isPc
isPad
isPhone
Caged In (Caged Prison #1) 21 55%
Library Sign in

21

Day two of lockdown.

Another frickin’ day, stuck in a tiny cell, with nothing to do. Nothing but listening to Reni gossip about anything—and everything—that’s been going down in prison. Including the new perfume of the guard, Missy, who works in Med-Wing. Apparently they have specifically allocated guards who look after Med-Wing and nothing else. One of the guards is shady and you can buy shit off him. Izz kind of zoned out at that point. There is only so much gossip he can take before he’ll breakdown and start screaming.

The guards allow the kitchen inmates to leave their cells to cook for the rest of them. Dragging trolleys through the Wings to feed everyone in their cells. The library is also still open, guess the guards want the inmates to be occupied and not strangle their cellmates. Commissary and the library inmates working together to deliver reading material and goods. If you paid for them of course, the prison still wants to make their money, even when one of their guards is killed.

“ . . . must have been a guard. Bet it was that psychopath who did it,” Reni muses from his bunk, hanging upside down over the edge as he plays collect the dust bunnies on the floor.

Guess again.

Izz winces at his cellmate’s obsessive chattering. He knows Reni is referring to Sinn'ous. He also knows it’s wrong. It hadn’t been Sinn'ous who did it, isn’t any of the known murderers in here. Nope. Just one sad pathetic excuse of a thief . . .

He scrubs at his face, trekking over to splash some water on himself. Trying to wash away the sin he committed. It doesn’t help. The guard is still dead. He’s still a murderer.

Did the guard have a family? Children? People who care about him—

“Yo, Izz man. Got you something.” Erik is standing outside the cell door, a trolley filled with books and commissary items by his side.

“What?” Izz hadn’t ordered anything, he has no money and he certainly isn’t borrowing any books. He’d rather watch the paint fleck off the walls than read a long droning book—or novel—or whatever the bookworms call them these days.

Erik holds up a deck of cards, slipping the stack between the bars for Izz to take.

He stays frozen by the sink, sceptically scrutinising the paper cards. “I didn’t order anything.”

Erik must have made a mistake in the deliveries. Has to be . . . right?

“They’re for you, from . . .” The side glace Erik swiftly flashes down the platform fills Izz in on who they’re from.

Sinn'ous.

Izz wanders over, plucking the cards from Erik, ignoring the sad look Erik gives him. He’s not interested in anyone telling him it’s a bad idea getting so close with a serial killer. For one, he is well aware he’s playing with his sanity and his life. And secondly, how does he even know Sinn'ous is a serial killer? There is no evidence, and Sinn'ous had helped him with the guard . . .

Who is he trying to fool? You only have to look into Sinn'ous’s eyes to see the darkness lurking beneath. The obvious cold danger prowling right at the surface, waiting for the next naive innocent fool to walk by.

Izz hopes it’s not him.

Sinn'ous said he likes you, he’s intrigued by you. He’s not interested in killing you. The little voice in Izz’s head tries to reassure.

Who’s to say Sinn'ous didn’t lie. Serial killers lie, don’t they? If they didn’t lie, they wouldn’t be able to hide their secrets. And that’s an important talent to have—when you kill people—you have to lie so you don’t incriminate yourself. He’s guessing, he has no idea. He’s never been in a real murder investigation, or an interrogation. He’s only ever seen it on TV. Who’s to say they don’t have mind-reading robots questioning you these days?

He’s becoming stir-crazy. There is no stimulus in this cell. He can’t stop his mind running and ruminating over everything that’s happened to him, and what’s going to happen to him—if anyone finds out. How much longer will he survive in this Hell-hole?

“You want to play a game?” Izz jostles the cards in Reni’s direction. Needing something to focus on.

