Story code: ST-000691
Part 4: Solitary
The digital clock caged above the door ticked to 10:14 AM just as the heavy rec room door slammed open. The wire mesh rattled violently against the steel frame.
“Drop the device! Get off him!” CO Miller’s voice bellowed, echoing in the confined space.
Marcus didn’t flinch. He pressed the smooth titanium casing harder against his ear, bearing down on Julian’s windpipe with his left forearm to keep the CEO pinned against the buckled folding table. *Pick up. Come on, Leo, pick up.*
A sharp click sounded through the tiny speaker. Then, the cavernous, hollow echo of the South Side warehouse.
“Yeah?” Leo’s voice crackled. He sounded distracted, nervous.
“Leo, listen to me,” Marcus shouted, ignoring the heavy boots thundering across the linoleum toward him. “Don’t take the bags! You take those guns, you’re in! You can never walk away-”
Before Marcus could finish the sentence, a solid black baton slammed into the back of his skull.
The kinetic force of the blow shattered his equilibrium, flashing his vision to a blinding white. Marcus collapsed sideways, tumbling off the groaning aluminum table and hitting the floor hard. His fingers lost their desperate grip on Julian’s collar. The unlocked phone slipped from his sweat-slicked palm, skittering across the waxed linoleum and coming to rest near the baseboards.
“Leo!” Marcus yelled at the floor, reaching a desperate, shaking hand toward the device.
A heavy black boot stomped down on his wrist. Marcus choked on a gasp as bone ground against concrete. Three guards descended on him at once. A knee drove into the center of his spine, flattening his lungs. Someone grabbed a fistful of his prison shirt, smashing his face back into the floor. The sharp, metallic taste of blood instantly flooded his mouth, pooling hot against his teeth.
Through his blurred, stinging right eye, Marcus watched Julian Vance scramble backward on his hands and knees. The CEO’s face was mottled and purple, his breath coming in ragged, ugly gasps. He didn’t look like a polished philanthropist anymore. He looked like a terrified, cornered animal.
“Get it!” Julian shrieked, his voice cracking as he pointed a trembling finger at his phone. “Get my phone!”
Sarah, the PR rep, darted into Marcus’s line of sight, snatching the device off the floor. She handed it to Julian, who grabbed it with both hands, his chest heaving. He stared at the screen, his face twisting in raw disgust as his thumb jabbed the red button, ending the active call.
The line to Leo was dead.
“Cuff him!” Miller barked. Heavy steel handcuffs ratcheted around Marcus’s wrists, biting deep into the skin. “Pull him up.”
Two guards hauled Marcus to his feet. His head swam, warm blood trickling down his temple and stinging his left eye. He sagged against their rigid grips, his legs feeling heavy and useless.
Julian Vance stood up slowly, smoothing down the crumpled front of his charcoal suit. The expensive silk tie was ruined, twisted into a violent knot. He stared at Marcus, the last remnants of his camera-ready empathy wiped clean. There was no grand speech about systemic flaws this time. No manufactured pity. Julian just gave a cold, dismissive shake of his head, turned his back, and walked out the door.
“To the hole,” Miller ordered, shoving Marcus forward.
The transition to solitary confinement was a brutal, sensory blur. They dragged him through a maze of gray corridors, stripping away the lingering warmth of the cellblock. They tossed him into a six-by-eight concrete box in the Secure Housing Unit. The heavy steel door slammed shut with a definitive, hollow boom. The magnetic bolts slid into place with a heavy click.
Marcus didn’t try to stand. He collapsed onto the thin canvas mattress on the floor, curling his knees into his chest. His head throbbed with a sickening, rhythmic pulse. His jaw ached where it had slammed against the linoleum.
There were no clocks in the SHU. No windows to the outside world. There was only a solitary, dim bulb recessed behind thick glass in the ceiling, and a narrow horizontal slit in the steel door that let in a single sliver of light from the hallway.
Marcus lay in the absolute silence, spitting a mouthful of blood onto the cold floor. He watched the sliver of light, tracking it as the hours bled away. He mentally calculated the passing time. It had to be past noon. Then past three.
He thought about the cavernous echo in the background of the call. He thought about his brother’s nervous voice. He hadn’t said enough. He hadn’t been given the time to break the illusion of the streets for his brother.
As the light slipping through the door slit shifted to the dim, amber hue of the evening security cycle, the absolute finality of his failure settled over him. The 10:15 AM window was gone. The handoff was over. The bitter reality crushed his chest, heavier than the suffocating walls of the cell. The sun was setting on the city outside, and somewhere in the fading light, his younger brother was picking up a gun and joining the gang.