Let your mind imagine the worst. Every atrocity. I endured it. Daily.

Triss accompanied me for my first engagements, but after that I could slip through the cell barriers on my own. It reduced the wait time.

In Gait’s thirty-two hour day, I spent sixteen of them with sixteen separate prisoners. Five hours sleeping. One hour mending myself before the hour of sleep. And one glorious hour outside in the snow.

Only it thawed soon after winter. Having spent my entire life inside the prison, with no education to speak of, I wasn’t aware of this natural occurrence. It broke my heart.

I sold myself for a sight I laid eyes on only two months out of Gait’s year. Triss withheld this from me. It was an important lesson. Now that I better understand her motivations, I hate her even more for it. I hate that she was the closest individual I had for a mother.

Many loathsome memories spring to mind that encapsulate a given day for me, including her unusual maternal treatment. For your sakes, I’ll narrow it down to one. When I was equivalent to age seven in humans.

“Korac?! Korac?”

I often woke this way. Disoriented and unaware of my surroundings after crawling away from an assault. Uncertain who called to me.

“Shit. Korac.” A girl from the slave cells. “They left you bleeding from everywhere again. Lie still. I can find a warden for you.”

I let sleep take me again only to wake some time later to a rasp, “Korac?!” Dusky is how I’d describe Triss’ voice.

My eyes ached and burned. They refused to peel open. My tongue felt heavy in my mouth. My lips sealed with mortar. A foul taste tinged my tongue. Something was very wrong with my stomach. And every muscle begged for stillness.

With surprising tenderness, Triss checked my vitals and palpated me all over. “Fucking drones. Brutes. Because of him, you missed three engagements, Korac. Can you speak? Move? Whatever you do, leave your eyes closed.”

The little girl hissed when the Lyrik exposed me. “Executive Warden, how do we remove it without—”

“Sh. No sense in frightening the boy. The knife will come out the same way it went in. Inmate thirty-two will never see another of you children. At least until he proves he can behave himself. Barbarian. Korac, can you feel—”

Sharp and immediate, I groaned around my swollen tongue. The lightest touch of the blade inside me hurt, gutted me.

I want to say where inside me the Monarch 3 drone plunged the knife. But I don’t want to make Sagan cry, and she’s already tearing up. I’ll leave it vague with one passing remark: it wasn’t the worst thing used on me. I remember my incompatible smallness frustrated him. So he meant to cut a better fit—

[SS]: I had to stop. I had to get up and hug Korac. He let me. I knew his childhood as slave labor in a prison was in no way a positive experience. But I never imagined… I can do this. I sit back down, and he returns to pacing behind me like a caged animal biding his time.

They spent time removing it and tending to my wounds, which healed slowly. On the second day, I felt excited and curious. Because I knew that because of my injuries, the man with the nice shoes would visit.

This man visited once per month to take reports from Triss and to take stock of the prisoners’ needs. In exchange for services such as my company, the inmates provided intelligence, performed duties for him, and often left on missions under his charge. It was an honor and a privilege to serve the well-dressed man.

I liked my reflection in the shine of his black shoes. I rarely saw a mirror, you see? And his nice pants were always so pristine and pressed. I wanted to dress with such command and elegance. I wanted to be like him.

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[SS]: Korac is laughing bitterly while raking a hand down his face. I feel it with him. The cruel joke that Razor was the nice-dressed man—Korac’s brother. It ruined the few saving graces afforded to him while at the prison.

Now I only see a well-dressed phantom. A monster who knelt at my bedside and ruffled my hair. “I heard inmate thirty-two was harsh.” I remember the way he talked soothed and unnerved me all at once. “But when I spoke to him, he claimed you squirmed and struggled too much. We all know how the drones are with their tempers.”

I wasn’t allowed to raise my eyes to him, either. I only saw the black silk button down under his cream blazer with the double-breasted black pearl buttons. “Sir—”

“No need to defend yourself to me. A knife is far more than you deserve for a natural aversion.” Again he untangled my hair with his fingers, relaxing me. “Inmate thirty-two asked to apologize to you, personally, and he invites you to spend an entire day with him to which he will be on his best behavior. I will personally sweep his cell for weapons. No hands on you. Just you in his company for sixteen hours.”

