Since the disturbance on the basketball court, no inmate—no matter how reckless—dared to go near DAVIS again. In private, when his name came up, they simply called him "that demon."
Yet DAVIS himself seemed somewhat dissatisfied with the arrangement. He wore a perpetually bored expression, as if he were some world leader complaining, "Why won't any other country provoke me so I can have a legitimate excuse to slaughter them?"
In the cafeteria, when Johnson caught sight of DAVIS's beautiful face, he silently thanked Robert for his foresight. Otherwise, he would have been the one subjected to a week of abuse.
No matter how high Johnson's standing was among the inmates, the prison guards still held the power of life and death over him.
"Speaking of which," Robert said sharply, fixing DAVIS with a piercing stare, "you were damn lucky last night. If the spotlight hadn't malfunctioned, what would've been left in front of me would've been nothing but a mangled lump of flesh. Don't you think that was a bit underhanded? I was actually looking forward to seeing you put on a grand show."
"Hahahahahahaha! Underhanded?" DAVIS clutched his stomach and laughed exaggeratedly. After a long while, he wiped the tears from the corners of his eyes and gave Robert a meaningful look. "Underhanded is just a curse word used by losers. Robert, I thought you of all people here understood that cunning is a kind of wisdom. I'm a little disappointed."
Robert remained outwardly impassive. But in his dark green eyes, shadows shifted like the sea before a storm.
Seeing his friend at a disadvantage, Johnson quickly changed the subject and handed over a cigarette.
"Here. And lend me your lighter while you're at it," DAVIS said, taking the cigarette—and then the lighter from Johnson's hand.
"If he'd said no, you probably would've smashed a tray over his head. But I thought you didn't smoke. Why do you need a lighter now?"
"Stop nagging like a mother, will you? You already look old enough. Add that tone of voice and I'd swear you crawled out of a grave from the 1920s."
Old?
Robert, only twenty-five, instinctively touched his face.
"Anyway, I'm just glad you're fine. I heard you pulled a David Copperfield last night. What exactly happened?" People often say businessmen are foxes, yet Garcia's sincere relief made it hard to imagine he'd spent years navigating the cutthroat world of commerce.
"I may not have the power to stop time," DAVIS said, raising an eyebrow, "but at least I can stop a guard in his tracks."
Garcia wanted to press further, but seeing the knowing look on Robert's face, he thought better of it.
"By the way, DAVIS, what did you do to end up here? Honestly, you don't look like a criminal," Johnson asked, a bead of sweat forming in his heart. Why did these two men seem to drop to elementary-school IQ levels whenever they met?
"Murder." DAVIS's eyes were calm and still. His hand trembled slightly, and a drop of creamy white soup spilled onto the back of it. "I killed someone."
"You look pretty experienced. How could you slip up for no reason?" Robert couldn't resist provoking him again.
"Experienced? Oh, I'm very experienced." DAVIS's lips curved lazily. "Every woman who's tasted me says what I give them feels better than shooting up heroin—"
He extended his pink tongue and slowly licked the thick white liquid from his skin, the tip circling deliberately across the back of his hand. His sultry eyes, however, remained fixed on Robert with a half-smile.
Garcia, thin-skinned and easily flustered, felt his cheeks flush pink at the sight. He glanced away awkwardly.
"Dodging the question won't help," Robert said coolly. Outwardly unmoved, yet beneath the surface his body betrayed him; the feline languor of DAVIS's movements had stirred him despite himself.
Damn it. Who exactly is this little wildcat trying to seduce?
DAVIS tossed his messy black hair, flashed a grin, and left the room leisurely—abandoning behind him a group of men simmering with unspent desire.
In the days that followed, prison life grew calmer as more inmates were thrown into solitary confinement. According to DAVIS, however, it had merely become dull and tedious.
In the laundry room, Garcia washed filthy clothes. At first, he pinched his nose and absolutely refused to touch the foul-smelling garments with his bare hands. DAVIS rolled his eyes, flung a pair of feces-stained underwear at him, and said coldly, "Fine. I'll tell Qiang you want to switch jobs. You can scrub toilets from now on."
Garcia bit his lip and obediently learned to wash clothes from DAVIS. The long, elegant fingers that had once known nothing more strenuous than paperwork were now swollen and reddened from soaking in hot water for hours.
As they worked, Garcia began speaking voluntarily about his family.
Just as DAVIS had imagined, Garcia had grown up in a beautiful white house, with a fluffy dog, and a mother who baked homemade cookies.
He must have been raised in the full indulgence of his parents. Otherwise, how could he be so ignorant of how dangerous people can be?
"…But it's really strange. Since I came here, my parents haven't visited me even once." Garcia's expression darkened. "Maybe… something happened to them."
"You've never considered that they might be ashamed of you? That they don't want to visit their son—the murderer?" DAVIS said bluntly.
"No. They said they believed in me!" Garcia's voice suddenly rose, his eyes firm as stone.
DAVIS paused in the middle of scrubbing.
"Sorry. I got a little emotional." Garcia took a breath. "What about you, DAVIS? What are your parents like?"
Though born into the upper class, Garcia couldn't help noticing that beneath DAVIS's wild exterior and coarse language, there lingered an understated elegance.
In those brown eyes, cold and fire seemed to dance together.
Garcia had the uneasy sense that he'd just stepped on a lion's tail.
What kind of family could produce someone so austere?
Another suffocating silence settled between them.
