EDITED…
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Moving on…
Julian Drake watched with fascination the new comer leaving the food hall. He'd been watching the shorty since he came inside with Hank.
Steevy had it coming, he thought. But then, who would have thought a tiny creature like John Cage would act the way he did. Julian chuckled and turned his attention to the stinky food in his plate.
"Amusing, isn't it?" Isaac, his loyal friend who had been sitting next to him, said.
"Don't you think so?" Julian asked his friend, raising both eyebrows. "I haven't been interested in so long."
"He is tiny for a what he just did. Good thing that guard sent him back and not Steevy, or else he would suffer so much later." Isaac jerked his chin toward Steevy's lackeys, “Specially from Steevy. He’s nasty!"
Julian turned to look at the group; a devious grin crossing his face. "Remember when I first came here." He said to his friend without looking away from Steevy's gang.
Isaac burst out laughing, not giving a damn about the havoc he was causing by doing that. "Are you kidding? Dude, no one could ever forget that day!" Isaac said between his loud laughs. "You literally wiped the fucking floor with his sorry ass. The man couldn't walk for a whole damn week." He was wiping his tears now.
Steevy's attention snapped into where they were, and a murderous sneer formed in his face as he narrowed his eyes at the two of them.
He would never act upon that facial expression though.
Julian and Isaac exchanged looks and then burst into laughter together at his glare and kept at it until Julian was slapping the table so hard while he gasped for air.
"ORDER!"
One of the guards bellowed. Julian straitened up in his chair, pursing his lips in a futile attempt to hold back his remaining laughter, and looked up at Isaac, "Yes sir." he chuckled the words out at the same time he raised his hand to salute the prison guard. The huge man just rolled his eyes and ignored them.
Julian and Isaac went back to eating, taking their sweet time. They weren't afraid of being late to lunch like the weaklings who kept looking over their shoulder every few seconds. No way, for they were the strong ones, the fearsome ones.
Julian was licking his spoon as he thought of how much fun he could get out of bullying the new recruit.
John Cage.
It was odd no one around here knew of him or even heard of him. This unite was known for holding the most dangerous men. Everyone was almost to severely famous. And even if he did something terrible, cute boys never get recruited here.
Because they simply never survived.
The judge must’ve been vengeful when he placed Cage in this specific facility, Julian thought musingly.
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Joanna woke up abruptly. She was still hugging her knees and sitting on her bed with her back against the cold wall. Her neck felt a bit stiff from leaning over her shoulder.
She was sweating and it wasn’t due to the weather, which was freezing. She just had one of her uneventful nightmares.
It was better to call them nightmares, instead of one of her past nauseating memories. The narrow cell was definitely not helping this matter.
She hated narrow spaces and she was doomed to spend the next year in one. The roof of the cell on top of her bed was too close that if she were to stand on her knees on top of her bed, she would end up with a nasty bump on top of her head. Every time she tried lying down, she felt suffocated.
Yes, it was horrible being claustrophobic.
The outside was too calm. Which was probably because no one were in their cells. All prisoners were spending this time in the outside yard, or that what she thought considering what the guards told her.
She'd do anything to be there instead of this vile hole. But then, being alone is what she was most comfortable with.
And yet, she hated quite.
Quite meant tragedy to her. The beating, the shouting, the screaming, they were all signs that they were still alive; but once it'd gotten quite, too quit, and she managed to open the closet's wooden door, they were already...
Shaking her head, Joanna tried to chase the dark memory away. She put her head between her knees and gave a long exhale before she lifted her head back up, thinking she needed something to busy herself with instead of drowning in her own darkness.
She leaned forward in her bed and started rummaging through the books she brought and took out her favorite, The Count of Monte Cristo. It was the first gift Pam, her aunt, gave her. She had cherished her memory ever since she died, the day when she finally realized just how important Pam was to her. She didn't tell her that though, or show her any love or care. It was one of her biggest regrets.
Looking at the rusty book now, Joanna laughed at the turn of events. Edmond Dantès, the hero in the story, was prisoned for something he didn't do. Sounds familiar, eh? She mused to her self.
She opened the book from the middle and started engulfing the book for possibly the hundredth time. She enjoyed it. She focused her thoughts in the series of events. It was more interesting than her own dull life. Dantès had a goal, and yes it was blood thirsty and cruel.
But she never had a goal, so she indulged in his.
She kept at it for while before a loud pound on the bars of her cell jerked her off. "What the hell?" She snapped at the man on the other side of the bars.
Her scowl turned into glare when she realized it was Kevin. She felt her generously bottled anger surfacing a bit.
"What is it now? Came to punish me some more?" She threw the book aside and started claiming down the bed.
"You really need to watch you attitude." Kevin said coldly in his deep tone.
"Attitude my ass!" She was almost shouting but she tried to keep it low in case someone was listening. "You knew it wasn't my fault! You want to explain why I was the one to blame?" She continued, folding both arms in front of her chest as she frowned at his humoungus form that was probably three times hers.
Kevin looked away, "that's how it works in here." He said. "If I want to screw you up I would've sent him back instead of you..."
"You sure as hell should have!" She cut him off before he could continue.
"You think he works alone? That no harm will come to you from him because he'd been grounded because of you?" Kevin turned his hard gaze on her as he hissed angrily at her. “This is not a fucking school, kid.”
"I can take care of myself." Joanna spat the words.
"Oh, Yeah? And look where it got you. And Mark!" Kevin threw his hand in the air.
Ouch! That did hurt. He was blunt. And he was right.
Joanna didn't have a comeback, she only lowered her head, glaring at the rusty floor, her arms still folded.
Kevin fidgeted in front of the bars of her cells, making her look up at him again.