I wonder what the Mon3 drone paid for that privilege. Or if Razor took great pleasure in locking me in a cell with one of my worst tormentors for an extended period of time. Yet the notion of spending sixteen hours without someone sweating on me or groping me was far too enticing an opportunity to turn down.

It was another lie.

True. Razor swept the cell. And true. The drone was weaponless. But he was plenty weapon enough.

I died twice that day.

Why bother coming back? Why let him resuscitate me?

Because he’d sleep at some point, and I was strong. So much stronger than they knew. I watched the prisoners with their push-ups, pull-ups, sit-ups—all manner of exercise and all variations therein. The inmates in whose company I kept often remarked on the cut of my body. Miy commented once on the dangerous beauty I’d grow into and what a guard I’d make for the prison one day.

So I waited until thirty-two laid my broken body in a corner, facing away from him. He grunted, climbing into his bunk. Not long after, his bed stopped protesting the movement of his bulk and his breathing evened. Despite the limp he gave me, I tread lightly and quickly through his cell until I found the belt he beat me with. Adrenaline fueled me beyond the battering and exhaustion.

In one fluid motion, I climbed onto his back, cinched it around his neck, and reined him.

Surprised, he bucked and fought the small boy on his back. I stood on his shoulders and used my smaller frame to avoid his grasping hands. At his size, he spent his breath quickly. Fell to his knees, choking beyond the ability to cough. One needs air to cough.

When he flattened to the floor, I released a whisper of slack. I knew how much to leave to keep him conscious. I knew because it was done to me enough over the years. A veritably useful skill to learn at such a young age.

He gasped and coughed against the soreness in his gullet. Then the begging started. “I promise… I will not ask… for you again. Never again. Let me… live.” Spittle and tears all the while.

My entire body strained, poised on the edge of losing to his massive weight. I tossed my hair to the side and let him see the bruises, the burns, and the bite marks. See my eyes. See the opposite of mercy they offered.

It never once occurred to me to let him live. He died strangled by his own belt at my small, but strong hands. And I felt nothing.

If anything, I needed a week of infirmary time.

I rolled his body off of the bed, wincing from my wounds. With him on the floor, I climbed into his bunk and curled around the ache he gave my stomach. Everywhere hurt.

I woke later to Triss opening the cell. Oleen was with her, keeping a steady eye on me.

I took her caution as a compliment.

The Executive Warden, however, placed her hands on her hips and tapped her foot in an irritated rhythm. “Korac. What shall I tell your keeper? Now, we must keep you separate from the other children. We cannot allow this behavior to contaminate them.” She held up a hand. “I understand more of them ask for you. I understand more of them are worse than aggressive. I can even accept this as self defense.” Her gesture swept the room. “But killing them is too far.”

I sat up and kept my gaze down with the threat of a headache from my boxed temples. Oleen’s gentle touch steadied my dizzy fit. Carefully, she squeezed my shoulder, before suggesting, “I can employ him to pay for the damages to the keeper. Few of the prisoners enjoy the pleasures of submission, but the ones who do, pay handsomely for it. I believe the control will help Korac accept his place. Obviously, he is under the usual age for my students, but I think this throttling proves he needs a change of pace.”

Triss picked over the debris from the drones excessive assault on me. She peered over his body. And in the same instant I dared to glance at her face, she smirked. “His belt. Very resourceful. I will give your suggestion serious consideration, Oleen. Keep this quiet. The contaminant can never spread. Tonight, Korac, we will dispose of thirty-two. By ‘we,’ I mean you will pull all of his weight. No matter how long it takes.”

“Yes, Executive Warden.”

With my dislocated knee, it took hours, but eventually she taught me to dissolve the body in a solution. Through her first-rate education style, she taught me different solutions for the various races. With exception of the Lyriks, of course.

It was two more Earth-age years and ten more kills before Triss placed me in Oleen’s custody, and an avenue of relief opened for me.