I’m alone.

Smoke’s gone. He left me a mattress and a few bottles of water. The cell has no toilet but a small metal sink with no running water. Since it has the only drain in the place, I use it to relieve my full bladder and lay down just as darkness blankets everything.

It’s freezing. I’m awake, but I’m not sure if I’ve slept yet or not. I don’t remember dreaming, but I also don’t remember falling asleep. How long have I been in here? Minutes? Hours? Days? Long enough to make me understand how inmates in solitary go crazy.

Sitting alone in this cell is a lot like walking on train tracks in the dark when you know a train is coming along at any second. My skin pricks with anxiety. With the unknown.

When? When? When?

My stomach rumbles with hunger, but it’s the least of my worries.

Every few seconds a whistling noise starts like wind blowing through a pipe. It begins low and grows louder and louder until it sounds as if the ceiling above me might burst. It stops completely for a few moments before starting all over again.

I count the sequence of these whistles to keep my brain occupied. One. Two. Three. It’s when I’m on four that the whistling stops and another kind can be heard.

One that’s not coming from any pipe; it’s coming from down below.

I pretend it’s nothing until I hear footsteps on the metal stairs. The hair on the back of my neck stands on end. My palms begin to sweat.

He’s back.

I sit up and pull my knees up to my chest. A barrier that can easily be breached.

The clouds shift through the large window on the far wall revealing a half moon which gives off just enough light to remind me I can see.

A shaky yellow stream from a flashlight bounces off the walls of my cell and hits me in the eye, momentarily blinding me.

A key turns in the lock and I hear the squeal of the door sliding open.

Holding in a cry I grip the mattress tightly.

My eyes strain as I peer into the blackness. The shadow standing above me is big but not nearly as large as Smoke. When the clouds clear and allow the rest of the moonlight to flood the cell and reveal more of the stranger in front of me.

This man is much shorter, skinnier, and dirtier than Smoke. He takes out the toothpick he’s chewing on and smiles, revealing a missing front tooth. “Hello there, darlin’. I’m Wes,” he says with a crooked smile.

“Did Smoke send you?” I ask, hesitantly.

The man shakes his head slowly from side to side, and for a split-second, I think I’m saved.

Saved is the last thing I am right now.

His eyes rake across my body like I’m wearing nothing at all. The hair on the back of my neck stands up.

He sits down on the bed next to me. I immediately jump up and run for the now open cell door. He reaches out and grabs my arm, pulling me back down on the mattress.

“Oh, no you don’t. We just met. Let’s get to know each other for a while.” The man grins, and I shake my head.

“No, let me go.”

“Why do you gotta be so rude? I just want us to be friends.”

Wes reminds me of a snake slithering his way around a rodent playfully before squeezing the life from its body. He looks like a snake, too. Flat-headed. Beady, little, wide-set eyes, and a sharp tongue that might as well be forked.

This man is not here to rescue me.

A surprising thought crosses my mind. It sounds idiotic, even to me.

I hope Smoke comes back soon.

“Smoke treating you alright?” the man asks, sucking on his bottom lip and shuffling closer to me on the mattress. He’s got my wrist in his grip and as much as I try, I’m too battered and bruised to fight him off. “I’ve been sent to check up on things and from the looks of it, things look real good.”

Everything in me is screaming to fight, but I don’t have anything to fight him off with. I’m weak. So weak. He palms himself through his jeans and my stomach rolls. If it wasn’t already empty it would be now.

“Think of me like your secondary babysitter,” he hisses, placing his thin cold hands on my ankles. He pries my legs apart, and I flip over, trying to crawl off the end. “Fiesty. I like ‘em feisty.”

I scream as loud as I can until my own ears hurt from the sound.

“Smoke’s not here, darling. It’s just you and me.” I feel his knee on the mattress. “There, there now. It looks like you’ve had a rough day, let me make it better.”

His grip around my ankle tightens. He uses his knees to keep my legs spread painfully apart. My sobs are silent because my voice is gone.

“Let me see that pretty, pink pussy,” he moans, tugging at the waistband of my jeans. “My cock wants a taste.”

He flips me over, and regardless of my empty stomach, I know I’m going to be sick. There’s no stopping it. I try and swallow it down, but as he reaches for his belt and unbuckles his pants, I know it’s only a matter of seconds before it erupts from my throat.

He manages to get my jeans down to my knees then reaches for his buckle. He frees his tiny ant-eater looking cock and tugs at it a few times. Groaning while keeping his eyes fixated on the space between my legs.

Slowly, I raise my knee and wait a few agonizing seconds for the perfect moment. When he licks his lips and reaches for my panties, I straighten my leg, kicking my heel into his crotch.

He howls in pain and I make a run for it, but I’m weak and slow. Within seconds, he’s on me, pinning me to the ground.

“I was gonna make this good for you,” he spits, his eyes bulging from his tiny head. “You stupid cunt!”

He punches me across my already injured jaw, and I see stars.

Wes covers my mouth with his hand, and I can’t hold it down any longer. I throw up against his palm but he keeps his hand pressed firmly over my mouth. My stomach keeps pushing everything upwards. I’m choking on my own bile; my eyes water. Everything’s blurry. I can’t breathe. I can’t see.

“Now.” He leans down, his putrid breath on my face. He holds a gun to my temple. He talks through his teeth, spraying his spit on my face. “I’m going to make you feel all the pain.”

I’m so dizzy. The room is spinning. The bloodied and rusted concrete finds its way in and out of my vision over and over again. Wes is tearing at my clothes. My shirt is open. Even with the gun to my head, I’m fighting and fighting him, but I don’t feel myself moving.

This is what it means to be all out of fight.

I thought I had seven more days.

I was wrong.

An explosion booms through the cell. It’s so loud it temporarily replaces all other sound. All I hear is a high-pitched ringing in my ears. Wes’s weight leaves my body, his gun drops from my head. He disappears into a mist of red and pink, falling lifeless against the iron bed frame. His mouth is open, and so are his eyes but he sees nothing.

Wes is dead.

I try to catch my breath but can’t get off the floor. I watch motionless as Wes’s blood seeps into the dingy yellowed mattress, staining it a deep red.

Smoke walks over to him, gun in hand. He crouches down and smirks.

“How’d that feel, motherfucker?”