it is isn’t important.
“Just do what they say, and no one will get hurt,” Sammy assures me.
“Okay,” I say. I’m tired of falling for their shit. They’re probably just fucking with me, and I’m a little pissed off about it. “Whatever.”
Tony
“You ready, Roman?” The guard is standing outside my door, with a pair of handcuffs. “Assume the position.”
I walk toward the door, turn around, and put my hands behind my back. The guard puts the cuffs on my wrists before he opens the door. After he pulls the heavy door open, he places a set of ankle cuffs on me. I’m a dangerous man, after all.
“We can’t tell you where we’re going. I’m gonna put a mask over your face,” the guard warns me.
“What difference does it make? Who in the fuck am I gonna tell?”
I haven’t had a single visitor since I’ve been in prison. My parents are too old to travel. And my wife? Ex-wife, I remind myself. She’s never going to visit. The mask goes over my head anyway. I’m led to what I assume is a van, and I’m thrown in the back. This is the end. The end.
Lani
“Turn around, Vaden, and walk backward toward me.” Hughes calls out.
“I told ya,” Sammy states excitedly. “You’re gonna have the best night ever.”
“Do I have a visitor?” I wonder aloud. Maybe it’s Jamie or Doctor Dad.
“Yea, you’re gonna have a visit,” Sammy chuckles.
“Do as you’re told, prisoner. Turn around and walk backward toward me.” Hughes holds the handcuffs out in front of her.
Sammy nods at me, almost hopefully. “It’s your night. You should be excited. You’ll get to watch too.”
“Watch what?” I ask, as Hughes locks the cuffs on my wrist. I could get out of them, if I wanted to. But I’ll let this play out, because I’m curious. This might be the first step to finding out what really happened to Addison.
“They can’t allow you to know where you’re going, so I have to blindfold you.” Hughes holds a bright purple bandana up in front of me. I nod, and she places it over my eyes.
“See ya tomorrow, Vaden,” I hear Sammy call out, as Hughes guides me away.
Hughes echoes what Sammy has already told me. “Be a good girl, and nothing bad will happen to you.” Then she leads me through the hallways, and outside. She puts me in the back of a car. I don’t think the person driving me is Hughes. For some odd reason, I think it’s a man. He breathes like a man, heavy and deep, and then he clears his throat. It’s definitely a man.
“Where am I going?” I ask, well I demand.
“You’ll know soon enough.” It’s said in a deep, male voice. Is that the officer that booked me into the jail? What was his name? De Soto. Is that him?
What in the hell is going on in this fucked up town?
Tony
The room is packed full of people. I can’t believe there are this many people at an illegal death match with prisoners as the participants. Are there really this many fine citizens who don’t care about the sanctity of human life, much less the laws that are being broken? And I’m the prisoner, locked in a cage for keeping me and my squad alive in the middle of some fucking sand pit hellhole that no one wanted to be in anyway?
I look across at my opponent. I saw him in the yard, when they first brought me in. He’s a thug, a gang banger who’s thrived in the system. He has spent most of his time on the inside lifting weights, getting stronger, learning to fight.
“In this corner, we have the challenger, Antony Roman!” The man in the center of the ring, with the microphone, points at me. Stupid fucking name my father gave me, with the whole Marc Antony from Rome thing. “We have a real gladiator here tonight people.”
They want a real gladiator, but they won’t get one. I’m not going to fight back. I’m not going to perform for