CHAPTER ONE

JASIEL

ONE YEAR LATER

The metallic clink and electrical buzz of doors slamming were music to my ears. The keys jingled and footsteps echoed. Like clockwork, I didn't know the time or day, but I knew their schedule. And each day, I grew closer to escaping.

Today was that day.

If my sentencing had anything to do with it, I'd be in here until I was old.

A baton thudded against my cell door. Like usual and on time. It didn't stir me from sleep. I was awake and ready. They'd removed everything and everyone from my cell. There was once a metal bunk in here with thin mattresses, blankets, and pillows stuffed with all the good food for fire.

It wasn't the first fire I'd started here. In the time I'd been here, a lot had happened. I'd burned several beds and almost every Bible they forced onto me in an effort for me to find Jesus while I was in prison. Unfortunately for the man named Jesus in the cell near mine, I did find him. He was stabbed six times in his back. Non-lethal, he survived, and he was paid off to keep them from sending me to another prison. It wasn't my choice. The people who put me in here ran this place.

The plan was simple. Get put into a psych hospital. It wasn't my plan; it was Daddy's plan.

The hatch of the cell door opened. "Inmate," a rough voiced guard shouted, whacking the door with his baton once more.

I ignored him. I was the only one who the guard had to give food. Everyone else could leave their cells.

"I'll tell you once more, inmate. To the door."

Drastic times called for drastic measures. I took a deep breath, recalling Daddy's words from the letters he'd been sending.

‘Baby. We'll see each other soon. Your great aunt in hospital misses you too. The voices in her head keep telling her she's getting worse. And it would be great to see you once more before she passes. The sooner the better.'

The words were clear as day. Get sent to a hospital. I didn't have a great aunt, so we spoke in code. Or he spoke to me. I couldn't send letters back.

When I got my first letter a month after being here, I almost tore it up before reading it. They'd said it was from my dad. A man I never knew, nor wanted to know. It was Atlas. He was alive. For over thirty days, he'd been alive, and I thought he was dead.

The tiny din of the baton whipped against the cell door once more. "Inmate."

Standing with my back pressed against the wall, I prepared myself for this.

The guard's labored breath was loud as he dipped his head to peer through the hatch. And that was my moment. With a razor blade tucked between two fingers, I swung my hand and lashed his face, from eyebrow to cheek, in a straight diagonal slice.

He screamed.

The heavy jackboots of other guards stormed toward him. I stepped back and sat on the floor, watching it play out behind the hatch in the cell door. This had to be the last straw. I'd done all I could.

The Coronado crime family put me behind bars. They were the reason I hadn't been transferred since I arrived. They owned the people who owned this place. But they weren't going to break me. They wanted to know where Daddy kept all his money, and even if I knew, I'd die with that secret.

They didn't immediately storm the cell. They first put on their riot uniform with the face shields and pads. I wasn't over one-thirty soaking wet.

"Get up," they shouted, smacking their riot sticks, like regular ones, but shinier, against their shields.

Even after all the pain I caused, they weren't violent to me, not like they were to some of the other inmates. Either they feared me, or they were ordered not to hurt me. I preferred to think that they feared me.

Everyone banged on their cell doors and jeered. They didn't know what had happened, but angry or happy, this was their soap opera.

I was marched to the warden's office. I would get myself put there at every opportunity.

The warden was a slimy figure with gelled hair, scraped back, and a pinched look. His eyes squinting and his nose slightly scrunched as I imagined a rodent would look with human features. He glared at me, up and down from his fancy leather chair.

The handcuffs pinched at my wrists as I was forced into the seat across from him.

"You're in early," I said, wiggling my arms from behind my back down to my feet as I pulled them up, so my cuffed wrists were in front. "Much more comfortable now." I laid my hands on my lap. "I mean, you could give me another jumpsuit. I'm not keen on how stiff these are. If you wanted, I could be put on job detail. I wouldn't use nearly as much starch."

