She looked up into my face, looking for more signs of pain, but I didn’t flinch again. The last time was a fluke. You didn’t feel pain when you were already dead inside, and I’d been dead for the last ten years.

Most of the fights I’d gotten into were nothing. It was just me trying to show everyone that I could protect myself. I hated the fighting. Hated everything about it. The men fought me hard, punching me when I gave them a chance, but these days, I didn’t even feel their hits anymore. I didn’t feel anything except for when I was with Lyla. Maybe that was why I was becoming addicted to her.

She was a drug. She made me high, and I waited every day for another hit of her. Closing my eyes, I breathed her in as I listened to Prichard, the inmate I’d fought, bitching on the other side of the infirmary.

“The motherfucker broke my nose, Doc!” he yelled.

I grinned to myself when Lyla turned away to take a blood-soaked gauze to the red Hazmat bag. The mouthy fucker deserved it. He should’ve known better than to come at me. It wasn’t my fault he’d found out his wife was fucking another dude on the outside, and he should’ve known I wasn’t going to back down when he decided to take his anger out on the person in front of him in the chow line.

When she came back into my curtained space with the doctor, he looked over my cuts and then told the COs to return me to my cell.

Thank fuck. One more time I’d gotten away with it without being put in the hole. I knew my chances were running slim.

The COs nudged me to my feet and then escorted me out. The loud doors shut behind me, and we began walking down the block toward my cell.

“Damn, man, she was looking hot today. Her ass is begging for my dick. I’d like to bend her sweet ass over and show her what a real man can do,” Officer Parks said as if I were deaf and couldn’t hear him.

He reached down and adjusted his balls, making anger and disgust roll through my gut.

“No shit,” Officer Stone agreed. “I want to shove my dick down her throat and make the bitch face fuck me. I swear, if I ever get her alone in a dark place somewhere around here…” He chuckled. “Some place where they’ll never hear her screams.”

And just like that, I was done.

My face fell, and the anger that was simmering in my stomach exploded. It filled me, rushing through my veins like hot lava and heating them to a dangerous point.

There was once a nurse who accused Officer Stone of rape, but nothing ever came from it. Instead, she’d lost her job and I’d never seen her again.

When I thought of them doing those things to Lyla, I could feel myself losing control. My body began to shake, and, without realizing it, I began to pull at the restraints holding my hands together.

“I say we tag team that ass. No one would believe her with both of us saying she’s a liar.”

They laughed, and I snapped.

The room around me faded away, and all I saw was red. I turned on them, pulling away from them with a growl and making them step back in surprise. They grabbed for their batons. They knew pepper spray wouldn’t work on me. It’d been used on me too many times already.

I reached for Officer Stone, my cuffed hands going around his slim neck, and I didn’t even feel it when Officer Parks began to beat me in the back unmercifully with his baton.

Stone’s face turned red as I choked the life out of him. When I couldn’t take the aggravation of Parks hitting me anymore, I turned on him. I yanked the baton from his hands and beat him, each hit releasing some of the anger within.

In the distance, I heard the alarms ringing and the other inmates in their cells egging me on, but I pushed it all out of my mind. Instead, I continued to beat the two officers until they were on the ground at my feet.

Their faces morphed into one bloody mass, but I didn’t stop… I couldn’t stop. The monster had been freed, and he was hungry for revenge and chaos.

I felt arms on me, pulling at me, trying to stop me, but I turned and pushed them away. It wasn’t until one of the COs struck me in the nuts that I was brought to my knees.

I gazed up, seeing several COs standing around me before they all moved to attack. It didn’t matter that I’d stopped beating Stone and Parks. I’d attacked two of their own… and that meant I was in for the worse ass beating of my life.

They all beat me at the same time, their fists and batons hitting me everywhere until I was flat on the concrete floor. I felt my skin splitting, old wounds opening, and I could smell the blood all around me.

Flashes of the past rumbled through my mind. The murders—the dead eyes that stared back at me after I’d mutilated their bodies. Sarah.