A concrete box. Thin mattress on the floor like a coffin lid, a toilet in the corner, and walls that were decorated with claw marks from previous occupants. My heart slammed harder because I knew what was waiting in there. Not just silence, but something bleaker.
The guards shoved me inside as the door clanged shut. Darkness, broken only by a slit of artificial light through the vent. I turned quickly, slamming my hands against the coldness of the door.
“Tell that prick he'd better be waiting for me when I get out of this. He’s as good as dead.” But the rage didn’t leave. It didn’t dissolve in the dark or slink away into the corners. No, it sat down beside me like an old friend.
Time stopped meaning anything in solitary. There was no clock, no sun, no outside noise beyond the occasional distant clank of a food tray or a shout muffled by layers of concrete.
I counted the lines in the bricks, thirty-seven stacked up from floor to ceiling on the longest wall. I traced them with my eyes until I could see them even when I closed them. Then I’d start over.
Sleep didn’t come right. It came jagged. I’d doze for minutes, maybe hours, wake up with my heart pounding and my fists clenched like I’d been fighting in dreams I couldn’t remember.On the second or third day, things started to shift. I could feel it happening, but didn’t want it to stop.
At first, it was just my own voice in my head. Telling myself I’d get through this. That it wasn’t the worst thing I’d been through. I think this is how movie villains are made. Stick 'em in solitary, stand back, and watch the demons descend. Or that’s how it felt.
It wasn’t until the voice that spoke back to me one day… wasn’t mine. Or it was, but it was twisted, like the edge of a blade pressed just under the skin. He’d whisper to me.
You’re not breaking mate.He’d whisper.You’re protecting yourself.
I felt like I had lost it, maybe I already had. But I’d talk to him, to me, under my breath. But he’d ask questions I didn’t want to answer.
Why didn’t you end him when you had the chance? It would have been easy. All that blood could have saved you.
Why didn’t you burn that house down with them inside while they slept? The screaming would have been like a symphony to your ears.
You let them touch you? Run their lips over your skin? Let them fuck you? Clawing with their dirty hands.
It was becoming increasingly difficult to ignore him, flooding my mind with visions. The darkening shadow looming over me was starting to feel comfortable. As the days went on, I began to give it more control over my mind in the silence of my cell. Had this part of me always existed? Just remained dormant until this very moment. This version of me was ready to be unleashed from its cage, like a ravaged dog that had been starved, and I was happy to sit back and let it cause chaos.
The door opened with a hiss like a beast breathing in. Light leaked into the dark, stabbing at my eyes. A smirk crawled onto my face as I just stared through it, past the guards, past the corridor.
“Let’s go, McCabe.” My legs moved, heavy and stiff like they forgot what walking felt like. My wrists burned where the cuffs dug into my skin. The guards yanked me forward, back down the corridor. No one spoke on the walk back. The guards watching my every move. Not like they used to. Not like a kid who might mouth off or swing if pushed too far. Now they watched me like a threat, unsure if I should’ve been let out at all.
I didn’t say a word on the walk back to my cell. Other lads stopped in their tracks as the guards led me through the cell block. Solitary had changed me. It had stripped the softness that was left, the thin, fraying thread between me and the things I used to care about. It took the last of that and left something else in its wake. My revenge had grown teeth in the silence, and it was hungry.
They dropped me back in my cell, the bunk opposite still vacant after Malik’s release. I guess they held off giving me another cellmate. But I welcomed it. Let them enter the ring. Let’s see who’s left standing at the end of it all.
Around me, the block buzzed to life: loud voices, rushing footsteps, the guards' walkie-talkies emitting static noises somewhere down the hall. But in my head, it was calculating and planning, revising. Even Chester appeared, somewhere in the blur of it all, his voice echoing from some better version of me, warning me not to fall too far. I chuckled at the thought; it was too late for that. I wasn’t interested in being rescued anymore.
I wanted control, power, payback!
And there wasn’t going to be anyone who would stop me from getting it. Because when they put you in a box with nothing but your ghosts and your fury…you don’t come out the same.
I pulled myself from my bunk and followed the crowd into the dining hall as breakfast was called, catching sideways glances from other lads, faintly followed with whispers between them. There was only one person I was looking for, and by now I can imagine word has got around to Nate that I was out of solitary. I moved in line, shoulder to shoulder with the same faces, scanning the room, just waiting for him to crawl out of the woodwork.
I collected my tray and waited for them to fill it with the poor excuse for food. A scoop of something grey they called oats, a bruised banana, and burnt toast that could’ve passed for cardboard. I sat at my usual spot. Alone. The others I used to hang with had drifted into other social groups since Malik left. But I wasn’t there for small talk.
Across the hall, that’s where I saw Misfit lingering near the back wall. She was flicking glances in my direction, measuring my mood from across the room. I think she quickly got the memo, as a devilish smirk appeared on my face.
I should probably thank her, after all, I was trying to help her, trying to stop other lads from chewing her up and spitting her out. If it weren’t for her, I probably would have carried on drifting through this place until my release date.
My eyes locked on, following her around the room as she finished her food and dumped her tray. She moved oddly quick, like she had something to hide. Trying to ghost her way out the side door of the dining hall. I stood myself up from the table, leaving my tray in place.
“McCabe, tray!” One of the guards bellowed to me from the edges of the hall. I scoffed as I held out my arm, flipping them a middle finger as I left. Could’ve let her go. The better part ofme would have. But I didn’t want to. The door groaned shut behind me as I followed. My boots echoed off the concrete like a slow drumbeat. She turned halfway down the hall, her shoulders already squared.
“Oh. You,” turning back from me as she continued.
“Aw, you remembered me.” I brought my hand to my chest, gesturing a fake sense of sincerity as I flashed a grin. “Touched, really.” She didn’t reply, just stared with her jaw tight, eyes colder than the metal rails behind her.
“I was just coming to thank you,” slipping my hands into my pockets.
