Triptych (Will Trent #1) - Karin Slaughter Page 0,53

his ankles because it gave him an excuse to keep his legs together. The guard led the way to the first building, John in the front, the rest of the prisoners towering behind him. One of the men kept kicking at John’s heels and he walked faster, his bladder screaming in his gut.

They were all led to an open bathroom with a row of urinals. Slowly, each man was uncuffed, unshackled. John, embarrassed, waited for someone else to go before he did. He could feel eyes on him as he reached down to the fly of his jumper. The uniform was for a grown man, so the crotch had settled somewhere around his knees. Nerves kept him from being able to go at first, but he finally was able to release a thin stream of urine.

“Looks like a little Vienna sausage,” the man beside him said. He was staring right at John’s penis. When John looked up at him, the man gave a smile that showed a row of crooked teeth. “I’m getting hungry just lookin’ at it.”

“Shut up,” one of the guards ordered. The patch on his uniform read “Everett” and he held a baton between both of his hands like he was blocking a tackle. “Everybody take your clothes off and stand on the black line.”

John’s face went bright red. Because of his age, he had been kept in isolation at the county jail during his trial. The guards had still searched him plenty of times, but never like this. His entire life, he had never stood naked in front of a bunch of strangers. His hands felt numb as he worked the buttons on his jumper, and he tried not to look down at the other men, though of course he could see. They were huge—all of them. Their bodies were grown men’s bodies, hair sprouting everywhere. John was a late bloomer. He shaved his face maybe once a week and then it was out of wishful thinking more than necessity. He looked like a girl next to them, like a frightened little girl.

Everett started going through the rules, listing things they could and could not do. While he was talking, another guard walked behind the prisoners with a flashlight, making each man bend over and hold themselves open for inspection. Another man put on a pair of gloves and stuck his fingers into their mouths to check for contraband or weapons. A third took out a hose and washed them all down, then sprayed powder on them to delouse their bodies.

They were each given a pair of white pants and a white T-shirt. John was given an extra small shirt but his pants were large enough to fit an elephant. He had to hold them up around his waist as he walked, carrying his pillow and his sheets in one hand, the meager toiletries they had been given precariously balanced on the top.

He moved as if he were in a fog, staring straight ahead, trying not to be sick.

“Shelley,” Everett said. His baton was resting on the outside of an open cell door. “In here.”

John walked into the cell. It reeked of urine and shit from the stainless steel toilet in the corner. The sink mounted to the wall had been white at some point in its life, but rust and grime had made it dirty gray. There was a desk on the left, two bunk beds stacked on the right. You could touch the opposite walls just by standing in the middle of the cell and holding both your arms out. A guy who looked to be about twenty-five lay on the top bunk and he turned to look at John, smiling.

“You’re the bottom,” he said.

There were more wolf whistles, but Everett was already moving on, assigning the next cell to the next prisoner.

“Zebra,” the guy said, and John guessed that was his name.

“John.”

“How old are you?”

“Sixteen.”

Zebra smiled. His teeth were black and white, striped like a zebra. “You like it?” he said, pointing to his teeth. “We can do yours that way, too. You want?”

John shook his head. “My mom would kill me.”

Zebra laughed; a shocking sound in the concrete building. “Go on and make your bed, Johnny. You like being called Johnny?” he asked. “That what your mommy calls you?”

“Not really,” John said. Not since he was a baby, anyway.

“You’ll be all right in here, Johnny,” he said, reaching out and ruffling John’s hair so hard that John had to tilt to the