CHAPTER 11
The next morning, a shadow appeared in the doorway of my cell. The old Guard Taylor, ushering me out of my concrete box.
“The shrink requests your attendance. So, shift yourself.” I let out a drawn-out audible sigh as I dragged myself from my bunk.
I wasn’t in the mood to hold hands and talk about my feelings today, but I knew they would draw out my release date if I didn’t stick to the session schedule after my stint in solitary.
The guard stepped back out of the doorway as I approached. He seemed smaller than when I first came to Juvie. I was practically the same height as him now.
He led me down the corridor, gripping his cuffs, his breathing laboured as if he had just run a half-marathon. I could bolt if I wanted to; it wasn’t like he could catch me. But I stayed, tucking my hands into my pockets as I lingered at his side towards the shrink’s office.
I stepped in without waiting for permission, sat down, and propped my feet on the edge of his desk.
Dr Brenner glanced at them through his brow, then up to my unimpressed expression before continuing to scribble something on his notepad.
I watched his pen as if it were a weapon—a fleeting thought crossing my mind's eye of lunging forward and forcing it straight into his jugular—Smiling as the life left his eyes.
Eventually, he glanced up, his face remaining steady as he crossed his legs. I was no longer slouching in his presence, and I sure as hell didn’t avoid eye contact with him.
“Good afternoon, Tyler,” he said. “How are you feeling after your time in isolation?” I gave him a long, hard stare, toying with the thought of revealing how it really went.
If I started spouting crap about hearing voices and wanting nothing more than to cover my hands in the blood of certain individuals, I can imagine I'd be medicated out of my skull quicker than I could say Psycho.
“Stop calling me that, it's Screech.” He tilted his head slightly, narrowing his eyes towards me.
“Okay,” drawing the word out. “I hear it’s common for people to find clarity in the silence,” he said. I gave a small huff of a laugh, as the silence had a corrupting effect on my fractured mind.
“How did you find it? Did you feel it helped with your anger?”
“Oh, absolutely,” I said, voice dripping with sarcasm. “It helped me focus alright.”
He tapped his pen against the notepad. “That’s good, care to explain what helped?”
I leaned forward, resting my elbows on my knees. I pondered the answers I could give him, ones that could satisfy his need to ‘understand me’.
“I’m here to help guide you through and understand the traumatised parts of your psyche.” Tilting his head to the side.
Instinctively, I mirror his action, a slight smile creeping onto my face. The deepness of the voice erupts within my mind.
“Fucking idiot, he knows nothing. He will never understand you; shut him down.”
My eyes drifted away from him for a split second as I registered his voice.
“I understand plenty.”
“Then tell me what you understand Screech. Talk me through it.” I let the silence build. Allowing the weight of it to fill the space between us. I crossed my arms over my chest, directing my glare almost through him.
“People like me, we don’t get better. We get sharper. We learn who holds the knife and who’s dumb enough to turn their back.”
Dr Brenner's pen hovered over the notepad; he didn’t write that one down. Instead, he clasped his hands, his gaze intensifying towards me.
“Screech, did something happen in solitary? Because if it did, you can tell me. I’m not the enemy here.”
My smile remained, “You’re not my friend either. Are you?”
He shook his head, averting his eyes, “No. But I am someone who has seen a change in you. I saw who you were when you first got here. And I can see who you’re becoming. You can’t allow that to happen.”
I scoffed; he sounded like Chester. I stood up, slow and deliberate, placing my hands onto the edge of his desk. “Then maybe you should stop watching and start locking the doors.”
His brows furrowed as I let my idle threat sink in. “This hostile response just tells me one thing. That you’re scared and very much still hurting.” I walked to the door, chuckling to myself and knocking against it twice.
“We’re done here. You don’t know fucking anything. Until next time, Doc, stay safe.”
As the guard let me out, Dr Brenner said one last thing, just loud enough to reach me.
“You can continue carrying that pain with you, but eventually you will bleed to death under the weight of it.”