She saw him taking something out of his pocket. "Here, take this." She stared at his hand; he was holding a large, red apple.
She didn't realize how hungry she was until she saw the glowing apple. But pride kept her from snatching the apple from him and engulfing it all.
"Fine, but You'll get hungry later." He noticed her egoistic respond and threw the apple from between the bars and it landed on Slinky's bed. "Watch out tomorrow. Don’t make me drag you back here." he said finally before he turned to the left and went for the stairs.
She heard him descending the squeaky stairs before she turned back, grabbing the cold apple and climbed up the ladder to her bed again. She held it in her hands and stared at it for a while, licking her lips and testing her pride.
But then her stomach growled and she knew that hunger won, so she started at it until she was nibbling the sides of what reminded of the poor, devoured apple. Joanna hoped the apple would hold her stomach until tomorrow.
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Just as the time hit seven p.m., a loud buzz sound started, and a big bang downstairs told Joanna that one of the gates were open, it was confirmed by the loud crowd that started flowing inside.
Another buzz came and her cell bars opened as all the cells in the building. She jumped down without using the ladder, and got out of her cell.
She reached the rail across her cell and looked down. All types of people were there, well, men people. There were lonely ones, gangs, lackeys, and leaders.
Joanna's eye stopped on one of them. A tall man, she couldn't determine how tall from up there, but for some reason, he held her attention.
He had a dangerously calm aura around him, unlike everyone that surrounded him. He was stuffing his hands in the pockets of his jumpsuit nonchalantly. The top of the jumpsuit was taken off and the sleeves of it were wrapped around his waist.
He seemed almost, humorous, as he gazed around him with an amused lazy expression as if the scene around him was some cheeky comedy movie.
His chest was covered with a sleeveless white undershirt that showed his lean but somehow bulky muscles of his arms. Maybe it was all in her head, but Joanna thought that his bemused calm façade only served to intimidate others.
she caught her breath when he stopped suddenly and as if he knew she was there all along, looked up at her. He gave her the most beautiful, yet most devious smile a man could posses, just as if they were long lost friends. And then he did the most absurd thing,
He winked at her!
She immediately looked away, already fearing him to the core.
She didn’t know why? The man never met her before. He wouldn’t know hwo she was. He wouldn’t know her secret, but somehow, he seemed dangerous.. she decided that she must had something in her eyes and he wasn’t really looking at her, despite the fact that she was the only one up here when all other prisoners were still down at the main hall.
She tried to observe something else, her eyes wondering around until she found what she didn’t know she was looking for. Slinky was brooding alone, his head down and his shoulders stiff as he stuffed his hands in his suit’s pockets. He looked so troubled and wary of his surrounding as he moved around the chatting men and made his way to the stairs.
It didn’t go unnoticed that he seemed desolated from everyone else. She knew he would get into troubles because of what happened this afternoon at the food hall with Steevy. Joanna cursed under her breath.
A few guards pierced through the ground downstairs hall, and started yelling at them, ordering them to move to their cells. She couldn’t make out what they were saying though.
She pushed her self away from the rails and turned to go back to her cell when she almost bumped into someone tall who was standing right behind her. Too close to her.
She craned her neck back to look up at him, a scowl already inplace. She took a sharp intake of breath when she recognized the guy.
He was that guy, the one who winked at her.
"So, how's the view from up here?" He said in the most lazy tone she’d ever heard as he tilted his head to the side as if he was oserving the scenery behind her. She wanted to say something, to call him off but her mouth went dry.
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Julian almost laughed at the new guy's expression. He was standing behind him for a few minutes and he had no idea.
He let out a teasing chuckle, wanting to test this John guy’s nerves.
The kid surprised him by standing his ground, putting up a blank expression. His stiff posture, however, gave away his cool act.
This kid was interesting indeed, Julian mused to himself. He already had a few theories about him, some of them were dangerous.
His appearance was too suspicious.
"It's not as thrilling as it seems, you should know that, kid. After what happened to you in your first day." Julian told him mockingly. “It was epic, though.” He added, chuckling when John’s brow knitted together.
The guards yelling came from downstairs to disrupt their conversation.
"Move, I want to get back to my cell." John bit out between gritted teeth.
The kid had nerves. Wonder how long that would last, Julian thought, a wide lazy smile forming on his face.
It did not go unnoticed by Julian how strange the kid’s voice was. Too soft even though it was obvious he was roughening it a bit. He was brave, that was obvious. No one sneered at Julian on their first day.
He was probably just cocky.
Julian flashed him his most deviously lazy smile, stepping away just a little to give John some room to pass.
He didn't want to provoke him yet. No, he had a whole plan to play around with this kid.
When John passed by him, Julian turned around and said, "be ready for round two, Johnny boy." He said in his lazy tone to John's back. "I've got so many questions for you. You make me curious, kid."
John continued walking to his cell, which wasn't that far off. He reached there and claimed to the upper bed. Obviously trying to get as far as he could get away from him.
Julian tilted his head amusingly. So, Hank got the lower bed, he thought.
"And I haven't been curious in a very along time." Julian mumbled under his breath, his wicked smile flashing on his face as he too made his way back to his cell.
There was something odd about this boy. Every thing about him was mysterious. There was a small chance this John boy was connected... To the Mafia's case.
A very teeny tiny chance, but a chance nonetheless. Julian thought mischievously turning on his heel just after he took a few steps away from John and Hank’s cell to enter his own cell which he shared with Isaac's cell, number 203, the neighbor of cell number 204.
P.S. to readers:
impression on Julian Drake?? Hit me with your thoughts!
BTW, I put a picture of how I almost imagine Julian.
Love,
Red.