Chapter 31
SINN'OUS
He needs to call his brother. As much as he detested leaving Izz back in the cafeteria, he knows the boy will be safe when he is sitting with Reni’s mismatched group known as The Gang. It’s enough to roll the eyes of the deceased. What a stupid name.
The lawyer had given him a sticky note with the scrawled number etched into it. A number to contact his brother at whatever ‘work’ assignment he’s on. ‘Work’ meaning a hit. Some poor fuck who has had their ticket drawn by that Italian mafia boss of Zayne’s.
The number is for a disposable phone where he can speak freely to his brother. All he needs is a phone here that he can also speak freely into, not the recorded prison phones.
He isn’t more than two steps into the corridor when Sinj makes himself known.
Long layered hair pulled into some messy bun type deal, wisps of hair poking out all over.
Bedhead on steroids. Pristine tattoo sleeves artfully inked in gold, red, and black.
A design of which must have tapped into his salary, whatever that would be working a job like this.
Or more accurately, it was money given by the many men he’s bent over for.
It’s the perfect cover really. No one would suspect a glorified rent boy to be an undercover—
Sinn'ous’s thoughts cut out when Sinj speaks. “You and the new guy got a thing?”
“Mind your business, rent boy.” Even if Sinn'ous didn’t know who Sinj really is under all the fake bullshit, he wouldn’t have offered any forthcoming reply.
Sinj lets out a faked airy chuckle. “Testy, testy.” As Sinj begins to walk on he casually throws over his shoulder. “Just thought you’d want to know he was grabbed by Friedrich’s crew and pulled into B-Wing. But if you’re not a thing. . .”
The drawled-out sentence splutters into static noise. Sinn'ous is already sprinting down the corridor, feet eating the concrete in long strides. He shoves men from his path, seeing nothing but grey blurs thrown to the side.
He’s never considered himself emotional, no attachments or emotional investments.
No clear-cut signs that anyone is more than a potential sacrifice waiting to happen.
Yet in this moment he learnt the true meaning of heart dropping.
His organs gave out, they just let go and dropped into his hips.
His stomach. His heart. His lungs. All free falling.
He never ever would have considered that statement true, and now he knows better.
It is fucking true.
And his heart only plummets further at the terror fuelled scream that shakes B-Wing.
It carries on its heels the surreal feeling of going nowhere.
Everything putters out and slows to a crawl.
He’s moving fast but it’s like his mind has slowed the world down.
His thoughts are racing past his movements, to the point where he is experiencing hour-long thoughts in the space of one footfall.
From his toes lifting off, to his heels touching down, a week of his life is gone.
Until it isn’t, and everything comes crashing back to punch through his chest and pulverize his heart.
The raging inferno of adrenaline that hits him is a hose set on full blast. It dilates his eyes so fast he can feel them expanding. Dual focal points of death incarnate.
Everything flickers red. And the slaughter he’s about to manifest is a 3D movie playing in front of him.
I will slaughter them all. His mind bellows, snarling to the growls of a beast unleashed.
He’s never felt this before. The stutter in his heart. The cold sweat. The single-minded tunnel vision. The pinching in his lungs. The ache in his finger tips around the razor he can’t recall pulling out.
B-Wing is equal parts packed and empty. Everyone is studiously minding their own business, and when they see Sinn'ous they slink into their respective cells.
It takes a fraction of a second to see it. One cell that is closed off by a sheet hung from its bars.
Full body turn. He charges it. Razor in hand, hands up and ready to kill.
A singular thought racing.
Kill. Kill. Kill.
As much as he wants to drag this out, they will be killed swiftly. An undeserved mercy of a quick and clean death.
His priority is Izz.
He damn near pulls his shoulder from the socket with the strength he uses to tear the sheet from its tether. It flaps open, but doesn’t come down, folding in on itself and tangling in the bars.
All the information inside the cell crashes into him. The placement of every blood sack. The number of soon to be dead. The threat level of each individual. And the positioning of Izz.
It’s only a split-second pause, yet his brain burns every detail into sharp focus. Fixating on the four men. And his boy.
Izz’s on his stomach, pressed down into the mattress by a man who has his cock in hand, hips rocking in to press closer to Izz’s exposed ass.
Another man is standing by the head of the bunk, where Izz’s head hangs off, held in tight hands, hips flush to Izz’s face, cock down his throat.
The man’s head is thrown back, mouth open and eyes pinched closed.
The other two men in the room are openly observing, twisted smiles on their faces, one with cock out stroking, the other rubbing himself through his pants.
