshit. You a lawyer?"

"No... I'm a trainee guard, Allerton's wrong. I told him. I told you."

"Guess you need more convincing about the value of bein' straight with me," Jax grunted. "Why don't you take a seat, think on that for a while."

Lauren knew exactly what 'seat' he was referring to; she didn't require the theatrics of him gripping his huge black cock and shaking it suggestively. It looks like a Douglas-Fir tree, straight-trunked and towering, bending only slightly under its own weight as it was moved about. She stepped onto the edge of the prison cot, holding onto the bars for balance, the same bars that Jax was resting his back against. Her feet were either side of him and Lauren glanced down to see him looking up the length of her body.

Despite the fact that she was standing and he was sitting, his face on a level with her waist, he still made her feel small and delicate in comparison to his own heavily muscled bulk.

A roar, wordless but carrying a sensation of unrestraint in its volume, echoed up from the other cell where the three convicts were drinking, no doubt eager to return to despoiling her body. She was no wallflower, she considered herself a seasoned investigative reporter by now, but still a tremble rippled through her at the noise.

"I told you. I take care of my girls."

Lauren didn't like that he'd read her fear and she didn't care for the fact that he had taken a position of ownership when it came to her. But there was nothing to like in anything about this situation. Aside from the fact that Allerton had confessed to his crimes and prevented her from wasting time chasing a dead lead on Williams, her only silver lining, Lauren was looking at hours of sexual abuse at the hands of these dangerous felons.

"Not... your... girl..." Lauren muttered as she lowered herself down into a squat, the tip of his cock pressing against her slit.

"Nnnnhh... uhhh," she gasped as the squat changed to her kneeling astride him, inch after unyielding inch of thick black dick pressing inside her molten wetness as she impaled herself onto Jax.

"Uh-huh... sure about that?"

Lauren wasn't sure about a hell of a lot, not at that particular moment. His cock was stretching her out, the sensation delicious and unnerving as the hard flesh pressed against nerve endings that felt virginial almost as they fired off signals of pleasure in a series of volleys that overwhelmed her brain's capacity to sort through them all.

Before she knew it, she felt the curve of her ass settling against his thighs, muscles shivering in her legs and stomach as her body worked to cope with this staggering sequence of pleasure drenched sensations ricocheting around inside her.

"Easier if you move."

Her vision, she hadn't even registered it had become unfocused, now cleared, locked in on the dark features of the former pimp. It made sense as a suggestion and so she followed it, dragging her slim body up along the length of the cock then pressing down once again. The first half dozen times seemed inordinately difficult, the effort of pulling her tightness along the route of his shaft taxing her strength, even though she still gripped the barred walls of the prison cell and pulled on them as she ascended.

It got easier when his big hands cupped the flesh of her ass, lending his strength to her efforts. Lauren now found herself riding the massive black dick at speed. He'd been right, it was easier. She turned a lot of the energy her body was manifesting from the presence of him inside her into the fuel that was carrying her up and down him.

In a pure Catch-22 scenario however, the more energy she sought to redirect into movement just seemed to generate a growing stockpile of untapped pressure, heat, power in her. There was only so much that could be contained. Even the most complex of organic or bioengineered repositories had a saturation point. A vent, a pressure release was needed.

"Going... going... oh my fucking god... fuck... fuck... fuck," Lauren croaked, her voice cracking from the raw carnality. She was in the grip of a huge climax, finding herself thrashing on his lap, her body whipping about within the confines of his hands holding her flesh and her own death-like grip on the cool metal of the steel bars.

She finished with a whimper that reflected her exhausted, pitiable state. Her fingers seemed numb, throbbing from holding on as long as they had. As they released their grip, her hands fluttering down to her sides, the young redhead fell forward, her face pressing into the crook of Jax's neck, a limpness permeating through her so her body slumped against his.

Like she was in the grip of an out-of-body hallucination, Lauren registered being lifted up and moved, but she wasn't capable of understanding how, where or why... not until the aftereffects of cumming so hard passed.

She was starting to gather her wits, a fresh rush of adrenaline perhaps as her body understood what her mind was still oblivious to, when the empty feeling between her legs disappeared. Lauren was face down on the mattress covered floor, her ass high and proud. Jax was behind her, dispelling the unoccupied state of her pussy, feeding his cock back into her slowly.

