Page 23 of Unspoken Lies

“Reyes, let’s go. It’s time to head to the exercise yard. Get your ass moving. Let’s go, cell block B!”

The prison guard has a variety of different weapons on his belt to get me to move, and it’s frankly not worth the trouble to fight it. Maybe some sunlight will help perk me up, though I doubt it.

My prison sentence states that I’ll be here until I’m an old man. I don’t want to hear about how Liliana moved on with someone else, but I also don’t want her to be alone forever. She has so much love to give, I fucking hate that Rachelle and I both left her.

My footsteps are heavy as I walk to the exercise yard. We get twenty minutes out here until we have to return, but I do what I can in my cell at night when I can’t sleep to keep up my strength.

My body is built differently than when I was in school. There’s a brutal power to it that I never had before. I keep my head down whenever possible, but there are moments when inmates think that they can fuck with me. My punches are now their own death sentence, and I killed a man who jumped me within my first four months of prison.

I went to solitary confinement for several weeks, and it gave me a peace I doubt was meant for me. I went to a place where Rachelle was alive in my mind and we were with Lili. I walked out smiling like a mad man, and there were murmurs that I was a crazy motherfucker.

I am one, just not for the reasons that I’m in prison. I keep to myself while in here, but glance up as I walk into the sunshine of the yard. Men mill around in groups as they talk, yet my gaze is pulled to a man with poofy hair and beady eyes that remind me of a ferret.

Theo’s newspaper stunt stayed with me, and I clipped a photo of the man who hurt Rachelle when she was too young to be able to protect herself. Then I memorized his face, his cruel smirk as he walked free in one of the photos my ex-lover and best friend found, and his high cheekbones.

Colton fucking Baal. He’s an evil motherfucker, and is currently chuckling as he speaks to one of the Aryan Brotherhood gang members. I’ve never seen him before, but that doesn’t mean anything since I’ve been in such a funk while I’ve been in prison.

I used to depend on Theo to get the tea and everyone around me, and now I don’t even care anymore. Until now.

“Reyes, what are you looking at?” someone hisses under his breath. Glancing over, I see that it’s my cellmate, Henderson.

“What do the Aryans think about pedophiles?” I ask under my breath in return. “Would they miss a piece of shit like that?”

“Hey, this is prison, we don’t get attached,” he mutters. “How do you know that he’s a pedophile?”

“He’s in prison for raping my stepsister,” I reply softly. “His name is Colton, right?”

“I know him as Baal, but I’ve heard others use that name,” he confirms. “You’ve got a crazy fucking look in your eyes, man.”

“Don’t worry about it,” I murmur. “I’m good.”

Glancing away so I won’t accidentally make eye contact with the bastard, I decide to take a walk. Others are doing the same to stretch their legs, and everyone is ignoring them. I carry one weapon with me at all times, and it’s cliched.

However, the shiv I made is a security blanket. I made it after my stint in solitary confinement, which means I’ve never lost it to getting caught with it on my person. There are a variety of places I can hide it in my orange jumpsuit.

I’m not worried about it. I just need to bide my time as I stalk slowly around the yard. Occasionally, there will be fights that break out between factions, and I hope fate will smile down on me.

A few people jostle each other, but it’s not enough to explode into a fight. Growling under my breath, I curse fate because she’s a fucking bitch. Always messing with everyone’s lives, never giving anyone a damn break.

“Bring it in!” the senior guard on duty yells.

Now, I could stir up shit with the fact that Colton is a pedophile. But what if someone kills him before I can get to him? Fuck, I have a new hyperfixation to swallow up my whole fucking life, and since it’s not much of one now, that’s fine by me.

Swallowing hard, I decide this isn’t going to be my best moment to kill the bastard, so I amble back inside the prison walls. Colton has a definite in with the Aryans, smirking at something one of them says to him.

“File in quietly,” the senior officer reprimands.

I watch and wait, paying attention to every movement Colton makes, where he goes and when. Some prisoners here have some kind of job, though I don’t. My depression has marked me as someone to watch, too dangerous to allow to work.

It fit my mood to be feared even by the guards typically, until today. I want to fuck this guy up with my heavy boots on my feet.A good ole fashion curb stomping would bring happiness to my dead, black heart.

My smile makes the inmates around me flinch, and a pocket of space surrounds me.

The hours stretch interminably, yet now that I’ve seen Colton, I notice him a lot more. I don’t know how I didn’t see the saggy dick before.

“You’re stalking him now?” Henderson asks, blowing out a breath.

“Mmhmm,” I grunt, cracking my knuckles.