Page 36 of Claim

The toothbrush wasn’t mine. I’d taken it from another cell earlier, when no one was looking. I wouldn’t use my own for this. Cheap plastic. Half-soft from use. I bent it slowly, listening to the faint stress-whine as it resisted. When it snapped, it did so cleanly.

I set it aside.

The cutlery came next. A plastic knife. Thin. Laughable, really. But I dragged its edge along the concrete wall in slow strokes, again and again. Pressure built in my fingers and the acrid smell of melting plastic rose in the air. I didn’t rush it. This wasn’t about speed. It was about certainty. So I tested the edge against my thumb and when it wasn’t enough, I went back to the wall. Put more pressure on it this time. Then when it finally bit, just a sting, causing a thin line of red on my pad, I nodded.

Good enough.

Then I tore a strip from my sheet, wrapped the handle tightly, then tighter. I didn’t want it slipping if my hands were wet. If they were shaking. If…

I stopped that thought dead.

This wasn’t about what might happen. It was about what would.

Colin stirred under me. “What’re you doing?”

“Go back to sleep.”

He didn’t. He got up, feet hitting the floor, and glanced up at me on the top bunk, watching me sharpen my tools. He widened his eyes. “Don’t.”

That word carried more weight than it had any right to.

“I mean it,” he hissed. “Don’t do this.”

I finished wrapping the grip. Checked it. Balanced it in my palm. It felt right. Wrong, too. But right enough.

“They’re not gonna stop.” My voice sounded flat, distant. As if it belonged to someone else. Razor. It was the old Razor. “You know that.”

“There are other ways. You can keep your head down. Keep away from him. Wait it out.”

I laughed. It scraped. “That’s not how this works.”

He swallowed. “You’ll make it worse.”

“It’s already worse.” I slapped my hand down and looked at him. “If they see me as weak in here, then I’m weak everywhere. Word travels. Always has. Always will.” I turned the weapon once in my hand, feeling the balance, then slid it back under the mattress. “And that word don’t stop at the gates. It filters out. Visits. Phones. Mouths that can’t help themselves. And it reaches the people I still have breathing because of me.”

I dragged both hands through my hair.

“You think I ain’t run it through?” I was mostly speaking to myself now. “Pack up my sister and the baby, shove them somewhere new and hope no one follows?” I shook my head. “That only works if you’re small. Anonymous. I ain’t either. You don’t vanish from men like Cormac. You leave a trail wherever you go. And protective custody?” I snorted. “That’s not protection. That’s a receipt. You only get it if you give something back. Names. Routes. Proof. And the second I open my mouth, I’m dead. If not in here, then by what lands on my family out there.”

I looked at him again, made sure he understood.

“Cormac doesn’t need me talking to hurt them. He just needs to know I might. So the only thing keeping them safe is certainty. Certainty that I won’t flip. That I won’t beg. And I won’t fucking break. Because the moment I look like I might, they’ll act. My sister’s already lost me being there. That’s done. But she doesn’t have to lose my shadow. As long as I’m still hard in here, still dangerous, I’m still useful to fear. And fear is the only currency I’ve got left to keep her safe.”

Colin must have understood there was nothing left to reach for, because eventually he lay back down. Turned his face to the wall. Let the cell go quiet. And I went back to preparing the only thing I had left to give.

When the lights snapped on in the morning, I was already awake. And I dropped from my bunk, slid the shank into the waistband of my grey joggers, adjusting it until it sat flat, hidden by my hip. It was automatic. Instinctive. My body remembered this. How to carry a weapon. How to conceal it whilst also letting those I wanted to know it’s there that it was ready and waiting.

Some instincts don’t rot.

Colin sat on his bunk. “You’ll lose any chance you’ve got.”

I didn’t look at him. “I already have.” I tugged my jumper down, covering the weapon. “Only thing left to gain is respect.”

The wing doors slammed open.

That sound locked everything into place.

Men spilt out, noise swelling fast. Boots on concrete, voices lifting, plastic chairs scraping. The air filled with the stink of cheap coffee and sweat and bodies too close together. I stepped out with them, squaring my shoulders and keeping my gaze forward. Breakfast first. I ate fast, mechanically, barely tasting it. Then the gym. Iron in my hands. Strain in my arms. I lifted until my thoughts narrowed, until there was nothing left but breath and burn and the steady hum of readiness. Yeah, it fucking hurt. My ribs still ached. My face throbbed. But that pain told me I was still alive.