Solitary Refinement Chapter 32

Dear Diary                                    May 20th 2018

   They’ll put me back in general population tonight. They had me in the psych wing for a while to investigate me on account of my saying I wasn’t in control of my own actions when I killed Kal. I heard just earlier today that the man who had ‘hired’ me before I was ever slammed in jail got caught at another robbery. He made a deal to get a few years off of his sentence as he was connected to a whole string of robberies obviously. He admitted that somebody had taken the fall for him before, that they didn’t know what they were involved in. Those dots were quickly connected to me.

    Once realizing that I’d actually been telling the truth I was issued a formal apology and cleared of all charges related to the robbery.

    There’s still Kal though. Tomorrow they decide if I will be charged with the murder of Kal or if I will be acquitted because I acted in self defense and nothing more. It would help if some people who knew more about Kal would testify on my behalf.

Then there’s what they don’t know about… Trevor… Ziggy.

    I did not expect to see Trevor coming in to my room that night. I was in the room trying to sleep without success when the lights went out. Now I’m wondering if it was the storm or if Trevor had Mark or someone else turn the lights off and that’s how he’d gotten into the wing at all. Whatever the case the lights were out. Just the faintest amount of light and it took my eyes a minute to adjust. When they did I saw the silhouette of somebody standing in my doorway.

“About time you got rid of him.” Muttered Trevor’s voice as he slowly walked in. I had forgotten how short he was.

“What the hell are you talking about.” I said to him, I had just killed Kal not long before and had the worst day of my life. Learning about Liz and Josh, I don’t know what happened to me it was both liberating and terrifying. This thought that I’d let things stand in my way that I shouldn’t have. If there are obstacles in my way I should just remove them, the only thing that matters now is getting back to see my children someday, no matter how long it takes and no matter what I have to do. Liberating that I could theoretically just fix this all myself and make it better instead of trying to trust untrustworthy people over and over and over. Terrifying because I didn’t know exactly what I may have to do to get back home unscathed. When Kal was climbing up my bed I just reacted. This was different.

“You finally killed Kal, I was wondering when you’d finally do it.”

“Is that why you told me to protect myself!?”

“You’re so naive, when you walked in hear all those months ago I just new I had to have you. So cute and scared. I tried to get you to trust me but that eventually went south. So then I knew all you needed was a push to get rid of Kal yourself so I could have you moved to my cell. This though, tonight, this is my reward for arranging everything so perfectly.Now I have you, and there is nobody here to protect you and if you don’t cooperate I’ll gut you.” With that he produced a blade from the waist of his pants. I saw it glint in the dim light. It’s strange how I felt in that moment, I wasn’t scared. At first I couldn’t identify what was missing but then I realized I wasn’t afraid, I had been afraid minute of every day since I got here and it had only been getting worse. I had been carrying fear around like a ball and chain getting caught in doors and making me unable to move freely around this place.

    It took all of three seconds to decide how I was going to handle the situation, nothing mattered but survival now. I was going to kill Trevor and make it look like Ziggy’s fault and never doubt that it was what was necessary. Once I’d arrived at that decision there was no way that Trevor was going to have his way even when he had a weapon and I didn’t. The gravity of the decision I’d just made combined with the adrenaline that was still coursing through my veins I felt as though I had the strength of ten men inside of myself.

    Trevor walked closer and closer and while there was still six feet between us I calmly walked over to the wall where there was a box of gloves, I put on a pair. I turned around, and lunged. He swung and missed with his knife and then I knocked him onto the ground. I was moving so fast there was no way he was going to keep up with me. I grabbed the knife from his hands and threw it across the room and then I punched him in the throat, seven times. Every one of those blows was like a freight train taking out all of the pent up panic and fear and rage and anxiety that I had been carrying inside. Then with both hands I clamped down, hard, harder still. He kicked and tried to scream but no sound came. Movies always make choking someone look like a quickly accomplished task. It is not true. I was there, choking that man to death for over five minutes I’m sure. My grip never loosened and my resolve never wavered. In that moment I didn’t even have a choice, I needed to kill everybody that was threatening the safety of my imprisonment. I remember looking into Trevor’s eyes as he breathed his last breath, or tried to breath it I should say.

    Next came Ziggy, I actually liked Ziggy and definitely understand him making security on his own terms now. If he were still alive I might even thank him for that. He was always kind to me, but all the same he had to die. I retrieved Trevor’s knife from the floor and walked over to the room Ziggy was in. I just watched him for a minute. Sleeping peacefully, breathing steadily. I envied him really to be able to sleep so well considering where he was. I regretted not taking his help earlier. No going back though, I raised my knife ready to plunge it into his temple. It was then that his eyes opened.

I didn’t stop.

He was gone in an instant. I don’t want to think about what I saw in his eyes right now either. I set to the work ahead of me. I dragged Trevor back to his own bed and then with much more difficulty moved Ziggy in there too, letting him lie crumpled on the floor. I put the knife in Trevor’s hands.

Removed the gloves.

Started screaming for help.

P.S. Only one chapter left people. Drop me a line let me know what you think.