“You do this, Jaxon,” Finley had solemnly said with a cool, fixed gaze, “and whatever you want, it’s yours.”

He made it sound like it was a choice.

It wasn’t.

He was given the weapon, and it was the saddest looking thing he’d ever seen: a melted toothbrush with a pointed tip. He concealed it up his sleeve and walked around the yard, circling the one man that’d exhausted Finley’s patience and had been copped with a death wish. The middle-aged man, covered head to toe in tattoos, was smoking a cigarette beside his own gang, completely unaware that his life was hanging in the balance.

Jaxon was on auto pilot, circling him like a shark would circle its pray, and waited for the opportunity to strike. It felt like forever before the man abandoned his group to head to the toilets. Jaxon shot Finley a glance, and Finley gave him one single nod.

Jaxon took off after him. He couldn’t help the shaking in his arms as the man disappeared inside the toilets.

Fuck.

Fuck.

Fuck, he didn’t want to do this.

He stepped inside, heart ramming inside his chest, and approached the man at the urinal with his back to him. Jaxon watched, trying his fucking hardest not to fold under the pressure. He wanted to get out of here. He needed protection. He needed the chance to find her.

Then he just… did it.

He couldn’t even remember what happened in detail. It was as if his brain shut off, unaccepting its reality.

All he remembered was putting his arm around the guy’s neck… and then… and then he was looking down at the man on the floor and at the toothbrush plunged straight into his heart. He felt pain in his arms and glanced down at them; at the scratches and the red bruises forming all over them, having no fucking recollection of the struggle the man had put him through. He absorbed what he’d done for half a minute before turning away with a horrified shudder.

Just as the guard promised, there was a clean uniform in one of the stalls. Not wanting to see what his hands had been capable of, Jaxon rapidly changed into it. Sure, the man had been convicted of multiple murders and nobody would miss him, but that didn’t make what he just did right. He didn’t have time to sort his emotions out in this fucked up toilet stall. He had to appear like the indifferent errand boy or else this had all been for nothing.

He left the toilets and was hurrying back to Finley, trying to calm his shattered mind from the shock of what he’d done. His whole body was shaking, and his adrenaline was still soaring high. He walked and walked and then he heard it… the sound of a man crying nearby. He stopped abruptly and followed the sounds to the corner of the yard where a thin and tall man sat, covered head to toe in bruises with his hands over his inch long hair.

Jaxon recognized him immediately. He was the fish he’d seen many times before getting dragged to the toilets. And now he was sobbing shamelessly like his world had collapsed – and he was doing it out in the bloody open of all fucking places!

“Are you a fucking idiot?” Jaxon snapped.

The startled man looked up. “Please don’t… don’t…” He put his arms up, shielding himself from him.

“I’m not going to fucking hit you,” Jaxon retorted. “You wipe that shit off your face now. You cry like a pussy and you’re going to be dead before the week is out.”

“What the fuck do I care? They’ve fucked me up already.” The man bitterly wiped his hands across his face.

Jaxon noticed the stiffness in his body. Too in pain to sit upright properly, he copped it good.

“Who fucked you?”

The man didn’t respond.

Jaxon sighed and looked around. He really should just fucking leave this fish. The last thing he needed was to give a shit about him.

“Tell me who it was and I promise they’ll never touch you again,” Jaxon said.

The man looked up at him in surprise. “You’re not going to hurt me?”

Jaxon frowned. That’s all he’d done in this fucking piece of shit place: hurt people and then himself. And now look at the blood on his hands.

“No, I’m not gonna hurt you. What’s your name?”

“Dean.”

“What are you in here for?”

“I took the fall for a drug bust. They guarantee if I make it out of here, I’m part of them. But that’s a big fucking ‘if’ now.” The man’s anger shone as he plucked out pieces of grass from the ground.

Jaxon pitied him. He had a pretty face, but no muscle anywhere on his body. Easy target for the mongrels around them.

Maybe he did it to appease his guilt, or maybe he was trying to keep intact what little moral value he still had. The words fell out of him. “No one’s going to touch you again. You have my protection.”

“And what do you want in return?” The man looked warily up at him.

What did Jaxon want more than anything? Other than the girl who’d stolen his heart?

“Your trust… and some favours when the time comes.”

Fifteen

Still naked, I curled into a ball with the covers around me. I stared at a chipped corner of the night table as if it was telling me the answers of the universe. A hysterical laugh escaped my lips as I pondered the events of my life. You couldn’t write this shit down.

Just as quickly, I bit down on my lip and fought the tears. Why was I always so damn weak? Why did I have to cry this much? I didn’t want to be this emotional. I didn’t want to feel, period. Feeling meant bad things. What is it with emotions, anyway? Loving someone gives them the power to hurt you. I hurt and have been hurt back in the process. Was this some sick form of karma? Was five years away from Jaxon, miserable and aching, not enough of a punishment for what I did to him? Now I had to love another man and suffer this on top of it all?

Despite my flair for melodrama, I didn’t want to die. I tried to think about how I could walk out of this undetected. My stupidity would have only been a push for the Jackals to be extra attentive in the surveillance room. Barge might have gotten a scolding about it, and now that they were aware of what I’d done, they were probably going to be all over me. Walking out of here undetected was out of the question.

I couldn’t even pick up the phone and call the police. I’d seen enough police officers stopping by just out front of the perimeters to collect their extra income on the side. Money to buy their silence. The Jackals were set up, rolling (more like scuba diving) in cash, and owned everyone. In all the months I was here, I’d never seen any illegal activity within these walls. They knew what they were doing to a tee.