"Strength does not come from physical capacity. It comes from an indomitable will."

~ Mahatma Gandhi

Chapter XI

(7 years ago)

Year 2047

One day, after it felt like he’d been in Solitary for years, the door flew open and six guards came in. They stood around him, arms crossed, looking menacing. Yoki was in the middle of a workout, and he finished his sit-up and looked up at them blankly.

“What’s happening?” he said, knowing they’d only tell him what was going on if they felt like it. That was how things worked here.

“You’ve been here for nearly four months,” the head guard said, and Yoki’s stomach dropped. He knew it had been a long time, but hearing a hard number on how long he’d been down there made it feel more real somehow.

“Time to go back up and join the rest of the prison,” another guard said.

Yoki felt almost disappointed. It had been hell down here in Solitary, but at least he’d been alone with his thoughts. He’d been able to work out, train, do as he imagined. Now he’d have to deal with all the other prisoners harassing him again.

As the guards escorted him back up to the main area of Stonegate, though, he noticed that something had changed. The other criminals were looking at him with respect. With fear. No one bothered him at all on his walk with the guards—but it wasn’t like earlier when they’d just ignored him completely. They almost seemed deferential, as if he were an important person in the prison.

“Kid’s huge now,” one of them muttered as he passed by.

Was he? There had been no mirrors down in Solitary. He had pictured himself as weak, getting nowhere with all of the calisthenics. He had no idea what he looked like now. Looking down at his arms and legs, he felt the same as always. But he guessed that was how it worked. You changed little by little, one bit at a time, until eventually, you were totally different.

The guards dumped him back in his old cell with Maxwell, Gavin, and Wolf, and they gaped at him, looking shocked.

“You’re back?” Gavin said.

“Yeah. I guess.”

“We thought you got shipped out to a different prison. One even more max-security than this one—if there is such a thing.”

“Why?” Yoki said, confused.

“Did you not hear what happened? You really beat the crap out of those guys.”

“One of them ended up in the hospital after what you did to him,” Wolf added. “We had no idea you had that in you, kid.”

“I beat you shits up,” Yoki pointed out. “You clearly didn’t learn.”

But he guessed it made sense people had mocked him. Who would expect that a thin-looking kid like him would be packing that kind of power? The fifty-four cops story did sound a little outlandish, and if he hadn’t been there himself, he might not have believed it too. Despite their shock, Yoki didn’t trust them. He hadn’t forgotten the nights of torment, the abuse, the humiliation. The resentment festered in him, fueling his determination to become even stronger. Maxwell, Gavin, and Wolf kept their distance, sensing the shift in Yoki’s demeanor. No one dared to make crude jokes or try to dominate him anymore.

A few times he saw the guys he’d beaten up in the cafeteria or across the workout courtyard. Eyepatch had a long scar across his face from where Yoki had hit him, and he looked skittish and afraid now. When he saw Yoki walk into the room, he blinked anxiously and pointed him out to his friends, and they left the room one by one.

No one bothered with Yoki’s GED studies anymore, and he didn’t mention them. He was placed back in the infirmary and continued his studies under the guidance of the head nurse. He was a lot stronger than he’d once been—now he could carry even a brawny prisoner on his shoulders—and that came in handy more than once as men came in badly wounded from fights in the yard or the cafeteria. After spending so much time learning how to fight, it was good to study something different.

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“You’re good at this,” the head nurse said one day as Yoki was about to head to lunch. “I know you came in as a fighter, but you might consider a different career. If that’s something that interests you.”

Yoki wasn’t sure. He’d envisioned his future as one thing, and one thing only. He’d be a great warrior like his dad. But if he was stuck in Stonegate forever anyway, he might as well try something new. He was young now, but he wouldn’t be able to fight and do physical labor for the rest of his life. It might be worth finding another way to be valuable.

“I’ll think about it,” he said. And he did. He really did. Everything that happened later on in Stonegate could have been avoided if he’d listened to the nurse. He knew that. But sometimes there were things that were just in your nature, and there was nothing you could do about it. And fighting was in Yoki’s.

