Chapter Nine Razor #2
“You look like shit.” I slurped a mouthful of tea. Lukewarm. Weak.
“You don’t exactly look pampered yourself.”
I snorted. “Still got that mouth.”
He didn’t smile. He glanced sideways again, nerves humming under his skin, then back to me. “You might wanna do yourself a favour and fuck off.”
“Why’s that?” I bit into the toast. Barely buttered. Dry as dust.
“They think I’m talking.”
I looked at him properly. “Are you?”
“No.”
“Then you shouldn’t be worried.”
He let out a breath that shook on the way out. Half laugh. Half panic. “That’s not how it works in here.”
No, it wasn’t.
This place ran on pressure. Same as the street.
Same rules, just fewer exits. Walls instead of pavements.
And everyone—everyone—answered to someone.
Which meant this wasn’t random. It wasn’t lads on a wing getting bored.
Someone on the outside had decided Darren needed reminding who still owned him.
Who was still watching. Who could still reach inside these walls and touch whatever they liked.
Could be Cormac.
Could be someone else, sure. But Cormac was the one who played chess. Who moved people instead of pieces. Who liked messages delivered in flesh.
But like I’d said before: I wasn’t chess.
I was muscle.
Across the room, someone laughed. Too loud. Too timed. A sound meant to be heard. I felt the usual shift, then. Not noise. Attention. Bodies angling without moving. Conversations thinning. The wing leaning in. They weren’t surprised to see me.
They’d been waiting.
A chair scraped. One man stood. Then another. Big lads. Easy in their skin. They didn’t hurry because nothing in here made them. The one who’d clipped Darren earlier was with them. His eyes stayed on me. Smile lazy. Measuring. I didn’t look away.
Darren sat rigid, both hands locked around his mug. I could see what was happening in him. He was counting breaths. Wondering how long he could sit before someone made him stand. How quickly this would turn.
“Fuck off, Razor,” he said under his breath. “You being here makes it worse.”
“Yeah,” I said quietly. “I can see that.” Then I glanced at him. “But the moment you touched my sister, you became my problem.”
He opened his mouth, then closed again. Then eventually said, “How is she?”
“Ain’t seen her.” I finished my toast, eyes returning to the men drifting our way. “Told her to stay away from me. Same way I told her to stay away from you. That kid might have a chance then.”
Someone called out, “Shouldn’t you be done by now, Darren-boy?”
Darren flinched. Started to stand.
I caught his wrist. “Sit. Eat.”
He looked at me as if I were asking him to step in front of traffic. Then he sat. And I kept my gaze on the one coming closer. Watched the way he moved. Loose, confident, enjoying it.
“Dunno who the fuck you are.” Bloke stopped behind Darren. “But you don’t give orders in here.”
“Nor do you.” I lifted my cup, drained the cold tea. It tasted like rust and dishwater. I swallowed it anyway.
Big guy dropped both hands on Darren’s shoulders, making him shrink. Shut down.
So I pointed at them. “Hands. To. Yourself.”
“Why? You got some claim on this one?” Man dug his thumbs into Darren’s shoulders hard enough to make him wince. “Heard you like your boys sweet.” He chuckled, sucking in air through his teeth.
Always hated that.
Darren lifted his gaze to me across the table. And that look, that was the first hint that the rumour wasn’t a surprise to him. In here. Out there. Who knew where he’d heard it first. But he checked my face to see my reaction to it.
So I laughed.
Then stood.
“You got the rumour wrong, mate.” I leant in for him to feel me there, my space pressing into his.
“I like ’em big. Solid.” I leered over him, swiping my tongue along my teeth.
“Don’t pretend that ain’t why you wandered over.
Thought you’d strut a bit, see if I’d bite.
” I blew him a kiss. “You’re bought, mate.
All that bulk just shouting overcompensation.
I’d wager you won’t even fill my mouth.” I glanced around. “Which one here’s gonna validate that?”
The punch came fast and ugly, all weight and no warning. It caught me high on the cheek, snapped my head sideways and clacking my teeth together hard enough to spark light. I staggered. But I didn’t go down.
Refused to.