"Shush," a guard behind me snapped

The warden shook his head. "Please." He pressed a forefinger and thumb into his eyes, massaging the bridge of his nose. He mumbled something beneath his breath.

"What's that?" I asked.

"Shush," a guard grunted.

I craned my head back to see the guard, dressed in his pretty little riot clothes like he was at fancy dress. "Easy now, Neanderthal. I know you want to make your ancestors proud, but you can use your words."

The warden slammed a hand on his desk. "You're not worth it. I've had it up to here!" He gestured with a hand at his forehead.

"So, like, what's that?" I asked. "Five-eight? Five-ten? I can't tell if you were those insole heel things, so I don't know what your true height is. And you're not six-foot tall."

He snapped his fingers. "Shut up. You've been nothing but a problem. A year. An entire year, and not a single break." He stood, pacing the office. My eyes got a chance to wander the room. Scanning it for any changes. He had the same pictures with the same politicians. And not a single image of anyone that might be family, but even if he had a family, the man was too stressed to show that they were even part of his life. "They said a couple months, max. Then they'd move you to maximum security."

"No," I whispered to myself. "I can't do that."

"Can't do what?" he asked.

"They told me there's at least sixteen items in here I could use to burn the office down with," I told him. "It's ok though, I've got the voices under control."

And when all else failed, just play crazy, or at least that's what Daddy's letter said.

‘And you know we're all going to go crazy soon without you. Hope you're keeping well. Your great aunt says "hello", she's begging for you to visit, but I've explained your situation.'

I was just doing what he told me.

"That's enough," the warden said. "If they want you, they can go find you somewhere else. You're not staying here."

Pushing my lips over my teeth to suppress my smile. I'd broken him. I was getting what I wanted. I wasn't sure if that was freedom, or another hell, but any transfer was good.

I had nothing with me in here. Every letter I was given was quickly removed from my possession, which was unfortunate because they were scented with something flammable. My guess was acetone. He'd been preparing for me to start little fires. They were easier to burn with some good friction.

"Sit him outside," the warden instructed. "He can wait for transport."

As the guard touched my shoulder, I turned and pushed a hand up, colliding with his nose and an almighty crunch. Reduced to his knees with all that heavy riot gear on, I led myself to the bench outside the warden's office door.

In the many months inside, I'd broken lots of noses, sprained a couple of arms, and I threw a guy over the railing when he tried to touch my ass. There was a net that caught him, otherwise splat. I hadn't been able to write any letters back, but I assumed he had people on the inside watching me because nobody, except that one guy, tried to touch me.

The warden's phone rang uninterrupted. He ignored every ring that came to him, from the office phone to his personal cellphone. I was getting my wish of leaving this hellhole, and he was getting his wish of no longer having me take up a room he could've easily fit four other prisoners in.

Nerves weren't something I felt, at least not all the time. I got nervous about the results of things, but usually, I was calm. I'd been taught from a young age that the most unsettling thing you can be in a room full of people running around like headless chicken, is being calm. I took that with me everywhere I went, and it worked well.

Over their radio, I heard them talk about me. I was the prisoner being transported. They had a spot for me at a nearby psych hospital. If this place was a bigger prison, they might've had their own ward, but I was lucky they didn't.

A tall man with scruffy facial hair approached me, sat on the metal bench outside the warden's office. "Jasiel Acevedo?" he asked, looking me up and down. "You don't look like too much of a threat to me."

"Come a little closer," I whispered. "I can show you."

He chuckled, slapping a hand on his chest. It was a different uniform than the one I'd seen here. "I'm just here to take you where you need to go."

The warden appeared from his office. "Finally. He has nothing here." He sucked back a deep breath. "Just take him."

"Will do," he said with a nod.

"There should be another officer waiting with our transport van," the warden added.

"Another officer?" he asked. "I'm from the psychiatric hospital. I'm pretty sure I can handle this one."

"Handle me?" I scoffed. "How about I hand you your own ass?" I clicked my tongue at him. "Officer—I don't care." I tried reading the scuffed nametag.

