AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Four Years Later
“Are ya goin’ to tell me who did this to ye?”
Turning my cheek, I shift on the soft bed as I’m not used to luxuries such as this anymore. But I suppose I’m not used to a lot of things like walking without chains binding my feet and wrists. And using a real fork.
Those are a thing of the past, a past I’ve forgotten because that world is dead to me, and in its place is this—hell.
The system didn’t know what to do with a young offender like me as my crimes were unlike anything they’d seen before. They wanted to put me into a YOC, but at the insistence of the chief constable, I was thrown into Riverbend House—a prison reserved for the depraved.
On the outside, things may seem “normal,” but on the inside, it’s anything but. I’ve been beaten, starved, and tortured, and no one does anything about it because no one cares. We’re merely playthings to the officers and other prisoners.
It’s kill or be killed, which is why I’m sporting a five-inch gash across my guts. I’m no one’s little bitch, and when a new inmate tried to make me his, I slit his fucking throat.
I’ve got nothing to lose out there, but everything to gain in here by reinforcing that no one fucks with Puck Kelly. I suppose my reputation is notorious because what I did five years ago shook Northern Ireland. Tales have been spun, but at the root of it was the truth—that I killed my father and uncle in cold blood.
Even though I didn’t pull the trigger, I was still responsible.
I’ve heard some ridiculous retellings from new prisoners trying to be my friend, but they were just bedtime stories mothers told their wains to frighten them. I was a basis of comparison.
Ye don’t wanna end up like Punky Kelly, do ye now?
Why let the truth get in the way of a good story?
“Who’s Cara?” the nurse, Aoife, asks.
I haven’t heard that name in so long, I’ve almost forgotten it. But the memories those four simple letters awaken have me remembering like it was only just yesterday.
“My ma.”
Aoife smiles—she’s too sweet to be working here. “Ya can’t be that bad if y’ve got yer ma’s name tattooed on yer knuckles.”
I deadpan her. “Naw, I’m worse.”
She pauses from stitching me up, her lower lip quivering. “I don’t believe it. There’s somethin’ different about ya.”
“What don’tcha believe?”
Her fingers tremble against my stomach.
I know she likes me. I’ve been in this sickbay too many times to count, and each time, I see the way she looks at me. “The stories about ye. That ye killed thirty men with yer bare hands.”
Laughing, I take great pleasure in seeing her turn a lovely scarlet. It’s been so long since I’ve been with a woman. The last woman was…
Refusing to give way to those memories, I decide to make room for new ones, so they’re the only ones I remember from this moment going forward.
“Ye shouldn’t believe everythin’ ya hear. It was twenty-five, but who’s countin’?” I reply, eyeing her up and down.
She brushes a strand of brown hair behind her ear before slowly getting up and drawing the blind on the door. She then locks it.
With her back pressed to the door, she plays coy, but I sit back, already topless, waiting for her to make the next move.
“Don’tcha tell anyone,” she says, slowly undoing the zipper on her white uniform. She’s wearing a black bra and matching underwear.
“It’ll be our secret,” I assure, beckoning her over with my finger.
She walks over to the bed, and if this were any other prison, there’d be a prison officer inside the room. But this is Riverbend House and anything goes. She peers down at me, licking her lips. With nothing but time on my hands, I work out a lot. I was muscular before, but now, I’ve grown into that body.
She is beautiful, but she isn’t who I want. But who I want, I can never have.
