Lockdown in the Third Block is worse than I thought it would be. Something about the heavy metal door you can't look through just heightens the sense of confinement. I lay awake that night—head throbbing with a terrible headache, stomach turning from the deplorable food—and watch the concrete walls around me move in rhythm to my heartbeat.
Each pulse brings them closer to me. Closer and closer until it feels like I can barely breathe…!
"Mace!" I hiss out in the middle of the night, not even sure what time it is.
A soft grunt from the bottom bunk echoes up in response. I sit up, head pounding painfully, and try to lean over the rail of the top bunk to look down. As usual, Mace is sleeping near nude—the small blanket is completely discarded near his feet as if he's spent the night kicking it off him.
Being upside-down doesn't help the intense pain in my head, and in the dark I can only barely make out that Mace hasn't even opened his eyes yet.
"Mace!" I whisper again.
His scarred eye opens slowly and Mace gives me a look like this had better be important.
"Do we have any Tylenol?"
It takes a second for my words to process, but then Mace abruptly kicks the underside of my mattress. "The fuck? You woke me up for that?"
"My head is killing me," I groan, battling a wave of pain rushing through my temples. "I might puke." Almost immediately my mouth fills with saliva and I shuffle to the edge of the bed hoping to make it to the toilet in time.
Mace grumbles something below me, but the pain is so intense I can't even hear him. I'm just surprised when he stands up and helps me down the ladder, steering me to the small toilet we both shit in today.
It doesn't take long at all; I start heaving as soon as I'm on my knees. The measly bit of supper I managed to keep down earlier comes right back up and I don't expect Mace to help much but he pats my back and helps my retching.
As soon as I'm done, he helps me to my feet and presses his freezing cold hand against my sweaty forehead. "You're burning up," he says casually as if this is an everyday thing. He steers me to the sink by my bicep and holds me steady while I wash my hands, splash water on my face, and brush my teeth.
"No Tylenol?" I prompt, once my mouth doesn't taste so rotten.
"What do you think?" Mace growls in the dark. "That I keep them up my ass?" I can make out the faintest bit of his incredulous expression; I choke down a laugh. "Just lie down and sleep it off."
It's moments like this—as he's practically throwing me up to the top bunk—when Mace's paternal side shines through despite his reluctance to show it. And maybe I'm crazy, or it's this prison, but even these small acts of care have my heart strings pulling affectionately.
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The affection doesn't last long.
Mace and I are back at eachother's throats the next day when he whips my blanket off me and barks at me to get up.
Breakfast is spent on Mace's bottom bunk like usual, but we are both tense and I'm still not feeling the best. Before I can even finish my runny porridge, Mace takes it for himself right out of my hands. When I protest, he pushes my face away from him and holds it at arm's length like a fucking child.
With nothing to do, and no desire to pick a fight with Mace, I start walking small circles around our cell. When I approach the window of our steel door, I carefully avert my eyes away from Ox's direction. But after the hundredth lap? I can't hold it in anymore.
For once when I look across the mezzanine, I can't make out a smile, or a bruised and bloody face. I can't see any tattoos. I can't hear any chilling taunts.
"You're making me dizzy," Mace snaps. "Can you fucking sit still?"
First he shouts at me to wake up, now I can't even pace in the comfort of our own cell?
"No—I can't," I seethe through gritted teeth, trying to swallow back the impulsive anger that's lit deep in my belly. "And you're the one who agreed to be stuck with me so deal with it."
I scream when Mace jumps from the bed and tackles me. It's a blood-curdling scream I didn't even know I was capable of. Still, he pins me to the ground and wrestles me until I stop moving. My arm is twisted uncomfortably behind my back and Mace presses a knee into it to keep me on the ground.
"Fuck—get off me—Mace—!"
I can almost taste the concrete floor with the force Mace is applying to the back of my head. I struggle uselessly, but quickly run out of energy and when I stop fighting, Mace doesn't let me go. He just sits on my back and laughs at the way I can't even kick at him.
"Is it too late to return you to Bridges?" he asks—voice taunting as his body weight almost forces the air out of my lungs.
"G—et off!" I manage, sweaty from the fight and trying to lift my head off the ground so my lips don't press against it.
Mace finally stops using me as a chair and gets off me, but instead of thanking Baby Jesus for the freedom, I stand on shaky legs and use all my strength to run headfirst into Mace's turned back.
Surprisingly, he falls. I seize a rare opportunity to get a chokehold on him, but the man's neck is thick. I can barely get my arm around it before he pushes off his knees and stands straight.
I dangle off his back, using my legs to climb up his torso and get a better hold on him. Just when I'm applying pressure, he whips around and slams my back into the concrete wall. My ribs creak from the force of it, and the wind is knocked right out of me. I slide to the floor, gasping.
Mace is also a bit breathless. He pulls me up off the ground by my bicep again and sets me back on my two feet before he lifts both of his fists up like we're about to box.
"Not bad, kid. What else you got?"
"Just stop!" I say, gasping and rubbing at my sore ribs. "You win."
"That's all you got in you?" Mace laughs, but it's wild and the humor doesn't reflect in his grey eyes. He's got a deranged look about him again, and I almost shrink away from it. He jabs my shoulder with one of his fists, and I know he's not using his full strength but it still fucking hurts.
I bring my own hands up and ball them even though I still haven't taken a full breath yet.
"That's how you fight?" he mocks, gesturing my stance and the way my thumbs are tucked beneath my fingers. "You'll break your ha—"
I swing at him, but Mace is fast despite his age. He ducks to avoid and when he stands straight again he has a crazy look in his eyes. I don't know what he sees on my face, but he must approve because he tells me to swing again.
And again.
And again until I finally get quick enough to land a right hook.
As he rubs his jaw, Mace hits me with some bad news—like it's his pleasure to deliver it, too.
"We're going to spend all of lockdown toughening you up like this."