One day, he passed a sheet of glass outside a guard station that had been recently cleaned, and he caught a blurry view of his own reflection. What he saw surprised him. The other criminals were right. He was huge now. He’d come into Stonegate as a scrawny kid, but now he was a grown man. His biceps were the size of a regular person’s leg, and every single one of his muscles bulged under his prison jumpsuit. Yoki had always been powerful, but he’d never looked it. Well, now he looked it. Even newcomers to the prison, guys who didn’t yet know his reputation, took one look at him and knew to stay far away.

A guard came up to him while he was working out in the yard during the afternoon.

“We’re going to move you over here,” he said, gesturing to an empty rack of weights far from anyone else.

“Why?” Yoki said skeptically. He’d seen guys be separated from the others before. It usually meant something bad was coming for them—either Solitary or something worse.

“Everyone else in the prison is scared of you,” the guard explained. “They want to be as far away from you as possible.”

“Oh.”

He liked being thought of as dangerous, but this didn’t feel good. He’d never attacked anyone in Stonegate who hadn’t attacked him first. This new “isolation” protocol felt like overkill.

“We listened to their concerns and reviewed them,” the guard said. “And we think they’re legitimate. The prisoner you put in the hospital might have brain damage. That’s a big deal.”

“He attacked me first. I was just defending myself.”

“You had to know how powerful you were. It wasn’t a surprise to you. But it was to him. You could have held back, but you didn’t.”

“I did hold back,” Yoki said. “I could have killed those guys. But I didn’t. And wasn’t being put in Solitary for months punishment enough?”

“It’s not about punishment. It’s about keeping the other prisoners safe from you. And it’s about keeping the peace. We’ve had three prison riots in the last ten years. These guys will use any excuse to start something. And we’re not going to give them one.”

Yoki obediently moved over to the empty area of the yard and started working out every day alone. At first, it stung a bit being totally isolated from the other prisoners—he’d liked the week or two when it felt like he’d earned their respect, but slowly he got used to it. No one was rude or aggressive toward him, and it let him focus on getting even stronger. He was surprised at how much weight he could lift now.

Part of him was a little worried that Painkiller would come back now that he was alone again, but the voice stayed quiet. He wasn’t dumb enough to think it had abandoned him completely, though. It was just waiting for the right moment to strike. And so he waited for it to come, strengthening his body and mind so that he’d hopefully be ready for it. He wanted to try to control it again. To send it away back where it had come from. If he diligently prepared himself, did everything in his power to make himself stronger, maybe he’d stand a fighting chance of doing it.

Most of the year went by like that. It was better than his first days in Stonegate by far, and Yoki got used to his new routines. He would never like it here—that would be a sign that he’d truly lost his mind—but it was growing more tolerable now that he knew what to expect.

Then, one day, a burly guy with thin blond stubble on his head came up to him in the yard. He looked older than Yoki by a few years—early twenties, maybe. Yoki had seen him around Stonegate a few times. He’d clearly been here a while.

“Seen you working out here by yourself a lot,” the guy said.

“Yeah. Everyone’s scared of me.”

“Looks like you can lift some serious iron.”

“Yeah.”

Yoki was realizing he’d forgotten how to have a real conversation. It had been so long since he’d talked to anyone who wasn’t either Painkiller or a guard barking orders in his face.

“Let’s see how much you can lift,” the guy said. “A couple of the other guys and I have a bet on how much it’ll be.”

“Oh,” Yoki said. “Weird.”

But he obliged, stacking the weights to their heaviest level possible and hoisting the bar onto his back. When he straightened his legs and stood up, the other guy looked impressed.

“Damn,” he said. “I won.”

“Won?”

“Yeah. I bet the highest weight. Told them you looked pretty powerful and that you could probably lift even more than any of us thought you could. We all saw what you did to those guys.”

“Oh,” Yoki said, putting the weights back on the ground. “Yeah. I guess I am pretty powerful. That’s what I keep trying to tell people.”

“Well, now we all know it. See you around.”

The guy started to walk off back toward his friends, then turned. “I’m Doc.”

“Yoki.”

“Be seeing you around, Yoki. Don’t let Stonegate get you down.”

“Okay.”

Yoki stared after Doc, perplexed, before turning back to his workout. This was the guy Painkiller had wanted him to know? He was weird.