Page 10 of Claim

Then they were gone.

The door opened. Closed.

Dent stood by the door. “Let’s go.” He tipped his head towards the corridor.

The walk back felt longer.

The wing was fully unlocked with doors open, men drifting into the narrow strip of space, staking claim to inches. Conversations faltered as I passed. Voices dropped. Eyes followed. Took measure. Logged whatever had shifted in me since I’d gone.

Word moved fast in here. Faster than truth.

They would probably already know. That my defence had blinked. That someone had decided I wasn’t worth seeing through to the end. That I’d been professionally set down in the middle of the floor and left there. So I kept my head level and my pace steady. In a place like this, abandonment didn’t stay private for long. And I hadn’t only been abandoned by my legal team but also thrown to the wolves to fend for myself by Cormac.

I hadn’t expected to walk free. I didn’t expect mercy. And once it was clear there was nothing helping me on the outside, that Cormac had made a point of washing his hands of me, the only thing left to hold on to was the chance to stand when it mattered. To be heard. To stop this from becoming endless and faceless.

As long as I stayed present. Stayed sharp. Stayed myself.

As long as I kept my hands clean. Prevented Ghost from dragging me into violence I couldn’t walk back from and remembered who I’d been before survival became the only measure, then maybe there might still be something of me left worth saving.

When we reached my cell, I knew something was wrong immediately. Someone new occupied the bottom bunk.

“You’ve got a new cellmate,” Dent said, as if commenting on the weather.

I took in the man sitting there, hunched over on the mattress. Mid-forties. White. Office-soft. A body that had never taken a hit. Not once. It would if he stayed long enough. His gaze crept to mine then away again, breath coming too fast, skin grey with shock.

That was how quickly things changed in here.

One minute you existed. The next, you didn’t. Cleared out. Replaced. Like furniture.

The man stood, tugging at the front of his jumper as if he could smooth himself into place. “Hi.” His voice wobbled despite the effort to steady it. “I’m Colin.” He held out his hand.

I looked at Dent.

Dent chuckled under his breath. He liked moments like this. The recalibrations. How a room reset itself without warning. But I didn’t take the hand. Not out of cruelty. Out of caution. And I stepped past Colin, climbed the ladder to the top bunk, and lay back, staring at the ceiling. The same crack ran across it as before, spidering out from a point just above my head.

Fucking great.

From above, I could hear Colin breathing. Too fast. Too loud. Fear made people noisy in ways they didn’t realise. I closed my eyes and listened. To the wing. The shouts. This new weight in the room.

“Is it always this loud?” Colin asked.

I said nothing.

Harris had known the rules. Had understood my need for silence.

This bloke didn’t.

He’d have to.

Or he wouldn’t last.

As the noise of the prison settled back into its endless, grinding rhythm, one thought lodged itself in my chest, heavy and inescapable.

I was completely, utterly alone.

Chapter three

Tristan