He tried to swipe it away, but the stickiness clung to his skin. The harder he wiped, the more blood appeared. Heart pounding in his chest, he rolled out of the bed, dropping to the floor in a hunter’s crouch. Footsteps clicked against the concrete outside the cell—the steady thumps of a guard on rounds. Keys jangled along with the bang of a baton against metal. Stuart couldn’t breathe, and he didn’t dare move. The blood was a warning. Keep his mouth shut and stay in line. Or the next bloodbath would be his. The familiar nightmare yanked Stuart out of a restless sleep. He sat up on the double bed in the hotel room he and Arlin had rented with Aunt Felicia’s money. Sweat rolled down the back of his neck while his heart did triple time underneath his breastbone.He would never be able to escape that memory. His first night in prison, and it had taken him all of three minutes to piss off the leader of one of the worst gangs behind bars. From then on, Stuart knew it was him or them.
