Jose reached over, pulling Scoop’s head from the table and forcing him to look at him.

“Keep your nose out everyone’s business or the next place I’ll shove my cock is in your mouth. Got it?”

He dropped Scoop’s head back onto the table and again, Scoop clenched his eyes closed, blocking out the room around him.

In that moment, something inside me snapped. The room around me took on a red haze, and I felt myself shutting down. I was slipping into something dangerous. Something unknown or unseen, and I became afraid of myself. I was afraid of what I’d do when they finally let me loose, and at some point, they’d have to.

The towel cut into my neck and the floor beneath me was covered in my blood. I wasn’t sure how badly I was bleeding. I was numb. There was no pain. There was no ache. There was only the raw hate and anger that was rotting in my stomach.

Finally, the towel loosened enough for me to get away. I snatched the bloody towel from my capturers and turned on them, tearing into their faces with my fist in a way I never had before. I screamed with my attack like a madman, and my screams echoed through the room and out into the walkway outside the laundry.

I lunged toward Jose, but just as I moved, officers filled the room. They piled in with pepper spray and calling out codes. The alarms sounded, and more COs came pouring in. Soon, they had us all pinned to the floor with their knees in our backs. My eyes met Jose’s from across the room and I promised him without even speaking that as soon as I was loose, I was going to kill him.

I watched as they led Jose and his two half-naked men to the hole. Afterwards, they transported Scoop to the infirmary. His dead eyes flashed my way before he disappeared with the guards out of the laundry room. He’d pulled his pants back up, but they were covered in his blood, showing how badly Jose and his men had ripped him apart. They had violated him in the worse way possible, and I wasn’t sure Scoop was ever going to be able to come back from that.

SCOOP WAS IN the infirmary for three days following their attack. I was more worried about his mental status, though. Not many men could come back from that, and I prayed he’d overcome.

On the third day, I stood at the bars and watched as Reeves and Douglas returned him to his cell. He didn’t look my way. He didn’t blink. He just disappeared behind the cinderblock wall that separated us. The bars to his room clanked as they closed and slammed into place, locking him in.

For days he didn’t speak, not even to me. His eyes became shifty as he walked in the chow line with his head down and his shoulders hunched. He quit eating, spending breakfast, lunch, and dinner poking at his food rather than consuming it.

My friend became a shell of himself, hollow and void of even a glimmer of the old Scoop. I stayed beside him, guarding him and hoping he’d be able to shake it, but every day, there was the same silence.

At night, I’d lay awake and listen to him crying from his cell. He never slept anymore, and it showed. His eyes grew darker and more lifeless, his lids getting heavier as time went by.

As the week after the attack stretched on, I silently planned my attack on Jose and his men when they were finally released from the hole. When I wasn’t planning, I was worrying about Scoop and Lyla. It was a never-ending cycle that I couldn’t manage to break.

Finally, on the fifth night after his attack, Scoop spoke.

“Hey, X,” he whispered from the side of his cell.

“Yeah?”

“I want you promise me something,” he muttered, sadness etched deep in his voice.

I swallowed, not liking the way he sounded. “Anything.” I rolled over, facing the cinderblock wall as if I could see him through it.

“Promise no matter what you’ll take care of yourself. I don’t want anything happening to you.”

I sat up, my eyes scanning the darkness around me. “Come on, bro, you know you don’t have to worry about me,” I said playfully, trying my hardest to sound like him.

He chuckled darkly from his cell, and the weight on my chest lifted a bit. A hush settled over the room, and I assumed he’d fallen asleep.

“X,” he said again.

“Yeah?”

“I miss my family. I miss my wife and my daughter. You know they quit coming to see me?”

“No. I didn’t know that. I’m sorry to hear that.”

“Yeah, I’m sorry, too.”

I’d forgotten that Scoop had a family outside. He knew so much about everyone else, but he rarely mentioned anything about himself.

I smiled at the thought of him getting out and hugging his baby girl. He would get to see them again. Unlike me, he wasn’t serving a life sentence.