He can’t hear anything over the screaming of his own heartbeat in his ears.
The scene implodes in on itself when the man—closest to Sinn'ous—eyes snap over, the hand on his cock freezing, mouth opening to yell something. He doesn’t get the chance.
One step brings Sinn'ous to him, and one swift jerk of the razor splits the man’s throat open.
At the same time Sinn'ous’s other hand grabs his hair and reefs him bodily to the side.
Dumping the blood sack onto the other bunk to bleed out alone.
No break in momentum, the next step is followed by both of his hands grabbing the head of the man kneeling over Izz.
Nothing in them except for the matted greasy hair—he either dropped the razor or left it in the other one’s neck.
It matters not, a heave and twist sends a reverberating crack up his arms and the body in his hold goes limp.
Sinn'ous drops the dead weight when the fully dressed inmate who’d been groping himself, makes a beeline for the cell’s door.
He gets two steps and then his arms flail when Sinn'ous hauls him back by the hair.
Body crashing into Sinn'ous’s chest, he pulls another razor and slashes fast under the jaw, gaping the throat to a torrent of blood, it splatters across the tangled sheet in a wide arch.
Hanging there, the white fabric now looks like the omen of death it is.
Sinn'ous jerks the head down, contorting the spine and snaps the neck for good measure.
An animalistic snarl breaches Sinn'ous’s throat.
The last man is wide-eyed, frozen in a daze, hands still in Izz’s hair.
Still touching what does NOT belong to him.
Using the man’s ruffled shirt—gripped by the collar—Sinn'ous drives him backwards until he hits the sink, bowing backwards over it.
And the momentum coupled with the angle makes snapping his neck as easy as cracking a twig.
Sinn'ous is back at the bunk, grabbing the dead-fuck’s wrist, and pulling the body off of Izz.
His adrenaline is so wacked he does it one handed, where it lands in a heap of tangled limbs on the floor.
Then he’s crouching on his haunches in front of Izz, right in the boy’s line of sight.
He searches bloodshot dimmed eyes for any clues into the boy’s wellbeing.
“Izz? Let me know that you’re uninjured?” Even to his own ears he can hear the waver in his voice. When no response comes he presses on. “Can you stand for me? We need to leave?”
Shit. Why does everything sound like a question?
Sinn'ous’s anger manifests into a seething rage with teeth, snarling to rip out throats. It burns his blood, boiling his innards into a stew he will melt every man who dares think he can touch what BELONGS TO HIM.
How FUCKING DARE they touch what is MINE.
The boy isn’t responsive, and is giving no indication he is hearing any of Sinn'ous’s words. “Are you able to move? Do you need me to move you?”
And then it’s as though a dam bursts, and Izz’s tears come crashing in, arms reaching out. Sinn'ous goes to him, wrapping him up into his arms and dragging the boy off the bunk into his lap.
“I’ve got you. I’ve got you.” He’s not sure who he’s reassuring, the boy or himself?
I nearly lost you.
Sinn'ous’s voice breaks, it isn’t a sob, it’s just a crack. Never a sob. Never that.
He pushes the sweat slicked hair back off of Izz’s face, lightly cupping his cheek to turn his green eyes up. The vibrant green is stark and faded, glazed over in a way that brings concerns.
“Are you hurt?”
No reply and no indication the boy heard or is tracking anything that’s happening around him.
“Izz? Where are you hurt?”
Nothing.
The room is a graveyard of fresh corpses, and tangy blood that is for once a distaste in the back of his throat.
They can’t stay here.
He stands the boy, who animates enough to cling to Sinn'ous’s chest, hands twisting into Sinn'ous’s shirt. He couldn’t dislodge those fingers even if he tried, and he isn’t going to try.
He has never begged, but he begs now.
Please, Satan, let him be unscathed. Let him recover.
Balancing the boy he leans over in an awkward way to pick up the clean, forgotten sheet piled in the bunks corner. Using the old fabric to wrap around Izz’s nude lower half, scooping the boy weightlessly into his arms.
Stepping over bodies to reach the door, he carries his possession out of the cell. Kicking the wet mess of sheet out of the way. Where it finally dislodges and splats to the floor, soaked in blood it becomes a grotesque sponge painting on the concrete floor.
The Wing is dead quiet, every inmate hidden in the backs of their cells. Eyes follow them. At the same time that they don’t. No one is going to say shit. No one is going to admit to seeing anything. They will all play the blind man.
And if not. They will all die.
Sinn'ous rearranges his grip on the boy in his arms, delicately jostling him into a better position. Then he’s striding down the corridor, back to their Wing.