Chapter 139: Her Voice In My Head

Draven’s pov

I had been in that prison for three days, and I had barely eaten twice since I arrived.

The bullies had taken my food both times ... literally feeding off me ... and I couldn’t do a damn thing about it. The same thing was happening to the rest of the seven behind those prison doors.

There was one I had clocked the moment I stepped inside. Their leader. Every prison faction in that place answered to him. He had a daily quota ... a certain amount of food that was expected to land in his hands every single day ... and his men were always seizing people’s portions to meet it.

Us entering the prison had been a bonus for them, and they took our food without blinking.

"Try robbing in here too," the head prisoner said, mocking us as he threw the empty tray back.

Oh shit. It stung, and not just physically.

We weren’t novices. We weren’t amateurs. But the six of us had made a calculated decision to observe the place first, gain ground, understand the terrain ... and then strike. We had agreed to absorb their nonsense for a short period and then retaliate heavily.

It was already looking nearly impossible.

These men were strong and deeply entrenched. They had sealed every corner of that prison and left no loopholes. They were the kings of the place, and nothing about their posture suggested they were going anywhere. But my focus wasn’t becoming king of the prison. My focus was getting the hell out of it. I felt it in my bones ... I would die if I stayed another second in that hellhole. I just knew it.

Nobody saw a chance to bully us and passed it up.

"Where are those pricks that rob banks?" The chief officer came to call us out one morning.

She laughed the moment we appeared ... bruised, dirty, worn down to nothing.

Then she added more beatings on top of the ones we’d already been collecting, like she was adding interest.

She was a wicked one.

Afterwards, she had us placed in a shared cell, separated from the general population.

"Put the birds of the same feather in the same cell," she said.

Just like that, we were cut off from the rest of the prison. The silver lining ... and I wasn’t sure if it was intentional or not ... was that our food would now be brought directly to our cell. The head officer had unknowingly shielded us from Viper’s men reaching our meals.

"We have to find our way out of here, Lucas," I said.

"Yes. We can’t stay here," he agreed.

The women with us were just as done with the place.

"We can’t wait to leave," they said.

We were going through a brutal stretch, but we believed we were going to come out the other side ... together. Hope was the only currency we had left, and the fact that we still had each other made it worth something.

---

The following morning, we were brought out for general cleanup across the prison. It was the first time I had laid eyes on the prison bullies in almost twenty-four hours.

I went to use the toilet while we were cleaning, and the first thing I walked into was one wolf brutalising another ... beating the hell out of him in a corner while the officers outside remained completely oblivious.

I stood there for a moment, genuinely disgusted. What the hell could a man have done to be enduring that kind of punishment?

I kept walking.

Then I stumbled into two male wolves going at it in the same bathroom they were supposed to be cleaning.

What the fuck.

I closed the door immediately and minded my business. This place was something else entirely. The things I had seen in three days were enough to drive a man to the edge.

I was still processing all of it when one of Viper’s men stepped into my path.

"Come here ... what have you been doing? You think you’re bigger than us now because they gave you a separate cell?" He hit me on the chest in front of everyone. The officers had already drifted off, no longer paying attention now that the cleaning was done.

"Don’t hit me like that again," I told him. Calmly. Clearly. In front of every set of eyes that were now watching.

"Who the fuck are you?" he said. "When did you get here? We’ve been running this place for a decade. You don’t have any respect." He punched me on the chest again ... harder this time, deliberate.

Something in me snapped.

I swung my clenched fist with everything I had, putting my full weight and fury behind it. It connected with his cheek so hard that a tooth flew clean out of his mouth. I was sure another one went down his throat ... good riddance, motherfucker.

Everyone watching went dead silent.

He lurched forward trying to rush me, and the guys from the seven moved in immediately, pulling me back before it escalated. His own men grabbed him too. But he was wild ... he really wanted to get back to me, and it took two of his boys to hold him in place.

I was fully aware of the consequences. His top boss ... Viper ... was going to have eyes on me now. I knew that.

I didn’t give a fuck.

I couldn’t keep watching myself get intimidated and do nothing about it. That wasn’t what my baby Jade had taught me.

---

The officers came running when the noise reached them. They didn’t ask questions. They didn’t want explanations. We were both singled out and given a beating that went far beyond what the offence could have justified ... our workload was doubled on top of it.

The punishment was excessive. Way past discipline.

But I didn’t feel bad.

I was actually glad, because his ass had to go seek medical attention. They packed ice into his mouth to manage the pain and he needed stitches. Son of a glorified bitch. He deserved far worse.

The problem was that it cost me more than I had expected. My whole body was aching ... the beatings, the accumulated stress, the weight of three days in that place pressing down on me all at once.

I found Lucas later and pulled him aside.

"I have an idea that gets us out of here," I said.

"What’s the idea?" he asked.

I said it straight, no hesitation, because desperation had already done the thinking for me.

"We kill one of Viper’s men and trigger a riot inside the prison. That’ll be our gap ... our window to break out."

Lucas was quiet for a moment. "And who does the killing?"

"I’m more willing to leave this place than any of you," I said. "So I’ll do it."

"Are you sure?" one of Lucas’s men asked.

And in the silence that followed, I heard Jade’s voice again ... quiet, clear, somewhere behind my ribs.

I can. Because I have to survive.