“Yup.” Hades’ voice grew warmer. “I could’ve sworn it was coming from right outside my cell. So I smacked Jag awake andhethought there was a cat too. Then it stopped mewing. We listened for a while, but when we heard nothing else, we went back to sleep. The next night, the same thing happened. The cat mewed, louder and louder. More of the inmates were starting to pay attention, except when a guard came to check it out, the cat stopped.
“This went on for a week. We looked under the bunks in the morning but found nothing. At night, at random times, we heard the mewing again.
“Then one night, one fucking night, we hearda snake.”
“No,” Aaren gasped.
“The cat started hissing. The snake hissed too. Then they fought. By now, all the inmates were awake and listening. Some of them wanted the lights on so they could watch the fight. Some of the others just wanted to sleep. Either way, the guards came along. The moment the lights turned on, the sounds just... stopped.
“The guards looked everywhere for the cat and snake. Everyone said they had heard them, so the guards shone their lights under everyone’s bunks. They couldn’t find a single fur or scale. Theguards yelled at us and stormed off, but not before giving us a warning. Then they turned off the lights. Guess what?”
“The sounds started again?” Aaren said.
“Yup. The cat started purring smugly, like it got away. Then the snake came back and they began fighting again. Of course the inmates made noises. Some thought it was ghosts. Some thought one of us brought in a cat and they’re stowing it away under a blanket. Either way, the cat ended up victorious, and the snake went off to lick its wounds.
“It didn’t happen every night, but most nights there was at least a purr or two,” Hades added. “Sometimes the snake showed up and they started fighting again, but every time the guards came to check it out, the sounds vanished into thin air. They were getting pretty fed up by this point—one night, the cat began purring the moment they walked away, and the guards came back to shake out every cell.”
“No cat?” Aaren asked.
“No cat. In fact, most of us were pretty pissed about the shakedown, because we wanted to sleep.”
“Did you ever find the cat?”
Hades huffed. “So the next day, we were all cranky from the lack of sleep. Everyone was snapping at each other; I was bitching at Storm, who was behind me in the lunchroom queue. ‘Fucking cat,’ I told him. ‘Maybe it’s a ghost.’
“Storm said, ‘Or maybe it likes the attention.’”
“I didn’t reply because it was almost my turn to get food. And right behind me came a purr, the same exact one I’d heard everynight. Just that when I turned around, there was no cat. Just a fucking brat wearing the fakest innocent face I’d ever seen.”
Aaren gasped. “It was him all along?”
“Yup. And along came Fury, who stuck his face over Storm’s shoulder and hissed like the realest snake I’d ever heard.”
“Wow,” Aaren said. “That’s... kind of funny.”
“I just about punched them right there and then. It was the closest I’d ever come to smacking them around.”
“Are you rolling your eyes?” Aaren asked. “You sound like you might be rolling your eyes.”
“I am,” Hades said flatly.
Aaren’s mouth twitched into a smile. “Did you ever tell anyone else?”
“That night, I barked at the fucking cat,” Hades said. “I have a pretty realistic bark. Jag smacked me when he heard, but thenhejoined in with fake rooster sounds. It became a zoo.”
“Oh gods,” Aaren whispered, dissolving into giggles.
“We had to quit after that, because there was too much evidence that the sounds were coming from our cells. But I can tell you it was one of the best pranks we’d ever pulled. From time to time, we would make the animal sounds again. Especially when there was a new inmate. We’d make them question their sanity.”
“That’s evil,” Aaren said, but he was still smiling.
“Hey, we were all in prison for something or other. Only assholes in there.”
“You’re not so bad.”
“I try to be good around you.”
“Is it hard?”
