"Shoot at my head if you want to kill me, you bastard!" Jack howled, clamping a hand to his throbbing head. The bullet had seared the air beside his temple, the muzzle blast leaving his ear ringing violently. Combined with the beating he'd taken, the world was a spinning, nauseating blur.
"Consider this a warning, terrorist," the warden replied calmly, sliding the revolver back into the inside pocket of his coat. He calmly put his hands in his pockets and continued, "Don't make your last days any shorter."
Hearing this, Jack's bloody grin widened, his eyes blazing with a wild light. "Then kill me now, you son of a bitch. Or I swear, in less than a month, you will regret letting me live."
"I told you not to provoke him, Jack," the old man hissed, his knuckles white where he gripped his own arm. "Be silent."
A moment of taut silence stretched, broken only when the warden burst into laughter. He threw his head back and laughed like a hyena, a harsh, grating sound that echoed off the concrete. "A mere criminal... challenging me?" he said, wiping a tear of mirth from his eye. "Let's see what you can achieve. You cease to exist in thirty days, number six-six-six."
He pressed his palms to his own cheeks, his expression shifting from amusement to one of rapturous ecstasy. "After that, I will tear your body limb from limb. I'll drain your blood, take out your eyes, and tear out that insolent tongue you speak with... I'll keep it as a prize. And at last..." He licked his lips, a low, wet sound. "Ah, yes. I will place your skull at the very head of my collection."
Finn looked at the warden's expression and felt a cold knot tighten in his stomach. "He's a total psychopath."
"At this rate, Jack will…" Barry muttered, his face tense.
"Then hear me out, you jerk!" Jack retorted, the grin still plastered on his battered face. "I'll be taking your skull before my execution."
"Is he insane, challenging the warden like that?" an inmate whispered, sweat plastering his hair to his forehead.
"This guy has guts, I'll give him that," muttered another from a safe distance.
"He should be dead. Why isn't the warden just killing him?" wondered a third.
"He's playing him," Barry muttered, his eyes fixed on the warden. "Jack attacked his ego. Now... now the warden won't just kill him. He'll want to break him first."
"I will break you, number six-six-six," the warden announced, his voice soft again, sealing the challenge. "Just you wait."
Saying this, he turned and began to walk away. "Clean this mess up," he ordered the guards, gesturing to the dead bodies. "The prison medical staff will tend to the injured." He walked calmly through the door, his footsteps echoing his departure.
The moment the door clicked shut, Jack's defiant stance dissolved. His eyes rolled back, and he crumpled to the floor in a heap.
"Ah," Ben reacted with concern, moving forward. "Adrenaline's gone. He was running on pure spite."
Finn rushed to Jack's side. "Hey, Jack, open your eyes!" He slapped Jack's cheeks lightly. "He's completely passed out."
"Move away from the injured, you specimens of foolishness!" a sharp, gravelly woman's voice cut through the room from the direction of the exit.
That voice… Ben's head snapped toward the entrance, his face draining of color. "Is that you? Emily... Bonecracker?" he muttered, bewildered.
"Bonecracker?" Barry wondered, the unusual surname catching his ear. "Is she the new nurse?" He glanced at Uncle Ben, who suddenly looked profoundly uncomfortable.
"Hey, old man, you know this old woman?" asked a nearby prisoner.
"Just an… an old acquaintance," Ben replied, a bead of sweat tracing a line down his temple.
Finn stared. The woman who strode in looked like a nightmare plucked from a bygone punk-rock era. A white doctor's coat was thrown open over a pink crop-top that read "RUTHLESS BADDIE" in cursive red, revealing a wrinkled but surprisingly slim waist. Tight jeans were stuffed into high black leather boots that clicked aggressively on the concrete. Her face was a roadmap of wrinkles, dominated by a hooked nose, thin, blood-red lips, and thick gray eyebrows. Opaque black goggles masked her eyes entirely, and a cloud of long gray hair streamed down to her waist. She carried a lit cigar between two fingers like a weapon.
"Wow," Finn breathed, half in awe, half in terror.
"Pick up the injured and take them to the healing chamber," she commanded the masked male staff who followed her, all incongruously draped in pink nurse uniforms. They complied with rough efficiency, grabbing the injured by a leg or an arm and dragging them away, smearing bloody trails on the floor. One of them hauled Jack up by his arm.
The remaining inmates quickly dispersed to their cells, not needing a second warning.
Suddenly, her goggled gaze fell on the familiar face of Old Man Ben, who was attempting to hide behind Barry.