"St-stop..."

It was a reflexive response from her. She didn't mean it. She knew it which was bad enough, he knew it too which was way worse.

"Security, pleasure and fulfilment... how am I doin' so far with that?"

"St-uhhh, uhhh." He hadn't stopped, working his way in deep until his black skin was touching the freckled paleness of hers.

He ground his hips slightly, the club of meat that was filling her, shifting inside her, sparks flitting in front of her eyes.

"Uhh."

This wasn't a grunt of pleasure, it was frustration. Lauren trying to move, to feel the cock inside her thrusting, but he was holding her by the hips and she was helpless against his strength.

"Thinking we can have a more... honest... conversation now. Yeah?"

Lauren couldn't believe how matter of fact his voice was. She'd had an active sex life... too active... these last months and yet here she was almost blinded by her cravings for more. Jackson hadn't had a woman in years, but his self-control was absolute. If it wasn't for the whole 'he was a criminal' and 'she was a victim' part, she'd have admired the man.

"Who are you?"

"Lauren," she gasped. Her resolve was in tatters and her natural ability to adapt to situations when undercover... well she hadn't been able to fool him before now and she was nowhere near her best with her mind laser-focused on getting his cock moving inside her again. Shockingly she realised she couldn't trust herself, so she'd have to skirt the questions carefully, less being more in this case.

"Why are you here? What are you looking for?"

"Cock," she whimpered.

That answer caught him by surprise. She could tell from the startled twitch of his body that telegraphed deliciously all the way to the big cock wedged inside her.

"That's not what I... well, you ain't lying so that's something." He didn't speak again for a full thirty seconds. Not long before, she'd hoped to stall him as much as possible, to eke out the night with as little humiliation and degradation on her part as possible. Now she just wanted him to get back to fucking her.

"You want cock? Then tell me what I want to hear." He tried a different tact questioning her.

"I'm your girl... fuck me... fuck me," Lauren said, almost sobbing in need.

"Damn... I meant... you know what? Fuck Allerton. I don't owe that muthafucker any answers. Okay girl, we gonna play it your way. You my girl, yeah?"

"Yes, yes... anything... just fuck me... God, please... I need to cum again," she moaned, enslaved to the throbbing heat of her pussy, the dull ache of a dormant orgasm that needed movement to bring it forth.

She didn't need to see his face to know that it was creased now with a smile. The dark satisfaction was there to be heard in his voice when he spoke again.

"I'm ten years into my twenty-five. That's three thousand, six hundred and fifty mornings I've woken up with blue balls, needin' to shoot my load into a hot little bitch's tight snatch. You're gonna take it all before Allerton gets back. Gonna fuck you hard and send you off with a belly full of seed to whatever loser you got waiting for you on the outside. I promise you; I might be stuck behind these walls but by the time we're done, you'll be the one imprisoned, captive to the need you already got going on in that brain of yours."

He set to pumping his cock in and out of her, Lauren's sweet ass rippling as he tore into her from behind. She came again, and again. Squealing in pleasure, cries of 'Yes' and 'Oh God' tripping off her tongue and reverberating off the concrete walls of the prison's basement.

When he finally rolled her onto her back maybe ten minutes later, Lauren was wrapped up tight in a delirium. Her pupils were dilated, breathing hoarse, her milky skin covered in a sheen of damp warm sweat.

The thickness of his waist helped spread her legs wide as he pushed back inside her, his powerful torso pressing down onto her chest. Big hands pinned her wrists above her head and Lauren stared up into his cruel face as he found his rhythm once more, deep thrusts that pressed inside her with each slow, powerful thrust.

"If I was out, I'd be running your fine ass. Makin' serious dollar off you."

The idea of being in thrall to him, it was horrifying because it was all too plausible. Right now, cumming on his big cock over and over, Lauren didn't think she'd be capable of saying no to the man.

"You ain't cut out for this, being a corrections officer. You need looking after. Need yourself regular fuckin', all the black cock you can get."