"Why are you here?" DAVIS asked finally. "Who did you kill?" Though most inmates who watched television knew Garcia's story, DAVIS didn't even know that the person Garcia was accused of killing was an international supermodel.
"I'm charged with first-degree murder." Garcia's face went pale. "The papers say I killed her because she wanted to break up with me. But I'm innocent. Yes, Erica was unfaithful to me—but I never once thought of hurting a single hair on her head."
Confronted by the sincerity shining through the lenses of his glasses, DAVIS found himself beginning to believe him.
"DAVIS," Garcia asked softly, "do you have a girlfriend?"
"Of course I do. It's just that most of my relationships last about a week." DAVIS truly couldn't wait to get out of this hellhole and feel the soft flesh of a woman again.
"Not that kind… something more… special…" Garcia's voice trembled slightly. "When I woke up and saw her body, the first thing I thought of wasn't how to clear my name…"
"You wanted to find the one who hurt her—and kill him," DAVIS cut in abruptly.
"You can't possibly understand how I feel. First my girlfriend is murdered, then I'm treated as the killer." Garcia gave a bitter smile.
"…No. I understand far more than you could ever imagine." DAVIS stared at the gray-white ceiling and spoke meaningfully, taking another drag from an unlit cigarette. "Far more than you could ever imagine…"
"Where are you going?"
"You—stop letting your mouth droop like that. It's irritating to look at." DAVIS waved a hand over his shoulder and shut the door. "Chick, I'm heading to the drying room for a while. Keep watch."
Robert finished his cleaning duties faster than usual. On a whim, he decided to look for DAVIS.
In the laundry room, only Garcia was there, scrubbing filthy clothes. "Where's DAVIS?"
"He's still in the drying room," Garcia muttered. "Every time we need to put clothes into the dryers, he insists on doing it. Comes back an hour and a half later with the laundry."
"I'll go find him."
"DAVIS doesn't like being disturbed." Garcia shot Robert a hostile look. Under DAVIS's subtle influence, even the Garcia who had embarrassed himself on the first night had begun to grow a trace of masculine backbone. A month ago, he would've shrunk behind someone else.
"I understand why," Robert said lazily. "Having a chirping little chick around all day is exhausting." Everyone had seen the way DAVIS treated Garcia. Feeling a familiar flicker of irritation, Robert mocked him as usual before walking off.
"You—!" If not for his aristocratic upbringing restraining him, Garcia would have shouted, Screw you!
Because of his profession, Robert had long cultivated the habit of making no sound when he walked. Combined with the roar of thirty old dryers, even DAVIS's keen animal instincts wouldn't detect him.
The drying room was dimly lit. Through the narrow gaps between the machines, Robert was granted a view of one of the most decadent and intoxicating sights he had ever witnessed.
The beast sat there in a posture of complete vulnerability. In the shadowed corner, he was on the floor, legs spread wide without restraint. From Robert's vantage point, he could see everything clearly—even count the sparse dark hair near the base of his arousal. His body was smooth, almost boyish.
DAVIS was still clothed, technically. But the zipper of his trousers was pulled down, and several metal buttons on his prison shirt were undone, exposing the faint sheen of his chest.
One hand moved swiftly over his hardened length; the other drifted lazily along his smooth neck. His lips shone with damp hunger. The air itself seemed thick with desire.
Two or three minutes passed.
DAVIS let out a low, satisfied growl as release overtook him.
For a fleeting second afterward, he seemed dazed. His eyes were blurred, mist gathering within them, unbearably seductive.
After a brief rest, cheeks flushed, he narrowed his phoenix eyes in contentment—like a cat that had just stolen a fish. Then he casually wiped his hand against his prison uniform.
Robert finally swallowed, a loud gulp escaping his throat. That careless, sinful expression… If only he could lock him up for life—make him his own pet.
"Fuck! Who's skulking around here!?"
Since he'd been discovered, Robert stepped forward openly and stopped before the disheveled DAVIS. He masked himself well. His eyes were calm; whatever fire had flared moments earlier was extinguished.
"Oh, it's you." DAVIS smirked. "What is it? Got arrested for peeping at old ladies bathing?"
"There aren't any women in this damn place, and I'm not interested in screwing men," DAVIS continued matter-of-factly. "You understand a normal man's needs, right? For now, I still have my left hand. But give it enough time, I'm afraid my hormones will go haywire and I'll end up desperate enough to mount some bald guy. Honestly, I don't know how you've survived a whole year." He frowned, then suddenly flashed a dazzling smile. "So—let's break out."
"…Did you release too much just now? Is that why you're talking without using your brain?"
Hills Prison housed only the most dangerous criminals. That alone said everything about its security.
It wasn't that Robert had never considered escape. But after hearing what had happened to those who failed, he had resigned himself.
There were surveillance cameras everywhere. And the places without cameras were simply those from which escape was physically impossible. The exterior wall of this drying room, for example, was reinforced with steel plating. Without explosives, no prisoner could break through. At night, cells were subject to surprise inspections. Any suspicious item found would be confiscated.
Robert had once seen someone attempt escape.
The next morning, the man's bullet-riddled body lay on the yard.
"Robert," DAVIS said quietly, patting his shoulder with his right hand, "I killed someone on purpose just to come to Hills Prison."
"Because I was commissioned… to help you escape."
When Robert heard that, he didn't think, We're going to escape.
He thought only:
Ah. That's the same right hand he just used a moment ago.