Marcus Pelegrimas - The Breaking

“That sucks.”

Footsteps slapped against the concrete floor outside of the cell, announcing the arrival of Waylon and one other guard. He looked inside at Cole, scribbled a few notes onto his clipboard and said, “On your knees and approach the bars.”

After the guard opened the cell door, Cole was allowed to crawl through. Before he was clear of the bars, a foot slammed between his shoulders and pinned him to the floor. Waylon tugged at the collar of Cole’s jumpsuit so he could see the tendril markings and then stepped back while saying, “You’re getting a roommate.”

Cole tried to lift himself up, but was forced back down again so harshly that his face cracked against the floor. Looking up with blood trickling from his nose and lip, he asked, “Am I supposed to shine his shoes while I’m down here?”

Lambert chuckled.

Waylon scribbled.

The guard motioned to someone farther down the hall while drawing a stun gun from his belt. More interesting than that, Cole spotted a bulky figure in the cell beside his. The prisoner there barely made a sound as he moved his wide, leathery body away from the bars and out of sight.

The elevator door rattled open and two more guards escorted another prisoner down the hall. He was Cole’s height, had lighter skin, dark eyes, and about a quarter of his teeth. Instead of the jumpsuits worn by Cole and Lambert, he wore light gray sweatpants and a white T-shirt that was missing its sleeves. The tattoos on his arms, knuckles, and neck looked as if they’d been smeared on with a toothpick after his skin was sliced away and then steamed back into place.

“Put him through his paces,” Waylon said as Cole was forced to back into his cell. “And remember what happens. I’ll want to know everything.”

The stocky prisoner knew the drill of getting into Cole’s cell, but wasn’t happy about it. He dropped to his knees and lowered his head only as long as it took for him to crawl through the low opening. When he looked up again, he glared at Cole as looking at the man who’d molested his baby sister. Climbing back to his feet, the prisoner tugged at the bottom of his shirt and hiked up his pants. “Anything I should know about him?” he asked.

Waylon checked his notes. “Just that he needs to be kept alive. Other than that …put him through his paces.”

“This isn’t right,” Cole said. “I didn’t hurt any of those cops. I already told that to everyone that had ahold of me since that night. Jesus Christ, when is someone gonna check the security cameras at that warehouse? There were cameras! There was a damn news helicopter! Someone will—”

His cellmate drove his shin into his groin, forcing Cole to buckle as all of the breath was swept from his lungs and expelled through his gaping mouth. It would take a second or two for the pain to really sink in, so he rushed the bigger prisoner and slammed his shoulder into the guy’s chest and pushed him against the bars. Waylon and all of the guards walked away amidst the knocking of hard soles upon a harder floor.

When Cole felt an elbow drop onto his back, he rammed his shoulder once again into the slab of beef that was his new cellmate. He kept his head down and delivered short hooking punches to the other man’s ribs as if chopping down a tree from two angles. The prisoner weathered the storm while twisting his body to wedge an arm between Cole’s shoulder and his own chest. As soon as Cole was shoved back, he delivered an uppercut that knocked the back of the other man’s head against the bars. The prisoner barely even twitched before driving an elbow into Cole’s face.

Not only did that elbow hit him like a club, but Cole’s groin now felt like it had been hit by a flaming jackhammer. Two hooking punches barely caught the other prisoner’s attention. A sharp jab to the nose took the smile off the other man’s face, but only until the prisoner thumped his fist against a portion of Cole’s jumpsuit that was already soaked through with blood. The moment those knuckles hit his incision, Cole was done. The prisoner shoved him toward the toilet and walked over to lay his bulky frame on the freshly made bottom bunk.

Since Cole could barely move, he sat on the toilet and prayed for death.

“Hey, friend,” Lambert said from across the hall. “I didn’t catch your name.”

“Cole.”

“You got some balls, Cole.”

“Yeah. Too bad they’re up near the back of my throat right now.”

Both of the other inmates laughed at that one.

The next two days passed in a blur. At least, Cole thought it was two days. Since he wasn’t let out of his cell once in that amount of time, he had to use the movements of the rest of the prison as his only gauge. Meals were served. Lights were shut off and turned back on again. Also, his psychotic cellmate only stopped pounding his face into pulp right before lunch and for a few hours after dinner.

Cole had taken to calling him Chop, simply because letters spelling the words PORK CHOP were tattooed onto his fingers just below the knuckles of each hand. And the only reason he got such good looks at those tattoos was because they were flying at him nonstop for what he guessed was two days. Chop never let up unless he needed to use the toilet, get something to drink, or eat some food off the trays that were slid into the cell by guards who were all too eager to move along. By the time day three rolled around, Cole wondered if he was simply being beaten to death as penance for what he was supposed to have done to those cops in Denver. Judging by the disgusted looks he was getting from the guards, he could very well have been getting off light.

“Step aside, asshole,” Chop said. “I gotta take a piss.” He and Cole were both bloodied and battered from their near-constant brawling. Both men could handle themselves, but neither was about to concede. Even more important, Cole’s incision was healing thanks to his enhanced system and his willingness to let the rest of his body take a beating just to divert Chop’s fists from that spot. Even so, it was only a matter of time before Chop tore him wide open. Judging by the interest with which Waylon scribbled his notes, that might well have been what the man in the suit was hoping to see.

When Chop moved over to the toilet and tended to his business, Cole looked over at Lambert. So far the skinnier inmate had been content to remain on his bunk like a rodent seeking refuge in the narrowest crevice of a cave. The sound of a steady liquid stream hitting dented metal filled the cell, accompanied by a contented sigh from the man directing the flow. Cole rushed at Chop from behind and almost got an arm around the man’s thick neck before the inmate spun around to intercept him. His leaky penis was still hanging over the top of his sweats as Chop once again introduced his tattooed fist to Cole’s face.

“Took ya long enough to try that,” Chop mused before lunging forward to get a grip on Cole’s jumpsuit so he could toss him into the metal frame of the bunk bed.

Cole bounced off the bed and landed in a sideways stance. The plan had been to outlast the constant assault and defend himself until Chop was either called off or convinced that he’d met his match, and Paige’s training had been good enough to get him this far. Now, after days of spitting blood and sleeping with one eye open, he was starting to rethink that plan. The healing serum in his body was wearing thin, and the Nymar tendrils had faded into lines beneath his flesh that gave him occasional jolts of strength along with a constant ache running all the way down to his core.

If the spore was still inside him, Cole knew he could have thrown Chop through a wall or maybe even pulled the cell door from its hinges. With only the torn tendrils left behind, those were no longer options. He wasn’t Nymar. He was just sick and tired of being locked up and knocked around. The pain that cinched around his innards tightened, forcing a hardened scowl onto his face. When Chop punched him in the stomach, his fist thumped against a thick mess of scar tissue. Cole pulled away from the other man’s grip and delivered a quick blow to his ribs. His fist landed in the same spot he’d been hitting ever since the beatings first started, putting one of Paige’s lessons into action. If someone’s weakness couldn’t be found, make one.