Might’ve been a different wing. But men wanted to fuck me over everywhere.
Not in the good way either. And the second hit struck before I’d finished turning back, landing straight into my already fucked-up ribs.
Something cracked. Or tore. Again. Pain flared white and hot, and I tasted blood.
Old wounds resurfacing. As if this lot already knew I was half down.
The wing exploded then.
Chairs scraped. Someone shouted. Someone laughed.
Bodies surged in as if they’d been waiting for permission.
And I’d say I had about three to five on me.
Fists, feet, a mouth and teeth somewhere, too.
So I swung blind, my knuckles connecting with whatever flesh I could find.
Felt a few give. Someone grunt as I grabbed his nuts.
Then a hand got into the back of my T-shirt, yanking me off balance, my top tearing and bad shoulder screaming.
I went into the table hard, the breath punched clean out of me.
Then I heard Darren shout my name before someone shoved him back, hands on his chest, forcing him down.
I twisted, elbowed back into someone’s gut.
Felt air leave them in a wet rush. But a fist slammed into my lower back, and my knees buckled.
I caught myself on the edge of the table, vision narrowing, sounds flattening into a dull roar.
This wasn’t a fight.
It was fucking pile on and I either survived it…
Or I didn’t.
Someone got an arm around my throat from behind, crushing my windpipe, and I clawed at it, driving my heel back, feeling it hit bone. His grip loosened long enough for me to wrench free and turn and take the fucker right out, when a baton came down on me.
Once. Across my shoulder. Fire ripped through muscle.
Twice. Into my side. The pain un-fucking-bearable.
Whistles shrieked then. Screws pouring in, shouting, grabbing, dragging bodies apart as if they hadn’t known exactly how this would go.
As if they hadn’t planted me here cause someone wanted this operational reshuffle.
Screws slammed me face-first into the floor and my cheek smacked concrete as someone pinned my arm up behind my back.
Pain screamed through my shoulder until I bit down hard enough to draw blood.
“Stay down,” a screw barked, as if I had any other option.
Then they hauled me up by the arms and marched me out while the wing howled behind us. Jeers, laughter, someone clapping slowly and mocking.
As they dragged me past, I saw Darren.
He shook. Hands over his mouth. Eyes wide and wet and broken. So I held his gaze. Long enough to tell him he wasn’t alone. But long enough to know I’d just made everything worse for him.
Always did.
Not that it mattered, cause the next door that closed on me was segregation.
And it shut with a heavier sound than the others.
Thicker. Final. Not the usual clang. This one thudded deep in my chest and stayed there.
Or maybe that was just me. Trying for a metaphor or whatever.
Tristan would have a word for it. He was the clever one.
The one who’d sit across from me later, disappointed and explain exactly how I’d just torpedoed my case.
All for what? To prove I was still hard?
Still the same bloke who solved things with fists and blood?
I slid down the wall and hit the floor hard.
My breath came in short, tearing pulls. My ribs screamed every time my chest moved. My shoulder was dead weight, burning and useless. Blood ran from my knuckles and dripped onto the concrete, slow and patient, as if it knew I wasn’t going anywhere.
Probably wasn’t.
And fuck.
That hadn’t been about losing my temper.
Wasn’t even about the rumours. The cheap ones I’d known would surface eventually, floated just to see if I’d bite.
I had, hadn’t I?
Not because I needed to prove anything. Not because I couldn’t stop myself. Not because of shame or fear or repercussions.
Because they’d put him in front of me.
They’d turned it into a choice between doing nothing and watching an eighteen-year-old, someone tied to my blood, get eaten alive.
And because somewhere in the middle of it, under the pain and the fear, I felt it.
The rush. The brutal, narrowing clarity.
The part of me that woke up when violence cut clean.
That was the bit that scared me.
Because none of this had been an accident. I’d been moved. Isolated. Fed a reason. Placed exactly where someone wanted me. And I’d walked straight into it.
Stupid. Fucking. Prick.
I reached into my joggers pocket, pulled out Tristan’s business card and ran my thumb over the embossed lettering. Then I banged my head against the brick wall behind me just to feel something that wasn’t this.