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Alicia's hazel eyes stared unblinkingly at the low metal ceiling. She was well accustomed with this cell, this being her fifteenth stint in solitary over her ten-month prison sentence. She knew every speck of dust in the air, every notch in its century old steel, she could read the cramped room as though it was a weathered palm.
Her arm dangled from the bed lazily, her fingers tracing the scratched bed frame that marked the lineage of the room. Lydia had racked up a tally of ten days in this cell, Michael had stayed 35, Patricia had only spent five.
She'd found the nail in the pillow her first night in the cell, left by her predecessors so she could add her own score to their chart. Her tally snaked along the wall above her bed, far outnumbering the others. She rarely spent more than a week in the sky box before being thrown back into isolation.
Her bones cracked as she stretched her stiff muscles. She poised the sharpened nail to the wall, pain shooting through her nail bitten fingers from pinching the short tool. She scraped at the wall, teeth clenched as the horrid sound pierced the air.
She nodded approvingly at her handy work, slipping the nail back into her pant pocket. She could barely believe all that time had passed, it seemed such a short time ago that she was being shoved into her first ever cell with the mystery girl.
Her first cell mate had been a quiet girl with long dark silky hair that was somehow never a tangled mess in the mornings. For the first few weeks they hadn't exchanged a word, but although they had grown closer as the time had passed the girl had refused to tell Alicia her name. The girl had also shared very few personal facts, all Alicia had gathered from their time together was that she'd been locked up for a very long time.
Alicia propped herself against the wall, she wondered how her friend was doing these days. She probably had a new roommate by now as Alicia had been separated from the general prison population, being marked as 'unstable' and 'a threat to the peace'.
She was sure that the guard would be pleased when she was dealt with and no longer an issue for them. The guards used to enjoy riling her up, calling her names, taunting her, touching her, they enjoyed watching her short tether snap, just so they had an excuse to beat something. But their games had ceased when she learnt to give as good as she got.
But Alicia hadn't always been a wild ball of uncontrollable anger, her undying rage was man made. The hatred that burned in her veins was directed toward one unobtainable man. Bryce Caldwell. The man she'd once so foolishly loved has destroyed her entire world, just as he'd promised.
The end of her own life hadn't been enough of a punishment for Bryce, her life for his wasn't a fair exchange. He wanted her to feel pain, he wanted her to feel utterly helpless and alone, and he'd succeeded. He'd sent 5 innocent people to their death with a smile on his face. They'd been hurried out the door as if their lives weren't worth anyone's time.
Her jagged nails scraped against her palms as her fists instinctively clenched. Their floating flashed before her eyes like an old movie. She'd screamed until her throat was shredded, cried until there was nothing left, and fought until she couldn't anymore. All while he watched, relishing in her torment, deciding that his was adequate compensation for crossing him.
