Hope didn’t reside in Fulton. There was no such thing as a better day. There was only despair and fear. It thrived throughout the walls and into the ground to the point where Satan himself wouldn’t dare enter.

We were all sinners. We all had secrets. When they finally released me from the infirmary and I was being escorted to the hole for what I had done to the COs, I passed the cells of hundreds of inmates. I cast a look into each one, seeing things the COs pretended not to see. Seeing what we really were.

Evil.

A few inmates looked at me and smiled, showing their appreciation for what I’d done to the COs, while other practically hissed through the bars holding them in.

“X on the block!” an inmate called out from somewhere above me.

Things came flying at me from different directions. Most of it was harmless—paper balls, wads of trash, and wrappers from the canteen. The COs pushed through the chaos, dragging me along with them.

Finally, we left the block and entered the darker part of Fulton. The hole was black, dark with shadows and grime. To be placed in solitary confinement was the equivalent of being shut in an inescapable cinderblock box. The walls closed in on you inch by excruciating inch while your mind started to do the same thing. As the space got smaller, your mind started to drift off to unknown, strange places. And if left there long enough, you walked out not sure if it was all a bad fucking nightmare or reality.

The air was musty and damp. The smell of a decaying basement flooded my nostrils. The crumbling tiles echoed in the guts of the withering dungeon as my feet shuffled along the floor. When we came to my door, the sound of rusted hinges whined when they opened it. With an unsettling stride, I walked in. As one CO watched my every move, a hand poised on his baton, the other bent over to unlatch me from my restraints.

I rubbed my hands over my leathery wrists, burned by how tight they’d made the cuffs. As they shut the door to my solitary confinement, I relaxed for a moment and prepared my mind for the mental disconnect I would surely feel once I’d spent some time in the fucking place. I closed my eyes and imagined I was in my own cell. Only in my own cell did I feel somewhat at home, and I hadn’t been in there since before my attack on the COs.

I sat in the darkness and rested my head in my hands. By then, I was sure the entire prison would know I’d saved the pretty redhead in medical. They would think I was getting soft, which meant there would be hell to pay when I got out of the hole.

I didn’t regret saving her, but I did regret forming any kind of attachment to anyone or anything, and I’d definitely done that with Lyla. Prison wasn’t a place for that. Forming attachments was dangerous because it gave the other inmates leverage. It didn’t pay to have any weaknesses in prison, and Lyla had become one for me… whether she knew it or not.

A WEEK.

That was how long I was stuck in the darkness of the hole. It was a disgusting place. One filled with vermin and feces. There was no such thing as being comfortable. There was no such thing as clean. The hole was meant to be torture, and it was.

And worse than the hole was the fact that I spent most of my time there thinking about Lyla. I craved her sunny disposition and the life she brought into the room. I longed to hear her tiny giggle or see her sweet smile. Simply put, I wanted her to quit. I hoped that when I got out and put back into my cell, I’d find out from Scoop that she’d ran and never looked back. At the same time, I knew her leaving meant I would have nothing to look forward to anymore.

Time in prison was different than time outside. Days felt like weeks and weeks felt like years, but my week in the hole felt more like ten years. When they finally opened the door to let me out, the light stung my eyes and my legs ached from disuse when I walked back to my cell.

Once I was back in my cell, I stood in the middle of my space and stared at the wall adorned with my signatures. I counted the Xs to myself almost every day, mourning the sight of them.

Stepping closer to the wall, I ran my fingers over their roughness and lowered my head in sadness. I’d never wanted any of this. I never wanted to hurt anyone, but they were always pushing me—always attacking.

Why couldn’t they just let me serve my time in peace?

Going back to my bed, I pulled out my trusty screw and began etching three new Xs into the wall—two for the COs and one for Carlos. My jaw ached as I clenched my teeth together. Etching the Xs felt like I was etching into my soul, digging myself a hole deeper and deeper to hell.

Once I was done, I sat on my bed and put my screw back into its place.

Three hundred and forty-six.

That was how many fights I’d been in since I got to Fulton. How many times I’d lost myself and hurt another human being. That included the two murders I’d committed.