The Cage (Book 2)

I Am Your King

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I Am Your King

"I am your king." Schneider declared softly.

In any other context, I would have laughed in his face and asked him for his mushroom dealer's phone number. But knowing what I knew, what I'd heard in the form of morbid rumors and malicious promises being echoed across this hellhole, I would have sooner cried than laughed.

"You... you're him? This king everyone's been talking about?" I asked warily in a voice that quivered, much like my quivering spine. I hadn't missed the multiple mentions of a supposed king that reigned supreme in this prison of horrors, of course. Just as I'd run for my laugh, someone had thrown it at my face.

He's got you now, white boy! There ain't no running away from the King! The inmate had yelled as he'd run past his cell. He'd sounded so sure that Schneider, the King, was going to catch up to me. And he'd been right.

By all accounts, Schneider was dangerous. Formidable. More so than any other murderous, vicious marauder, murderer or villain in this entire prison, enough to have been crowned their king.

And I'd gone and hit him with my handcuffs as I fled my cell. A lot of good that had done me; this was a maximum security prison. On an island. There was no escape.

But at the time, my fight or flight instincts had kicked in, and, faced with the looming threat of a convicted murderer who'd snuck into my cell with the help of the prison staff, I'd chosen to flee, if only to delay my... execution.

Well, I hadn't delayed it by much.

Here I stood now, facing my firing squad.

The end.

"Yes." The King answered, his eyes fluttering to the ground momentarily. And then he looked up and it was all I could do to keep his brilliant gaze. I wanted to break the intense stare and look away, but I feared taking my eyes off this terrifying man for even a second. He was the first to catch up with me, moving so quickly, so agilely, so nimbly that I'd almost begun to think I was being chased by an actual panther. And the way he'd leapt from the catwalks and landed right in front of me with nary a sound, his muscles straining beneath the flimsy uniform, showed strength and a lifetime of discipline as he'd commanded each of his limbs with precise control.

It was painfully clear to me that I was no match for the king. If he wanted, he could crush me in an instant, if he so wished.

So why hadn't he already? Why had he instructed the guards to lower their tasers? Was he playing games? Was I to be the mouse and he the cat?

The thought instilled me with newfound fear. It was one thing to be killed, and it was entirely another to be cruelly toyed with and humiliated in front of an entire prison. The inmates' eager gazes still bore into my back and front like arrowheads, as they awaited my inevitable undoing, hoping I'd give them a show as I went down.

A hush had descended over the cellblock. It was unnerving to say the least.

"W-What do you want from m-me?" It was said cautiously, almost breathlessly. My heart knocking against my ribcage was making it difficult to speak coherently. My state of mind was nowhere near coherent either. Alarms were sounding in my head, nearly loud enough to drown out the sound of blood rushing in my ears.

Schneider narrowed his eyes on me and I flinched.

He was fearsome indeed. He was the kind of person you wanted to cross the street to the other side when you saw him coming, while simultaneously wanting to pass him by just so you could bask in his aura. He was a paradox.