The Bible is lying open on my lap and I try my best to read the words, but my vision is blurred. My mind is unfocused, my heart full of rage, and I wait in my cell, the resentment building, building. Always building. To the point I feel like I’m going to explode.

But I’m always ready to explode. I’m like a volcano, slowly boiling, on the verge of eruption.

Total mass destruction.

“Hey, Monroe.” The guard’s voice is loud, grating on my nerves, but I do my best to remain still, my back facing toward him. I’m not going to give him the satisfaction of letting him rattle me.

Fuck that.

When I don’t respond, the guard lets out an exasperated breath. Motherfucker. “Spoke to the warden. He doesn’t want you watching your interview tonight. Afraid if we leave it on the TV the other prisoners might give you a bunch of shit and you’ll go nutso on them.” The guard cackles like an old woman and I grit my teeth together, wishing I could snap his fucking ear off with them. Or maybe his giant, always red nose.

That would show him for making a mockery of me.

“You gonna go nutso in your cell instead, since your ass just got turned down? Better let me know now so we can prepare.”

I still don’t turn around and I know that makes him angry. I can practically feel his frustration radiate toward me.

Yet I remain in my position, never once looking back.

“If you’d ever give a little, you’d get a little in return, Monroe,” the guard says, sounding sullen, like a child.

The sullenness reminds me of Will. My son. The boy who turned his back on me so easily and is now siding with the slut. I took the call from Lisa Swanson last evening. She told me all about their interview. How my boy walked out. How the girl stayed and defended him.

There’s something odd there. I don’t like it. Why is she defending him? What does she care? That punk fucked everything up. To this day I still hate him for what he did, yet I can’t hate him too bad. He is my blood after all.

And you never turn on blood.

I flip through the pages of my Bible, to the spot I marked last with a photo of me and my boy. He might’ve been around eleven, maybe twelve. We’d gone to the amusement park that summer, lots of times. Was that the summer I worked there? I doubt it. I wouldn’t want to hang out at that shit hole on my day off.

But the photo of me and Will makes that place look downright magical. Mythical, almost like a legend. Despite it being a shit hole, that was always one of my favorite places to go.

One of my favorite places to hunt. So many girls. So many pretty, pretty girls . . .

My memories of that day with Will are hazy, made supposedly clearer because of the photo. I’m grinning, my arm slung around Will’s shoulders. Will’s not smiling at all. He looks unhappy. During those last years together, he always looked unhappy.

Those dark eyes stare at the camera, impenetrable. His mouth a tight line, his face expressionless, stony and full of hate.

Boy always did hate me. Didn’t understand he needed those lessons from me to get along in life. It’s not easy. Hell, life is fucking hard. So hard, I couldn’t function within society and got sent here.

I hate it here.

Barely glancing over my shoulder, I’m relieved to find the guard long gone. Good. Asshole can take a flying leap for all I care. All these dicks who work here are mean as fuck and annoying. Obnoxious. I spend a lot of time alone with my thoughts, with my Bible, and my photos and my memories.

All the memories . . .

Flipping the weathered pages, I find the other photo, the one I cut from a recent gossip magazine. They let that shit come in sometimes and I devour them. I don’t know who three-quarters of those people are anymore but it doesn’t matter. They’re pretty. They’re popular.

And there was my Katie Watts in a photo right smack dab in the middle of them, throwing me off. Sitting side by side with Lisa, the both of them smiling for the camera, though her smile isn’t as bright as Lisa’s, and her eyes are dim, not as sparkly. She doesn’t look that happy to be there. But just looking at that stupid picture right at this very moment, I get pissed.

She’s getting all the glory, all the attention. Why, because I allowed her to live? Spared her pitiful life instead of ending it? I should’ve ended it when I had the chance. I had plenty of chances, too. Almost choked her to death that one time. The feel of her soft bones beneath my hands, the little gasps for breath as she struggled against me. Her struggles were pointless. I threw her down on that mattress after I rendered her unconscious and then used her.

That’s all they’re good for. Useless, good-for-nothing little girl, gullible as all hell considering she fell for my bullshit. My oldest victim out of all of them, the most naïve, stupid little twelve-year-old I could’ve found. Did anyone realize that? Maybe.

I can’t remember.

I look at her some more, trying to find the little girl in her grown-up features, but it’s damn hard. She’s all woman. Unappealing. All dirtied up now that she’s most likely been fucked by some man and ruined forever.

Funny how I’m the one who did all the work and she gets to reap all the credit. Girl needs to learn her lesson. Learn her place.

I turn the pages to the back, to the spot where I cut into the pages, making a perfect skinny rectangle. It’s where I keep the little shank I made out of a pen. Fuckers were stupid enough to leave it with me, so I was smart enough to turn it into a weapon. Might come in handy someday.

Might come in handy someday real soon.

Turning it this way and that, I admire my weapon, run my finger along the edge that I sharpened myself, wincing a little. It fucking stings, so it ought to hurt someone real good when I stick ’em with it.

I smile and slip the shank back into its hiding place. I’ve used that same little hiding spot within my Bible for a couple of years now. Most guards don’t think to search so thoroughly in the book of the Lord. They flip through it quick and move on.

Dumbasses. That’s all I deal with in this life. A big pile of dumbasses. If I had my way and got out of this hellhole, first thing I’d do is go find Will. He’s not a dumbass. Boy is too smart for his own good, just like his daddy. Maybe I could enlist his help to find that stupid bitch Katie Watts. Would Will help me? Would he kill someone for me if I told him to? I doubt it.

But that don’t mean I can’t force him to do something . . . just to help out good old Pops.