Page 25 of Caged In

“What?” Izz grits out at his cellmate, disturbed by how intense Reni has become.

“Be careful accepting gifts. They always come with a price.”

Izz laughs, shrugging off Reni’s worries. He closes his eyes longing to drift off into a well needed sleep. The lights are on, so the insides of his eyelids are a bright red. However, the cell door is closed which indicates the lights won’t be on for much longer—if it’s the same routine as last night.

He listens to a guard walking by the cell, clicking away at a little counting device. The Count guard last time carried a clipboard with a listing of the inmates for each cell, wonder if this guard has the same? Izz doesn’t care enough to peel his eyes open to find out.

Lights out arrives nearly immediately after the guard finishes counting. The bright red he’s inspecting behind his eyelids plunging into blackness.

He may have been a little weirded out by the appearance of the new mattress. But he isn’t about to complain, and he is exhausted.

Drained and tired from the long day—and all the events that transpired throughout it—

Izz’s annoyed by the image that crawls into his mind’s eye—the cute stoner inmate shoved against a wall by a guard—it’s burnt into his retinas now.

Yay for me.Izz cheers sarcastically.

He couldn’t be more thankful when the dark abyss of sleep finally consumes him.

9

Izz’s third day—or well—second and a half day. But he’ll count his arrival half-day as the first day—possibly . . . He’s too tired to figure it out. So he’ll stick with it being day three in this caged-in Hell-hole.

His third day in prison.

Three down, hundreds more to go.

“You going to eat that?” Izz shakes his head at Zidie’s enquiry, sliding his half-eaten tray of food across the table.

He’s already bored with the prison routines. The alarms to tell him when it’s time to eat. Unable to eat what or when he chooses. Only able to eat on the set schedule. He’s sick of it, and it’s only day three. How is he going to get through years in this place?

“How’s your third day? You look rung out?” Blake’s calming voice fills the space. The table turns their attention to Izz, as if they too are interested in his answer.

“Already want to kill the alarms, I miss sleeping in.”

“Wow, I forgot that was a thing,” Zidie lets his mouth fall open in shock, winking as Izz shoots him a glare.

“He did get a new bed,” Reni slips in, nudging Zidie’s ribs and giving the other inmate a look.

“New bed?” Blake questions, frowning at Izz. His pale face an odd contrast—if the man didn’t have black hair and blue eyes, Izz would swearhe’s an albino. His complexion is that pale.

“Someone gifted the newbie with a second mattress, and newbie here accepted the gift. Naive as he is,” Reni informs the whole table, waving his spoon at Izz.

“And you just let him do it,” Blake accuses, seething daggers in Reni’s direction.

Izz blinks at them both. Arguing over his life like they’re his parents or something. They need to lay off him and stop treating him like a fragile vase that’s wandering too close to a shooting range. He’s not that daft.

“I didn’t let him do anything,” Reni argues back at Blake, “I told him whoever the mattress fairy is, he’s definitely a stalker.”

Izz’s not sure that’s what Reni told him. It’s close enough so he lets it slide. Let them bicker about the insignificant issues, so he can go back to staring off into nothing and feeling sorry for himself. Even though, technically, he did it to himself, he got himself thrown into this caged Hell-hole. No one else did it. He made choices. Bad choices. That led him to here and now. He may have had good intentions, did what he did for the right reasons, it doesn’t take away from the facts. He broke the law. Now he has to suffer the consequences.

This sucks.

“. . . you’re supposed to be looking after him.”

“I’m not his mother, lay off me. He’s a grown ass man. If he wants to fuck random inmates for comfy living, that’s his choice.”

“You slept with someone for it?” Now Blake’s venom is directed at Izz. A shocked exasperated expression taking over the pale vampire’s entire being.

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