"Uhhh, black cock," Lauren felt her pussy squeezing his at his words, a small orgasm escaping as he tapped into a dark part of her mind. She felt owned and safe with his huge body on top of hers, a shield of black muscle. The fact that he was pulling at her strings, dominating her, controlling her... it should have had her shying away in revulsion, but the manner in which he was manipulating her left Lauren feeling a grudging respect for him.

He released her wrists, making two fists that pressed into the soiled mattress either side of her head as his strokes picked up speed. Lauren reached up, arms encircling him, fingernails digging into his back as she came now with every second stroke.

Jax's cock was now violently fucking her, his balls slapping against her hard enough to sting as he pounded away. There was no way he was going to pull out. He'd told her as much and anyway... Lauren's legs locked around him... she wanted him to cum inside her.

Incredibly, he actually managed to speed up, a furious pace that could only mean he was close to finishing. Part of her wanted to squeeze her eyes tight shut, to distance herself from this moment. This sliver of her psyche that saw her actions and the consequences they had wrought as a necessary evil in the path to getting to the truth of the story.

The rest of her though, the part that bucked beneath his pounding cock, that gasped and squealed through multiple orgasms and that stared with a wild-eyed addicts gaze into his brutal face knew that had she the chance to change the events that had brought her to this moment, she wouldn't alter a single thing.

Lauren's mouth opened to scream as Jax began grunting, the fast thrusts abruptly changing into teeth-rattling, deep, slow, precise stabs of his cock into the melting pot of her pussy.

"Ah-Ahhh-Ahhhh," Lauren moaned, drops of sweat rolling off Jax's nose to splash onto her tongue as it stuck out from her mouth in an obscene grimace as she came hard while his cock shuddered and throbbed as it delivered a load of sperm into her waiting womb.

Jackson had managed to fuck whatever resistance had remained in Lauren clear out of her.

Her pink tipped breasts heaved as she sucked in great gasps of air into lungs that seemed to ache in her chest. Lauren had never run a marathon, but she felt that the mix of elation and exhaustion that would come from such a feat was close to what she was feeling right now. Only instead of picking up a medal for crossing the finishing line, she'd earned herself a half bucket of this man's cum from the feeling of what had been shot inside of her.

The man in question, Jackson, or Jax as he'd asked her to call him, was still buried inside her and staring at her as she slowly regained her composure. His eyes, which had been so quick to spot her lies, never seemed to blink as they regarded her in way a lion looks at an antelope it plans to enjoy for supper.

"Doesn't matter," he said suddenly.

"I'm sorry?"

"Doesn't matter why you came here. Doesn't matter who you really are," he said, his own voice a little rough sounding after the effort of fucking her.

"O-okay," It was hard for Lauren to keep a note of gratitude out of her answer. It sounded like he'd given up trying to get answers for Allerton. If the corrections officer remained ignorant of her true motives for being here, there was a chance the story might see the light of day yet.

"What matters is are you ready to stop lying to me? Stop bullshitting yourself?"

"Umm," Lauren found herself wrongfooted. The glow post orgasm and his initial comments had left her feeling too at ease, unguarded. This abrupt change had her stumbling to catch up.

"You like getting' fucked by some black D don't you?"

"Uh." Her response wasn't because she was still unsure of what to answer with... it was prompted by her own pussy clamping around his still hard cock. Apparently, her body had decided to do the talking this time at least.

"I figured. Knew this couldn't be the first time for you. No black cock virgin handles herself the way you just did. Now we both know you ain't a first timer and we both know you enjoys it. All you got to do is stop fighting whatever hang-up's you still carrying around and surrender to what you are. Forget the idea of some dream white wedding in your future, some pasty faced limp dicked loser as a husband. That shit just ain't on the cards for you. You are all about letting some real men getting between yo legs. Some heavy hittin' brothas that just want to fuck you to heaven and back. Accept that shit and you gonna be happier for it."

"Career." There was meant to be a whole lot more to what she was saying. About how she didn't dream about weddings and the rest of the nonsense Jackson had just said. Lauren's focus was on her career, to be the best at what she did and however diverting a fine black cock might be, it was nothing compared to her dreams and ambitions. But as she'd opened her mouth to reply he'd given a slow, heavy pump with his hips and that big cock jamming up her pussy had stolen her eloquence to leave her with a strained 'career' as her contribution to the conversation.

