“Wrong man to bully.”
The words hung in the icy air of the cafeteria as he strode right through the sea of parted orange jumpsuits. On the second-floor catwalk, the heavily armed riot guards lowered their rifles, utterly baffled. The apex predators of Cell Block D had just backed down from a bruised rookie.
But as soon as the heavy steel doors hissed shut behind him, plunging him into the camera-blind corridor of Sector 4, the protagonist’s cold glare dissolved into a razor-sharp smirk.
He hadn’t just survived the yard. He had orchestrated it.
He slipped a hand into the lining of his pants. When the tattooed giant had violently shoved him, shattering the room’s silence with the clattering metal tray, it wasn’t an act of aggression. It was a masterclass in sleight of hand.
He pulled out the prize: a stolen Level-5 biometric master keycard and a tiny glass vial of high-grade corrosive acid.
The bruised cheek? Stage makeup applied right before his deliberate arrest. The hulking, goatee-wearing gang boss? His cartel-funded inside man. The entire cafeteria showdown was a meticulously timed distraction to draw the guards’ eyes—and the security cameras—away from the drop.
He tapped a micro-transceiver buried deep in his ear canal. “Package secured,” he whispered into the shadows.
A heavily filtered voice crackled back. “You have exactly nine minutes before they realize the Warden’s key is missing. Can you get our guy out?”
The protagonist swiped the stolen card at the door to Restricted Solitary. The heavy iron lock clicked green. He pushed it open, stepping into the pitch-black abyss.
“I didn’t come to get him out,” he replied, popping the cork off the acid vial with his thumb. “I came to finish the job.”