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Sebastian leaned away. His rumbling laugh made Rory shudder.

“Keep your head down? Don’t go saying that outside this cell either.” Sebastian snorted. “If you’re still here on Friday, I’ll be surprised, really surprised.”

Rory frowned. “Where else can I go?”

“The morgue.” Sebastian smirked. “Now there’s an idea…”

He sat on his bunk, out of sight. Rory tensed as he lay down and bit his lip as he waited for Sebastian’s arms to shoot up from beneath and strangle him.

3

Rory had been insidefor five days, and he knew one thing for certain.

Sebastian Clawhatedhim.

He tried to strike up safe conversation, but Sebastian always argued against him. One afternoon, Rory jokingly complained about the sausages tasting of rubber, only for Sebastian to call him ungrateful and promise to tell the inmates serving to spit in Rory’s food.

When he complimented the sun in the sky, Sebastian growled that it was too hot for him and he was sweating buckets, then he threw his damp towel at Rory’s face. Rory hadn’t been expecting it and inhaled Sebastian’s bitter sweat.

Any opinion—food, films, books, games—Sebastian had the opposing one. There was no common ground, and the five days felt a lot longer, more like five weeks of constantly hitting a brick wall, constantly being forced back, and being on edge. Never being able to say or do the right thing.

Outside the cell, Rory stayed close to Ollie and Captain. The three of them were their own group—one of many. Sebastian didn’t have a group as such. He didn’t always sit with the same people at breakfast, lunch and dinner, and out in the yard he refereed football for another group. He could move between most at ease, always welcome, but there were a few groups he didn’t approach, like Pauly’s table of thugs.

Any argument or scuffle on the wing, the inmates looked to Sebastian to sort it out, and things were usually cleared up without them all being forced back into their cells. He’d call out ‘enough’ or tell the inmates to ‘settle it in the gym’, which Rory found out meant boxing until someone forfeited and admitted defeat.

The officers didn’t intervene—they allowed the controlled fights, which were popular with all the inmates piling in to watch, to go ahead. Rory and Ollie kept to the back of the gym as a fight went ahead over a trivial argument that had erupted into threats on the wing.

Sebastian refereed and declared the eventual winner without protest from the defeated inmate or any of the men watching.

He held power in the wing, a respect that hadn’t been mentioned in the report Rory was made to study before he entered the prison.

There was no way in, no chance to get close.

Sebastian was as locked down as the prison itself.

Another scream woke Rory in the night, and he sat upright, pressing his hand to his heart. Captain’s calls echoed, butnothing he said ever made sense. It was garbled, muffled, and that made it even more unnerving.

“Poor bastard,” Sebastian mumbled.

“I know.”

“You should convince him to see the doc.”

“He doesn’t want to. Said he deserves to suffer.”

Sebastian snorted. “Can’t he find a way to suffer in silence? You know, not take us all down with him?”

Rory didn’t reply.

“How long’s he in for?” Sebastian asked.

“Five years.”

Sebastian rubbed his chin, deep in thought. “Is that all? I wonder what he did.”

“No idea.”

“It’s funny, isn’t it?”

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