"Well shit, I wouldn't call bein' a Ho a career but it definitely a job. Like I said, if I was on the outside I'd be running you by now. No need turnin' you out, you already got the taste for it. By the time morning comes around, you'll be as broken in as any bitch in history. All that you gonna need after this is a Sweet Mack to get you in the life."

Lauren was shaking her head, not hard enough to be considered emphatic but enough to stir her red wavy hair so that a stray lock fell across her eyes. She finally let go of her hold on Jackson... somehow the fact she was still clinging to him had slipped beneath her radar, and pulled the rogue hair from her face.

His face, that had been affable enough after unloading in her, had changed to a more serious expression in the blinking of an eye.

"Guess we better get back to breaking you in then seeing as you're still bullshitting yourself."

The big man curled an arm around her waist before rising ponderously to one knee, Lauren coming along for the ride, still skewered by his cock. With a grunt of effort, he got his second leg under him, powering up now to his full height, Lauren once again clinging to him as she found herself carried aloft, no burden at all to the strikingly brawny man.

He stepped off the mattresses, moving someways across the holding cell, each stride sending his still hard cock to shifting within her. Pausing, he put a hand on her shoulder, easing her back so that she was hanging perpendicular to his body, supported by his grip alone. Behind her, just within reach, she could see the bars of the cell and she stretched out to grasp them. Even as the cool metal filled her palms, he began to fuck her with punishing strength. Long strokes, each one moving deeper and deeper within her until he was driving his full length into her stretched pussy.

Lauren came again, ignorant to how many orgasms she'd had already, the only number that had any meaning was one... the next one... and the one after that, and the one following that again.

"Fu-uck... uhhh, fuck me, so fucking big," she moaned.

"This is good fucking pussy," Jackson snorted as he pounded her.

Lauren let her head fall back, her long hair sweeping down as if to brush the cell's floor. A gasp escaped her as she saw the three other convicts had finally returned, standing watching her from the other side of the holding cell.

"Any pussy is good after ten years in this fucking place," Malik said. He pulled his prison clothing off his hard black body in the same length of time it took Jackson to drive his cock four more times into her. Through the bars, and upside down, Lauren could see the beer break had recharged Malik's drive, his cock steel hard and dangerous looking.

She flexed her grip on the bars of the cell and began to pull on them, Jackson catching her intent with the first hint of pressure. He stepped forward, Lauren's arms bending as the distance closed until her face was pressed against the metal cage walls and Malik was feeding her his hardness.

"MMMpphh" Malik found the back of her throat and Lauren's lips closed around the jaw breaking slab of dark flesh.

"Ghug... gurk... shlllp... nmmf," she found Malik falling into a rhythm with Jax quickly, perhaps their time incarcerated bonded them in some way? Whatever... the result was that she was being spit-roasted with a black cock fucking her face and pussy while she was held three feet up in the air.

DeShawn and Vernon re-entered the holding cell and were quickly as naked as everyone else. Soon Lauren's hands were filled with two more big dicks while her breasts were tweaked, fondled and licked.

She wanted to deny Jax's assessment of her. But despite the distraction of four burly black convicts using her for their pleasure, the seed of doubt he'd planted in her mind took root, sprouted saplings and grew.

Lauren had found Ty attractive and despite knowing his criminal inclinations had still engaged in a relationship with him. Donovan hadn't had to push her hard to make her talk dirty as he'd fucked her. She'd even gone out of her way to meet up with one of Ty's gang members, knowing Sav was going to treat her like shit even as he fucked her hard.

Maybe she did have a type? Or maybe she was more than a little messed up and the strain of undercover reporting was enough to tip her into reckless out of control behaviour?

As the pleasure increased, the stimuli multiplied fourfold as the prisoners worked as a team on her freckled flesh, the redheaded reporter finally just let go.

No more thinking about her job, worrying about a lack of respect or credit from her fellow interns or the jackass news anchor. No more worrying about the fallout from her decisions. No more fretting about family and friends and how her recent behaviour would shock them if it was discovered.

Lauren surrendered to the now.

The situation changed. It wasn't about four convicts venting decades of pent-up sexual frustration on a female corrections officer, held against her will. Lauren moved from victim to willing participant.

