true colors - jb & ag 《completed》

{one}

Brilliant sunlight stabbed Justin's eyes as he stepped into the exercise yard for the first time in a week. He raised his hand to his forehead and paused just outside the door, fighting a wave of dizziness. After five days in solitary, the last thing he wanted to do was appear weak, as if it had beaten him. So he squinted, lowered his hand, and strode forward with confidence.

His first time in "the void," as everyone called it, had been torture. Locked inside the eight-by-eight windowless cell with nothing but his own thoughts, an aching jaw, and a broken rib had forced him to face his demons. And it hadn't been pretty. But as much as being cut off from everything and everyone sucked, when Justin's gaze landed on Stanley Swindoll standing in the corner, his dark, toothpick arms pumping the basketball as if it were his only friend, he knew he'd do it all again.

Right about then Stanley spotted him. His eyes widening, he raced across the concrete, driving the basketball like an extension of his hand. "Justin! You're back. I'm so sorry, man. I had no idea—"

Justin clasped the boy's bony shoulder. "Don't, okay? They had it coming."

"But when those guys jumped you—"

"Seriously, kid. I don't need a play-by-play." The heat of a heavy stare pulled Justin's attention to the bleachers. DW—aka Dip Wad—glared in his direction. Justin flashed him a grin, thrilled to see that the bruise around the bully's left eye had turned into a molten mess of yellowish brown.

"Did Dip Wad or the others give you any trouble?" Justin asked, keeping his easy grin in place as DW bared his teeth in a grimace, his mammoth frame stiffening. Justin seriously had no idea how the guy maintained his girth on the slop they were fed in this place.

"Nope." The rhythmic slap of the basketball began again. "Not since they transferred Jake."

Justin's gaze jerked down to Stan's dark eyes. "Wait. What did you say?" As hierarchies went, Jake was the king of JJC. If you wanted something smuggled in—cigarettes, candy bars, drugs—you went through Jake. His uncle was the assistant warden, so he got away with everything short of murder. And the jerkhole couldn't handle that a thirteen-year-old black kid could wipe the court with him every single time.

"Jake's gone." A smile the size of Texas spread across Stan's face. "The ward called me in day before yesterday, and I told him everything. How Jake had been threatenin' me since that day I trounced him one-on-one. How he put that junk in my food that made me sick. How you jumped in when they pulled the knife on me. Guess the ward had been doing an investigation of Jake because some district head guy's comin' in next week for an inspection."

Stan paused in his dribbling and palmed the basketball with both hands. "That's the rumor anyway." He shrugged and set the ball in motion again.

Struck speechless, Justin followed the five-foot-nothing kid over to the court. No wonder Dip Wad had stayed glued to the bleachers—without Jake, he was a powerless meatbag.

For the first time in three years, eleven months, and twenty-nine days, Justin felt a spark of warmth in his chest. He figured after the beat-down he'd given Jake and his buddies, it would only be a matter of time until it was his turn. In solitary, he'd gone through countless strategies on how to avoid the inevitable retaliation—only to find out now, it would never happen. He'd cut the head off the beast.

Justin slapped the ball out of Stan's hands, faked right, and then used his height advantage to lay the ball in the hoop.

"Smooth!" Stan praised. "I might make a player out of you yet."

Justin grinned, even as he bent over and clutched his aching side.

"Bieber!" A guard approached the court, one who had repeatedly turned deaf ears to Justin's complaints about Jake's reign of terror. "The warden wants to see you."