Chapter 4: 8 Years of Suffering (4)
The stink of blood and sweat hung thick in the corridor outside Cell 9B, a sour mix that clung to the air like fog. Edgar's knuckles were raw and split, his shirt sleeves dark with fresh stains. On the cold concrete floor, a prisoner lay curled up, moaning low and pitiful, his face swollen and bruised, one eye already puffing shut. His breath came in ragged, shallow pulls, each one a wet rattle. He had tried to steal Edgar's ration for the third time this week—a small bag of stale bread and watery soup, a petty grab that had turned into another brutal lesson. The guards looked the other way, their eyes sliding past like they hadn't seen a thing. Block 9 had its own rules, carved out in fear and fists, and no one messed with the Beast.
Edgar's hands were still steady, his fingers flexing with the same cold precision that had carved his name into the prison's nightmares. He leaned over the man, his shadow falling heavy across the broken body. His gray eyes were flat, empty of pity. "Don't touch my food again," he said, his voice low and even, like stating a simple fact. The man whimpered, a choked sound that barely made it past his split lips. Edgar straightened, wiping his hands on his pants, and turned away before the echo of the words had even faded.
A guard's voice cut through the hum of the lights from down the hall, rough but edged with caution. "Hey, Munsen—someone's here to see you."
Edgar didn't even slow his steps, his boots scraping softly on the grit-strewn floor. "I swear if it's my family again—" The words came out like gravel, laced with the threat of another storm.
The guard cut him off with a grin that tried for tough and landed somewhere shaky, like a kid pretending not to be scared. "Nope. It's a woman. A hot one—damn, I wish I could—" He swallowed hard, his face flushing red under the fluorescent glare, embarrassed by his own crude slip. "Her name's Evelyn. And don't worry, I'll clean this mess you made after."
Edgar's mouth tightened into a thin line, his jaw clenching at the name. Memories flickered unbidden—office lights, her laugh cutting through the monotony, the way she'd made the days feel less empty. Now it all tasted like poison. "Yeah. Dispose of that fucker. And tell her to wait ten minutes as usual. I know who she is."
"Alright," the guard said, nodding too quick, and hurried ahead with that nervous, squeaky step he always used whenever he had to face the Beast of Block 9. His keys jangled like warning bells, fading down the corridor.
Edgar took the time to wash his hands at the rusted sink in his cell, letting the icy water run over his skin until it burned. It stripped away the metallic tang of blood, leaving his hands feeling like polished stone—cold, unyielding. He grabbed a rough towel, drying off with quick, efficient swipes, the cuffs on his wrists clinking softly out of protocol. No one trusted him without them, even now. He glanced at the mirror, seeing the hard lines of his face, the scars that mapped his rage. 'Evelyn,' he thought, the name bitter on his mind. 'What game does fate play now, sending you here?'
He walked to the visitation room with the same measured, inevitable gait of a man used to being a storm—slow, controlled, but ready to unleash. The corridor lights buzzed overhead, casting long shadows that danced like ghosts.
She was waiting in the visitor's chair, her blond hair loose over her shoulders, catching the harsh light like faded gold. Her blue eyes, the ones that had once made him catch his breath in the soft office glow, now looked shadowed and worn. Evelyn Valentine looked like every man's ideal: composed on the surface, elegant in her simple blouse and skirt, but up close, the strain of the last months showed plain—sleepless lines etched around her eyes, a slight tremble in her hands clasped in her lap, a voice that carried just enough raw edge to be real, not rehearsed.
"Edgar," she said, her voice small and hesitant, like she was afraid it might shatter. "Thank you for seeing me." She swallowed hard, her throat working, and reached out across the table as if to touch his cuffed hands, then drew back sharp, like she wasn't sure she had the right anymore. Her fingers twisted in her lap instead. "I—there's so much I need to say. I'm sorry. I am so sorry for what happened to you. I should have trusted you from the start. I should have believed you when you tried to tell me. But I was scared—scared to dig up the truth, scared of what it would do to my life, to everything I thought I had." Her words tumbled out now, urgent and heavy with regret, like stones falling from a crumbling wall. "I found out so much these past months: my husband's betrayals, all of them—his ties to that criminal group, the gambling debts that ate him alive, the affairs that weren't just one night but years of lies..." She paused, her breath hitching, eyes glistening. "It's all true. He lied to me about everything. I was blind, buried my head because I was terrified of losing the house, the status, the life I'd built. So I didn't question, didn't fight. And you paid for it."
