Lullaby

Continued from Part 3

The violence had ended with more bloodshed, fresh red sacrifice smeared over the fading crimson we left on the wooden floors the night before. Shells seared the carpet and rugs; I took a comforting whiff - it always meant that the fight was over and we could slum back down to where we were and start regretting what we've done.

"Feels good huh? Taking them down," the man with the tattoo on his arm said.

He was the guy who set us up, paying his way through prison to bust our asses out. He would tell us to can it every time we asked him how he got us out so we stopped asking. There was a dangerous air about him, like he could snap anytime - not just at the guards sent to recapture us but more possibly at us. Men like him were dangerous, more suited to be behind bars.

Unfortunately, men like him don't think that way.

"Look at them fuck shits. They sent kids after us," he spat at the bodies.

Jim spoke next, placing his large arms around the shoulders of the tattooed man.

"Well I hope they keep sending the young ones. It'll be an easy way out for us," Jim said, but I could sense remorse in his tone - an emotion long missing in the tattooed man's vocabulary.

I know Jim coz he was my cellmate. He took one look at me and told me I wouldn't last a week inside. He told me he thinks I got set up and got in to warm someone's toilet seat. He also said he's going to escape tomorrow night and I have to come along because I was fortunate enough to have been stuck with him.

So here we are.

I mentioned that we needed to move on to avoid detection.

"They're probably going to send in teenagers the next time, so we might actually end up dead."

"Fuck yeah, and your mum gave birth to a ball-less dip shit." The tattooed man was looking for a fight, his blood pumped from the last few minutes of carnage. He grinned at me, laughing at his joke.

I let him know how funny it was.

And as his fists rained down on my face, fresh blood gushing from the cuts on my face, I felt like I heard something - the melodies of my child's favorite music box.

Hit after hit after hit - the midnight song of a home I hope still stands.

-End of Part 4-