She didn't bullshit herself, just as Jackson had wanted her to stop doing. No idle thoughts that this fresh approach by her was just about 'robbing them of their power over her'. It would have been a good line as well, worthy of the journalist she was. But still a bullshit line all the same.

No, she was fucking them back because she wanted too. Sucking greedily on hard cocks because it pleased her to feel the weight of them dragging her jaw open, the taste of them on her tongue. Her fingers dug into their muscled bodies, urging them to go harder, deeper, faster when she couldn't articulate it any other way, her mouth continually filled with cock.

DeShawn tying her wrists to the bars of the cell with his discarded orange prison jumpsuit, fucking her with a passion that hovered on the edge of sociopathic rage.

Vernon and Malik fucking her, each filling a hole as Lauren was wedged between their straining bodies, the men fucking her as they stood opposite one another, while she jittered and quivered in rolling climax's.

Jax fucking her like an animal. Lauren's firm, peach-like ass his plaything as he squatted over her, Lauren on all fours. She babbled in confession, admitting to being his girl over and over while he tore multiple orgasms from her shaking body, fucking her ass as he would her pussy. He'd promised to break her in and whatever his criminal past, in this at least he proved to be honest.

One on one, two on one, three on one so she was 'airtight' as DeShawn called it, four on one as she'd blindly jerk a cock with her hand, all her holes accounted for. The night seemed endless, this windowless cell and the unflagging stamina of the men she was forced to share it with seeming to make a mockery of the passage of time.

Finally, though it was over.

Lauren was given her clothes along with a damp rag to clean herself down as best she could before Sergeant Allerton's return. She'd managed to win the grudging respect of DeShawn, Vernon and Malik over the course of the night. At first, it had just been the way the dirty talk between them and towards her had shifted from cruel barbs and mockery towards simple sexually charged swearing and dominant chatter. Even the way they'd finished early enough to allow Lauren to ready herself before Allerton returned spoke of a measure of respect. Respect she'd earned by taking all they could throw at her. Literally.

As the clipped strides of the approaching Corrections officer echoed down the long corridor leading to the cell, Lauren stood up, body stiff from the abuse and she hobbled out of the holding cell.

Passing Jackson, she felt his hand on her arm and she stopped, looking up into his face.

The strain of the long night of debauchery seemed to have made him look more his true age but he still managed a smile for her benefit.

"Remember, I'll tell Allerton nothing 'cept what he thinks he knows. I only figured out one truth about you and that stays between us. Up to you to act on it."

Lauren gave him a tight nod in reply. With the prick who'd placed her in the cell fast approaching she wasn't in the mood to entertain Jax's mind games and she hadn't the energy to fake a smile.

Allerton appeared around the corner, the immaculate condition of his uniform and his fresh as a daisy demeanour made Lauren feel all the more soiled in comparison. Despite her best efforts she could feel flakes of dried cum sticking to oh so many different parts of her body and her well fucked pussy and ass were still awash with multiple loads of cum that oozed free with any step she took.

"You," Allerton barked as he pointed at Lauren, "With me. The rest of you, wait here and I'll get you back in your cell block in time for roll call in a few minutes."

He turned on his heel and marched back the way he'd come, Lauren hurrying to keep up as an irrational fear of being left down here if she didn't suddenly gripped her.

He never spoke a word or looked in her direction, just keeping a half pace ahead of her the whole time as he led her back up to the ground floor of the facility and along the corridors until they stopped outside the female officers locker room.

"Get your shit and be quick about it," he commanded in a tight voice.

Lauren had no intention of remaining in the prison a moment longer than necessary. She'd normally shower and change after a shift but not today. She just grabbed her bag and exited the locker-room to find Allerton still waiting outside.

He provided her with an unwanted escort all the way out of the facility and across the parking lot to where her car was parked up. Only as she unlocked it and tossed her bag inside did he speak again.

"I took no pleasure in what happened," he said. Lauren wondered if the poor choice of words was a deliberate barb or if he was just that self-obsessed that he didn't see the insensitivity of his choice in words.

"Remember, it was you who brought this on. You and whoever sent you here. Now we've no wish to see each other again so I'll expect to hear about a transfer request or a resignation in the next twenty-four hours and... if you try to cause trouble for me, well I can arrange a repeat performance only next time it'll be wherever you live that some of my friends will come visiting. Do we understand each other?"

