Freedom

Part 3: What Are You In For?

It would ultimately end in his game of who would throw in the their cards and forfeit the winning title of "Hard To Get". While Danica was unaccustomed to having to persuade a romantic candidate to give in to her sway, she knew that she enjoyed how much attention she was receiving on his end. Dinner had been very interesting, and Danica felt that he had come close to breaking. His tightened knuckles on her knee and the mangled sigh in her ear gave her an inkling that he wasn't as aloof about his sexual urges as he portrayed. Jerome, indeed, was as attracted to her as she was to him.

Aside from an array of beauty, Danica didn't quite know what about her that made him tick. However, he struck her like a grandfather clock strikes 12. Their interactions went like this for a couple more days-now it had been a week strong.

The flirting and mild touching didn't go unnoticed by the guards; though they didn't raise much of a fuss in light that whether the inmates enjoyed each other's company or hated the fuck out of everyone-whatever happened in the Asylum stayed in the Asylum.

The other inmates, however, did not feel the same way.

Greenwood, Danica observed, had taken interest in her-the cannibal who "infamously" ate a dozen women for breakfast, etc. and insisted that he could live out his life going by his rule of just that. Greenwood was about as smart as a dumb of rocks, perverted, dangerous, and...

*His cheese slid off his cracker a long time ago*, Danica thought disdainfully as she watched him lower his face into a bowl of grits, resembling a pot-bellied pig.

Breakfast. Most people consider this as their favorite meal of the day. Aside from the bland bowl of crunchy grits, a dry biscuit, an apple, and a black coffee-*Oh, yeah, a feast for Kings*. She couldn't block out the negative feed in her head as she scowled at Greenwood. *A king*, she scoffed thoughtfully, *Fucking king of the Narrows*.

Danica pushed her plate away again.
*Nope.*
As if the song of the tray being scraped against the table was the cue, Greenwood lumbered toward her and sat down beside her, *the lump of a man.*

*Ugh, if I eat this, maybe I'll die before he opens his mouth and says anything*.
See, that was positive. Good job, Danica.

"How ya' doin, Danny?"

*Fuck. I shouldn't eaten it.*

Without looking at him, she replied,
"My name is not Danny. It's Danica. Pronounced 'Duh-Nye-Kuh.' However," she added, "If I even liked that name, you wouldn't be calling me that, now would you, Tubby?"

Greenwood frowned.
"I eat women like you."

"You're probably not very good at it since you're in here, huh?" Danica snapped, staring at her plate. "They're probably better off."

He leaned forward.

"Don't knock it 'til you try it."
"I've never had a man like you."
"Wanna go for a test drive?"
Danica turned to him in full on disgust, unable to handle his shit any longer.

"Fuck. Off." Danica said firmly, glaring at him.

He didn't get the memo. He picked up her apple, turned it on its side, and his tongue protruded to flick the stem of the apple, mimicking apparently his favorite thing about women.

Danica smacked the apple into his face, emitting from him an amused, but pained laugh.

"Fuck off," she reiterated. "I'm not interested."

"Why, baby? I'm more man than that scrawny carrot top you've been talking to-"

Danica indicated his portly belly with a cruel laugh, "Finally something that we can agree upon!"