The man chuckled. "Let's not get ahead of yourself."

"Protocol," the warden said. "Plus, this one's a bit—slimy. Watch out."

I didn't like the fact he called me slimy. I wasn't dipped in kerosene. I wasn't going to keep testing him or pushing his nerves. I was getting what I'd asked for. A transfer. Now, if only I could get word to Daddy about it.

Prison seemed like something that would've inevitably happened to me. Since a teen, I was always being arrested with the threat of juvie. Then, as I got older, those arrests were easier to evade, and then when I met Atlas, they didn't happen at all. Now, I knew that was because the officers in the area were paid off by a certain crime family.

As we made our way out of the prison through the rear exit, where I was forced to stay in my cuffs. The burly man with the beard was joined by another officer. He held the keys up in front of his face.

"Take it they had to bring in the big guns for this one." He playfully gave the guard's arm a tap. "Oh. Yep. Those are big."

"The warden said I could take this one," he said in a dull drone.

The outside world awaited, and I pitied these two men. As soon as I was on that little metal shuttered bus, I was basically free. They just didn't know it yet.

As they fought it out, raising their voices over each other, I walked toward the huge metal gate. Above, in the stands, there was a man with a shot gun guarding the perimeter.

"I'm getting bored," I called out to them, waving my cuffed hands in the air. "And the voices are telling me to do some very dangerous things." The guard in the tower glared at me.

The engine on the bus began as the bigger, burlier man came to collect me from the gate.

"Listen," he said in a hushed voice. "This road might get a little dangerous. Keep your head down and we'll be ok."

"Sorry?"

"Atlas sent me." He had a wide, grinning smile as he stared at me.

Tickles prickled up my neck and cheeks. "Then what are you doing talking to me?" I scoffed. "Let's go." I tutted at him. "And stop smiling. You look insane."

His smile vanished as he nodded. "Inmate," he said. "Let's go."

The bus was sectioned into small metal cells in quadrants. As much as I wanted to get excited about this man being here to help me escape, I was worried he'd ruin it for the both of us. And if it was so easy for one of them to get in here, why didn't someone come for me sooner?

With a gnarly frown on my face, I stared blankly ahead, growing annoyed that I'd been in here for a year and they had the means to come in all that time.

The other guy drove, and for about twenty minutes, nothing happened. I was waiting for some big action to take place between them. Like, taking his hand to the back of his head and slamming it down on the steering wheel. I wasn't afraid of this thing going off the road.

A black SUV approached us head-on.

The transport bus beeped, but the SUV didn't budge.

"Pull over," the man said. "Better than colliding with some maniac."

"Protocol," the driver answered back. "We can't stop."

This wasn't how it was going to be. I couldn't lose it all now when I was so close to being free.

Staring ahead, trying to see inside the car, everything was a blur.

Three...

We were ready to collide.

Two...

They were screaming at each other.

One...

The wheel spun out of control.

Thrown about inside the metal cage.

A long creak whined as the bus turned on its side.

Whacking my head on the side. I tried to keep my eyes open and focus.

Smoke filled the surrounding air.

A gunshot pierced through metal with a solid clang.

My vision blurred and my eyes blinked slowly. I was losing consciousness as the world around me spun like a wash cycle of bloodied clothes.

"Baby," a voice said.

I was out of the metal cage, but there was smoke in my vision.

"Baby," the voice came again as the smoke cleared.

In a teddy bear mask, I knew that voice.

"Daddy?" I said, reaching with my hands cuffed together at the mask.

He pulled it away to reveal a new look. He'd bleached his hair and grown out a small beard. "You made it back to me in one piece," he said, his face coming in close as he pressed his lips to my forehead.

"Your hair looks nice," I said, trying to stroke his face.

Another gunshot popped. We both looked in the direction of the sound. Two men appeared through the smoke. One in the guard's uniform, and the other in a rabbit mask. "They're with me."