Lauren wasn't going to give him the satisfaction of seeing her cry so she had to be fast.

"Yes," she said and got behind the wheel of the car before he could double down on his threats.

Sergeant Allerton stood his ground, watching her as she drove away. It was only when he disappeared from sight in her rearview mirror than Lauren's composure cracked and the tears began to flow.

Epilogue:

Lauren drove straight to her motel room, the need to get clean a priority. She literally ripped her uniform from her body, as much to be rid of it as to get undressed. The shower was reassuringly robust, warm with excellent pressure, which made sitting beneath the stream of water for forty minutes no trial.

At first, she devoted her time to scrubbing furiously, desperately trying to remove all trace of sweat and semen from her skin and inside her well used holes. When she was finished doing that, she stood beneath the water's spray, sobbing in furious rage, thumping the tiled walls with the heel of her hand in frustration at the treatment she'd received and the fact that true culprit in all this was going to get away scot-free.

Later, as she began to pack for home, Lauren remembered something.

She'd been unwilling to pick up the phone to call Felix. She knew he'd be worried if she didn't check in soon but telling him she'd let him down was too painful a thought. He'd depended on her, his friend and her husband and the other victims in the prison had all depended on her and she'd let them down. She hadn't covered her tracks, hadn't sold herself on the role and Allerton had smelt a rat.

All that time and effort gone to waste. And she still needed to terminate her employment with the corrections facility, and return the uniform as well.

That was what sparked a memory with her, the thought of her uniform.

Fingers trembling, she picked up the heavy utility belt that came with it, opening the small pouch on the side.

It was still there, the digital recorder she'd brought into the prison. For a moment she had a doubt. Was the memory of her switching it on to record a true one or just something born out of a need for hope in the bleakest moment of her short life?

Lifting it out, she saw that she hadn't been mistaken, it had been recording... was still recording in fact.

She switched it off, removing the memory card and walking over to recover her laptop from the pile of belongings she'd been gathering as she prepared to leave for home.

Memory card slotted into her laptop, she brought up the audio file and pressed play.

Footsteps. A bit muffled but distinct all the same. That was her leaving the locker-room at the start of shift.

"On time. That's what I like to see." Lauren's jaw locked as she gritted her teeth at the sound of Sergeant Allerton's voice. She fast forwarded on a few minutes.

"You're looking into my protection business."

"I-I... I won't say anything." God did she really sound like that?

"You know what your problem is? The same one the Warden has. He thinks he runs this prison. He doesn't, he runs meetings, Paperwork. Real power? That's mine. He might think he's my superior but when it comes down to it, he's just better paid than me. So why shouldn't I make some extra money, I earned it after all."

'I've got you motherfucker,' Lauren thought, a smile half forming. She wasn't ready to really enjoy the win just yet, but it would come. Now though she had a good reason to call Felix.

Walking back outside to her car where she'd left her cell phone, Lauren spent ten minutes passing on the good news to her boss. A taped confession, the names of the four prisoners being used as 'muscle' by the corrupt Corrections Officer and a sneaking suspicion on Lauren's part that one or all of the prisoners would be willing to offer testimony against Allerton under the right circumstances.

Felix couldn't have been happier, but he wasn't going to run a story without verifying the audio for himself. Lauren promised him she'd email him a copy in the next few minutes and be back at the office before the day was out.

Feeling like a weight had been lifted, she stepped back inside the motel room.

"Oh, that's tight... fuck that's tight."

"Uh... Uh... Uh."

"Uh... Uh... Uhhhhhhnnn."

"Don't worry about dat, get your mind an' your mouth on dis."

She'd left the recording running while speaking to Felix. Walking back into the room and hearing her own moans and Malik's uncaring voice as he spoke to her... the nights experience came rushing back.

Lauren steeled herself as she sat down in front of the laptop, staring at her hands until the trembling stopped. She took a deep breath, counted back from ten to one and set to work. First, she copied the relevant audio from the main file, from where she greeted Sergeant Allerton outside the locker-room to establish his identity, all the way up to his rantings around the prison Governor and his admitting his criminal activities extorting money from inmates and their families.