Her voice broke clean in half, a crack that echoed in the quiet room. "Edgar, I am so sorry. I should have listened that night, seen the fear in your eyes. If I had believed you from the start—if I'd stood up instead of turning away—"
Her confession hung there, raw and unfinished, but it stopped cold as Edgar's hand cracked across her cheek.
The slap rang out sharp and loud, a whip-crack that made the guard outside the door jerk to attention, his shadow shifting in the glass window. Evelyn's head snapped back, her hair whipping across her face. For a split second, her blue eyes widened in stunned surprise, like she couldn't believe the sting blooming on her skin; then shame and fear flooded in, turning them glassy with unshed tears.
"Is that all?" Edgar spat, his voice dripping venom, the heat in his chest flaring hot and wild. The room felt suddenly too small, the walls pressing in like they wanted to trap the fury. "Do you know what I thought about for eight years in this hole? Your death. Your husband's slow, screaming death. That secretary bitch who helped frame me—her end, too, begging for mercy that wouldn't come." His words were cold now, each one coated in a hardness that had grown over time, calcified into something sharp and lethal. "That's right—your death. Fantasizing about it kept me going when everything else broke."
Evelyn's hands trembled as she brought them to her reddening cheek, pressing gently, her breath coming in short, shaky bursts. "Edgar—no, please—" she began, tears spilling over now, tracking wet paths down her face.
"That's why I recommend you leave here before I FUCKING KILL YOU, BITCH!" The outburst ripped out of him, brutal and jagged, a shout that bounced off the concrete walls and made the table vibrate under his fists.
Evelyn's face shifted from raw apology to pure terror, her body shrinking back in the chair; she found her voice again, but it came out small and brittle, like cracking glass. "Edgar—please—don't say that. I'm telling you the truth now, all of it. I didn't know how to face what he'd done, how deep the lies went. I'm so sorry, more than words can cover. Please, just hear me—"
"You're just like my family," he snarled, leaning forward across the table until the room caught the metallic tang of his rage, sharp as blood in the air. "They came here the other day, all tears and hugs, apologizing like it would scrub the stains clean. Tried to wash their guilt with pretty words and promises. Hypocrites, every one of them." He laughed then, a short, crazed bark that held no humor, just edges. "You put on this pretty show of regret, eyes all wide and pleading. That doesn't change what you all did—didn't change the nights I bled out on this floor, or the mornings I woke up wishing I hadn't."
Evelyn's knees seemed to buckle under her, her hands gripping the table edge to stay upright, knuckles white. "I'm not asking for forgiveness—not yet, not like that. I'm asking for a chance to make this right, somehow. I hate what he did to you, to us all. I hate myself for being blind, for being complicit in the silence. Let me help you now. Let me stand up, pay back what I can—"
Edgar barked another ugly laugh, cutting her off like a blade. "Hah! Fuck, I hate those people who crawl in here to ease their consciences, thinking a few tears buys them sleep again. Fucking hypocrite sons of bitches, acting like sorry fixes the grave they dug." He stood abruptly, the chair screeching back across the floor, metal on concrete like a scream. The handcuffs clinked once as he straightened, a hollow sound in the tense air.
"I mean it. Leave now—and never come near me again. You don't get to look at me with those eyes, the same ones that ignored me when I needed them most, and expect anything but this." He turned toward the door, his voice dropping low and lethal, each word a promise. "If I ever see you smiling for the camera lights while my life was being ground to dust under your roof, I will not stop you with words. I'll finish it."
Evelyn's apology dissolved into more tears, her shoulders shaking as she nodded so quickly it blurred into a sob. "Okay. Okay, Edgar. I will go. I'm sorry—God, I'm so truly sorry. I won't come back if that's what you need."
Outside the room, the guard's face was pale as milk when Edgar stepped out, his post forgotten in the wake of that shout. He watched Edgar pass, eyes darting away, unable to meet those iron-gray stares that promised storms. As Edgar walked back to Block 9, his steps were even, purposeful—one foot after the other, like a man who had let himself be born from two lives and refused to be naive again. The corridor lights flickered overhead, casting his shadow long and jagged.
Behind him, the visitation room held the fading smell of her perfume mixed with the cheap cologne from the guard's station—apology and fear tangled together, and a woman who had finally spoken her truth but found it landed on stone, unyielding and cracked.
Edgar returned to his cell with a weight settled in his chest that was not guilt and not relief. It was something else: a terrible calm. The world had confessed its lies, and the world had not been punished. That thought showed him his path more clearly than any promise ever could.