I'd started to think the guards would never give me another cellmate. But in a way, I appreciated it, and it meant I wasn’t going to end up slitting some poor fuckers’ neck just for looking at me the wrong way.
Since solitary, I started spending more and more time in my cell.
Just me and the voice worming around my head in the early hours
Although I would occasionally entertain myself by venturing out to taunt Misfit, it was my new favourite pastime.
As well as hers. Whether it was switching out her shampoo with hot sauce, or pulling in a favour with the laundry lads, so they didn’t wash her clothes until she had nothing left to wear.
The little wars kept stacking up.
She’d strut around with a burning scalp and ragged clothes like it was some twisted fashion statement, but her retaliation was just as sharp.
It started when she took my things—slipping off with my bedding, leaving me shivering on those cold winter nights.
At first, it felt petty, almost childish, but it didn’t stay that way for long.
One morning, I found my toothbrush snapped in half and chiselled into a shiv. Knowing full well that room inspection was going to be taking place that morning. She was setting me up, the crafty bitch. The same day, my socks vanished, not the lost-in-the-wash kind but gone without a trace.
I caught her smirking behind a book when I asked the guard about them. I fucking knew it was her.
She started slipping notes under my door, no words, just sketches. Depicting ways in which she would kill me, given half the chance. Most of them just made me laugh. Angry little stick men with oozing blood puddles, stabbing me over and over again.
I wasn’t going to back down. So, I pushed back harder.
If she wanted to see me dead, then upping the stakes was my only choice.
I waited until my next round of cleaning duty, as a bottle of bleach would miraculously go missing from the cleaning cart.
The guards didn’t question it when I told them I had used the last of the bottle.
When in reality, I stashed it under my hoodie, ready to slip some into Misfits morning beverage.
The thought alone gave me so much pleasure that I couldn’t wait to see her writhing in pain and vomiting everywhere.
It had changed from a game of laughs or petty annoyances. To a battle of elimination, and neither of us was willing to lose. Every day, the line between enemy and ally blurred just a little more.
I was starting to find it increasingly difficult to fuck with her, having her officer glued to her side 24/7. But when I caught sight of her officer perched outside the showers, I jumped at the chance.
Standing in the corridor, I discreetly flipped through a magazine while she grew increasingly impatient with how long Misfit was taking.
She looked at her watch and then at the door.
I don’t think she really took in that I was there.
But the diabolical grin that appeared when she headed to the bathroom was priceless.
I moved without hesitation, dropping the magazine and slipped through the door into the thick steam that instantly surrounded me.
I hadn’t thought this through, but the opportunity was too good to pass up.
Catching sight of her towel and bundled clothes next to the cubicle, I grabbed it and headed straight for the door.
My footsteps quickened as the sound of water stopped the moment my hand touched the handle.
In the hallway, her officer hadn’t come back yet, leaving her unprotected and vulnerable.
That itself should have been enough for me to rethink my actions, but this was too fucking funny.
I discarded the clothes, tucking them behind one of the large bookshelves in the communal area as I took a seat on the far side.
Trying to remain as casual as possible about what I had just done.
The noises came first, rising laughter and whistling sounds from the corridor as heads started to wonder what was going on.
Inmates shifted from their seats as officers barked orders to avert their eyes and turn around.
She hadn’t? Surely.
How wrong I was, as I watched her round the corner into the communal area, she stood there in all her glory. Stark fucking naked, locking eyes with me. Her middle fingers raised, holding them out in front of her.
“Good game, cunt.” She said.
My smirk widened as I bit down on my bottom lip. Had to give it to her, she owned that shit. Didn’t take long for the guards to cover her with a sheet, ushering her off while the remaining guards assembled a barrier to stop the chanting lads from following.
I knew something was off the second I stepped out of the rec room.
The corridor was too quiet. Not the usual echo of doors clanging or guards barking.
Just silence, weighted and stretched, like the whole place was holding its breath.
I slipped past commissary, moving on instinct more than anything.
That itch in the back of my skull, the same one I got before a fight kicked off or when someone slipped a shank into the showers.