Caught In The Crossfire

Prologue

"Looks like he's done it again." A tall man who was a threatening figure, a 6-foot-tall, with muscles big enough to squash a tin can said as he peers out of the small barred window of a cell as he was focusing on two of the wardens who were dealing with the regular occurrence in that wing of the jail.

"Succeeded?" his cellmate asks him.

"Well he wouldn't be screaming if he had." He turned around briefly to pull a face at his cellmate. "It's a cry for help I'm telling you."

"No, they just find him before he can tie the negligee tight enough." He shrugs, as if it was a perfectly ordinary situation which in fact it was in this prison. People wanted to get out, people wanted to be anywhere but here and if that meant death, for some it was a better option.

"That's the problem with being put under strict conditions." He moved away from the door and climb the ladder, falling onto the hard mattress of his bunk bed. "That's why I keep quiet."

"If you didn't, you wouldn't have a chance of getting out." He lowers his voice and the man scan the ceiling with his eyes.

"That's why you have to think these things through." He informed the other man in a gruff tone. "I've waited a year, I'm finally ready to put this in place."

"I'll miss you; you know?" He says and the man pulled a face, ducking over the side of the bunk bed to face him.

"Ah, you big softy." he tease. "Wouldn't have thought you shot your brother for a dare, would you?"

"Well they didn't at first." He shrugs. "Seriously though Al, I wish you all the luck and I hope whatever you're planning works out for you."

"Thank you." Alex whispered before hauling himself back onto the bed, his eyes returning to the crack in the ceiling, which they focus on every night before lights out. "So do I." then Alex slammed his black-gloved fist into the wall. His one eye gleamed with satisfaction. "It has been a long time, Winter," he said aloud to himself. His voice was raspy, like dry twigs brushing against the side of a house. The warehouse fire had burned his vocal cords beyond healing long ago. "A very long time."