Reni grins, clapping his hands together like he’s about to win big. “Hell yeah I do.”

~~~

The days are blurring together. Time melding and mixing into a disarray that Izz can’t distinguish. His sleep patterns are off. His appetite is practically non-existent. Even with the snacks Sinn'ous has been sending his way. His stomach is a twisted mess, unable to hold anything down before it comes back up to say hello. Like some twisted morbid game his stomach is playing with his mind.

His throat is killing him, probably to do with the stomach acid burning its path out. His cellmate thinks he has a virus, he has no intentions of correcting the facts.

Guilt. Izz has guilt. No virus bug going around. Just your old-fashioned guilt. Nauseating and thick, filled with dark thoughts and a depressing realisation that he is capable of murder.

He’s not a hardened criminal. If his behaviour over the past—however long it’s been—is any indication, he would make a terrible mob member. No Mafia wants a guy who falls off the deep end over a murder some would say was self-defence. How would he survive a murder in cold blood? An innocent target he was sent to kill—

This line of thinking is not helping Izz’s anxiety and every other crappy emotion racing through his psyche. His emotions are a ticking time bomb. One he fears will end in a confession. Words he never wants to utter. Not when it will surely end his life. No way will any of the guards let it slide. He will be another ‘tragic prison suicide’, which no one will investigate. It will be brushed aside, the public won’t care, and the guards will get away with killing him.

It isn’t helping with Reni spitting out different types of conspiracy theories. Going on and on about who could have done it. Hits from gangs, drug deals gone sideways. A love affair coming to an end—he has to give his cellmate credit on that one, it is very close to the truth. A little too close for comfort.

During the long stretch of lockup, the only upside to Reni being his cellmate is how easily he can be distracted. Izz doesn’t want to hear about the murder, but he fears he’d sound suspicious if he flat out told Reni to stop talking about it. So he keeps quiet and resorts to playing card games to try to divert his cellmate off the topic. Ninety nine percent of the time it works, and his cellmate forgets about the guard’s murder. Too engrossed in winning the games to focus on the who-done-it side of things.

If only I could forget so easily . . .

Izz convinces Erik to deliver Sinn'ous a message, He’d had to write it down, as the skinny inmate refused to talk to the serial killer. He’d found the little joint he’d completely forgotten about, stashed away in its little hiding place. Ready to numb his mind for an hour or two, all he needs is a way to light it. And so, he sends a message to Sinn'ous to politely request one.

~~~

It’s been a week. A week since Izz . . . murdered . . . He’s finding it hard to sleep, every time he closes his eyes or the lights shut off, he can see the guard. Lying in a puddle of blood. Unmoving. Lifeless. Dead.

No matter how many times Izz tries to save the guard in his dreams, he can never do it. The guard always dies. The dreams always end in blood. He always wakes up in a panicked frenzy covered in a cold sweat. The only upside, in the—some could argue, self-imposed—lockdown is his new clothing. No longer the stand-out orange newcomer. He is an official member of the prison crew. A criminal home among other criminals. A murderer behind bars . . .

How long will the guilt last?

Will it never leave? Is this his life from now on? Never able to sleep without seeing the guard’s face. Without reliving the events that transpired in the filing room. Without wishing and hoping for time to rewind and the incident never to occur.

Will the guilt leave if he confesses? Or will that only make it worse? He needs someone to talk to. Someone to help him make sense of everything he’s done, everything he’s feeling—

He cuts off his thoughts. Demanding them to focus elsewhere. He’s desperate to take a proper shower. Sick of having to wash in the sink. He would give almost anything to take an actual shower. He feels tacky and gross.

How did people survived back in the days before showers were invented? He couldn’t have done it, he’d have found a waterfall or something—anything—to wash the icky sensations away. He’s unsure if it’s the lack of a shower, or that he can still smell the metallic stench of blood on his hands—

A clunking bang signals the cell door opening, for the first time since lockdown started. The bars sliding back, the prison beyond awaiting the inmates’ return.

Does this mean the lockdown has lifted? Does this mean they didn’t find any evidence to link him to the murder? Surely he would already have been dragged out of his cell by now if they found anything on the body to incriminate him. Surely?

Izz wants to sprint straight to the showers, firstly however, he has someone he wants to talk to.

He follows Reni out the door, his cellmate paying little attention, talking a mile a minute about going to the Rec-Room—must be the room with the TV they played cards in a lifetime ago? He can’t believe he hasn’t been in here for a year, it isn’t even close to six months. Too much has happened in too short a time.

He has only one destination in mind, and it isn’t the Rec-Room. Ignoring Reni’s yelled attempts to gain his attention, Izz manoeuvres himself past the inmates heading in the opposite direction. Elbowing his way down the platform to the cell on the end. The Satanic cell that holds an inmate who he can talk to. To throw everything off his chest. He needs to expel it before it corrodes his soul further than it already has.

Legs numb and cold, breathing uneven and skin clammy. Izz edges down the line of cells, neither recognising nor taking note of the inmates he passes. His focus solely on his targeted goal . . .

He discovers an empty cell. The Satanic artworks hanging in all their glory. But their owner . . . The occupant of this particular cell . . . Gone . . .

Where could Sinn'ous be? The cells literally just opened. And the only way out is the stairs. The stairs Izz had passed on his way here. He had not seen Sinn'ous.

Had Sinn'ous been let out early? Or was Izz completely unobservant and walked right past him?

Guess I will take that shower after all.

Chapter List
Display Options
Background
Size
A-