Second, file created, she mailed it off to Felix.

Third, she went to the small cooler in the room and pulled out a bottle of beer. Lauren sank into the chair once again, tilting her head back and swallowing half the bottles contents in one long gulp.

Christ. Fuck. But she had really needed that.

Lauren hit play again on the recording, seeking calm as she listened to what was happening. She sought detachment, looked to play the role of an observer rather than the participant. She'd lost a lot of focus, understandably, and perhaps she'd said or heard something that might be of use. Her professionalism demanded she listen to it all.

"Fucking bitch is a freak." That was DeShawn speaking.

"Almost worth ten years in this place to tap her." Malik's voice.

"Uh-uh-uh-uh-uhhhhhhh," That was all Lauren.

"Who's fuckin' your ass?"

"Jax! Uhhhhhhh fuck, fuck, fuck... Jax... Jax is fucking my ass."

"No more lies slut. Tell me the truth now."

"I'm a slut... I'm a slut for black guys."

"And..."

"Oh my God... soo deep... cumming again... uhhh, you're making me cum so hard."

"And? Don't make me ask again."

"You were right... I'm your girl... because I love black cocks. I love being fucked by big black cocks. I love your big cock in my ass... uhhhh fuck me, more, more... fuuuucccckkkk."

She didn't recall saying any of that. So much of the night had become a blur.

Lauren shifted on the chair. Her legs were open, the now empty bottle of beer acting as a makeshift dildo, the long neck pressing as deep as it could go, though not deep enough for her want, into her wet pussy steered in and out one handed. Her other hand, fingers twitching as they rubbed and teased her own clit as she looked to cum to the noise of Jackson Booker fucking her into heaven by way of a black cock in her ass.

She needed to get on the road, as far away from Cullen Correctional as possible and back to Felix to get the story ready. But not until she milked one last orgasm, one more for the road.

Three weeks later.

Felix had come through on everything that he'd promised. In order to maintain her value as an undercover reporter, Lauren's name remained unattached to the exclusive story regarding corruption in the penal system. However, it was made clear in its reporting that Brad Wyman, anchor of News @ Seven, was not the talent behind the story. Seeing his sickly smile as he was forced to praise the anonymous and highly talented, brave reporter who had broken the story was worth more than anything to Lauren.

Well nearly anything.

The look on the faces of her former peers, those who still remained interns at the News station, as Lauren was confirmed in the role as a reporter was sweeter still. Her press pass and credentials, given to her along with a firm handshake of congratulations by the man she admired the most, Felix, had been the icing on the cake.

Now all she had to do was keep the stories coming.

Lauren looked out into the bullpen from behind the glass of her own office. Things were quiet, no calamities, political scandals or even highly talented pets to report on. Which meant she'd have to get her own story.

She opened the file again on her screen. With her new 'unofficial' reputation, getting access to sources had become a lot easier. This particular gem of a file had been provided by a Detective O'Leary who worked Vice in Washington DC.

Jeremiah Booker, age forty-nine.

Two counts of Aggravated Assault. One conviction.

Five counts of Pimping/Pandering. No convictions.

Apparently, Jackson's younger brother had taken over the business when Jackson had gone to prison. He'd learned the lesson his brother had before it was too late, avoiding anything to do with drugs or guns, sticking to his girls instead.

According to Detective O'Leary, his girls were incredibly loyal and his customers uninformedly tight lipped which was why he'd remained unconvicted by Vice these last ten years. His sole criminal conviction coming when he was nineteen years old.

Thirty years, and he'd remained too smart to catch.

It sounded like a good story to her.

She pulled up the picture that had come along with the bio on the man. The family resemblance between the brothers was very strong. Same build, same looks.

Lauren readjusted her position on her chair as she felt a small twinge that had nothing to do with her posture and picked up the phone on her desk, hitting the extension to Felix's office.

"Hey Boss. Yeah, all good. Uh-huh, uh-huh... sure. So, listen... I've got an idea for a story. An expose. Seedier side of our nation's capital, that kind of thing. Still working out the details but I'd need to go undercover for this one, but I think it could be worth a few weeks of my attention. Dangerous? Oh, it'll probably get my heart racing but no, not dangerous. You know me... I don't take risks."

To be continued...