"Why are you hiding, old man?" she questioned, her head tilting. "Scared of a little nurse?"
"Ah, no," the old man stammered, "that's not what I…"
"Then get out here, you wrinkle-assed fool!" she barked before he could finish.
Ben immediately jumped out from behind Barry, snapping into an attention-like position.
Finn and Barry were speechless.
"I've never seen the old man like this," Barry thought, his bewilderment total.
"Who is this woman?" wondered Finn as he slowly began backing away toward his cell.
"Are you hurt somewhere, you calcium-deficient, old-assed human?" Emily asked, raising a thick gray eyebrow.
"Ah, no, I'm fine," Ben replied reluctantly. "I wasn't involved in the quarrel."
"Oh, really?" She reached out and tapped his shoulder.
He winced instantly, grabbing it in pain. "Ah!"
"Take him too," she ordered the staff.
One of the gruff-looking nurses came over and, with no effort at all, lifted the old man and slung him over his shoulder.
"No, wait, I'm okay!" Ben struggled, his legs kicking feebly. "Hey, Finn! Barry! Tell them I'm okay!"
But Barry and Finn just stood, dumbfounded, as the old man was hauled away. The old woman followed them out, the smoke from her cigar trailing behind her.
The other staff patched up Finn and Barry's minor injuries before shoving them toward their cell.
"Damn," Finn exhaled, collapsing onto his bed. The thin mattress felt like heaven. "That was a heavy morning."
"We have to work in an hour, so save your energy," Barry replied. He peeled off his shirt, numbered '384', and tossed it aside, revealing a lean, defined torso. A fresh bandage was stark white against the skin of his nose. He lay down on his own bed.
"Jack was incredible," Finn said, his eyes on the moss-infested ceiling. "He knocked Grizz out cold."
"Hm," Barry hummed, but his brow was furrowed. "But he's in deep trouble now. The warden won't let him rest."
"Poor him. He only had one month to live in peace, but now he won't even get that," Finn replied with a hint of pity.
"Don't pity him," Barry said, his voice hardening as he stared at the ceiling. "He's a terrorist. Not everyone in here is like us. Who knows what he did to get a death penalty... and to be forced to spend his last days in this shithole."
Finn stayed silent for a minute. Barry closed his eyes, thinking he might get a short nap, but then Finn spoke quietly.
"Barry… but what if he is like us?"
Barry contemplated this for a few seconds. "Ask him what he did. Once he gets back."
...
Jack was... somewhere else. A graveyard. Rain lashed down, turning the world gray. Rows of cemented graves stretched into an endless, bleak horizon.
Huh? This is...
He heard a raw, broken sob just a little way off to his side. He turned.
A figure was collapsed on his knees by a fresh grave, his body shaking. It was him. A younger version, barely out of his teens, drenched and barefoot. His soiled white t-shirt and patched blue pants clung to his thin frame.
"I'm sorry... I'm sorry... I couldn't come to save you, Mom. Please, forgive me," the boy sobbed, his voice cracking. "Forgive me, Mom. Please, come back. I promise I won't go anywhere again."
"How long has it been since then?" the present Jack murmured, walking toward his younger self. He looked at the gravestone: "Bertha." A fresh spike of rage lanced through him. He raised his fist. "Stop crying like a weakling!"
But as his fist swung, the world dissolved.
He blinked. He was standing in a forest clearing under a cold moon. The smell of copper and voided bowels hit him. Corpses were everywhere, torn apart by bullets. Rifles and daggers lay near lifeless hands.
"I can't forget this day. Ever."
He heard a voice, choked with rage and grief. "I swear... I swear on my life…"
He turned. It was him again, sitting on the ground. Older than the boy at the grave, but younger than the man in the cell. Mid-twenties, maybe. His shoulder-length hair was matted, his face streaked with tears.
He was cradling a girl's body in his lap.
Her cold, lifeless eyes stared into the abyss. Her brown hair was matted with blood and mud. Her pale face was streaked with blood that trickled from her nose and mouth. Her white shirt was a dark, spreading stain over her stomach. A bullet wound.
"I swear... I swear…" his younger self repeated, his eyes red and raw.
The present Jack's eyes burned with the same fire. He clenched his fists, his voice joining his younger self's, a terrible, overlapping vow:
"I will take vengeance on this rotten world."
"I will bring it to the justice it deserves."
...
Jack's eyes snapped open, the vow still echoing in his ears.
"Huh?"
His vision was blurry. A face swam into view, hovering above him against a moss-infested ceiling.
"Oh, he's awake," a cheerful voice said.
It was Finn.