Theodore’s blood was no different than any he had tasted before. It was thick and metallic and rich with sinful shame. Most would consider it a strange habit to taste the blood of one’s victim. But for Rubin, it was commonplace. Necessary really. He could barely remember the first time now. It had been so long ago. At that time he was just a boy. Twelve. No, thirteen. A single glimpse of a young boy named Archie flashed in his mind. Poor Archie had no idea he would never return from the woods that day. Of course, Rubin didn’t know either when they entered. But something about his young friend had triggered a thirst in him like he had never felt before. An insatiable thirst that couldn’t be quenched by the water his mother had forced him to take with him.

The decision to kill Archie was the only thing he could truly remember from that day. That and the intoxicating satisfaction of the boy’s blood making Rubin feel stronger and smarter, clearing his head of the crushing confusion and anxiety that had been building for weeks. Months. The addiction had been embedded in his mind instantly. And sadly, had never left him. There were times when he tried to convince himself that others were simply foolish to be so adamantly against the practice. Those thoughts often only crept into his mind when he hadn’t quenched his thirst for far too long. He abandoned his stance quickly as the shameful regret poured over him like water being dumped on his head in the bathtub.

“You shouldn’t have done that.” Rubin wiped blood from the corners of his mouth and chin, then lifted his head to see his mother standing on the other side of his cage. Her hair was messier than the last time she visited.

“I know, ma.” It bothered him that she had chosen to stay outside the cell. She only did that when she was ashamed of him. Any other time she made herself at home within the bars of his undesired residence. The blood he had missed tricked down his chin. He licked his lips then scraped his teeth against his bottom lip to dismiss any lingering saliva. He nibbled at the corner of it innocently as he stared at his mother. A skillful ploy. “I’m sorry. It’s just the fucking urges. They never stop.”

“It doesn’t excuse what you’ve done,” she said. It was like his mother to ignore his excuses. Everyone and everything had to be perfect. No flaws. No errors. He had had enough of it.

“Who are you to judge what is right?”

“I don’t judge what is right and wrong for everyone.” She paused and stared at Theodore’s blood puddling in the middle of the cell. “Just for the men I raised to know better than this.” A look of disgust made her disgusting to look at.

“Ha.” Rubin pushed himself to his feet, using his knee as a brace. The knife slid from Theodore’s neck quietly and smoothly. “Everything you taught me is long gone. It died that day in the woods.” So matter of fact. So arrogant. The words appeared to cut his mother deeper than the knife ever could. “Hard to keep track of your morals when you have no choice but to take lives. Wouldn’t you say so?” He walked slowly toward the iron bars. His mother held her ground, not so far from the bars that she looked scared, but not so close as to allow her deadly son a chance at her either.

There were many times like this when he had approached a scared woman. Hell, there were plenty of times he had approached a scared man. They all looked the same. Some were more beautiful or handsome than others. But true terror knows nothing of gender biases. It knows exactly one thing, when to rear its ugly head. Rubin considered himself a master of that hideous beast, holding it on a bloody leash until he let it overwhelm an unsuspecting victim. He stopped inches from the bars and stared intently as his mother while he mindlessly licked more of Theodore’s blood from his fingers.

“You always have choices, Rubin. Especially when one of your options is to kill.” She paused and contemplated her next words. That or she needed to focus while she measured Rubin’s intentions.

“I don’t kill.” He was offended. He spoke bluntly. “I take lives.” Before she responded, he further took control. “There is a difference.” She didn’t seem interested in buying what he was selling. “What really brings you here, ma?”

“You tell me.” His mother’s nonchalant response infuriated him. But he could tell threatening her was useless. That was a good sign. It meant he was coming back to reality.

“I never know why you visit or why we have these meaningless talks. You know as well as I do I’m long gone.” He smirked. His chest bounced with the rumble of his laughter. “Or should I say you’re long gone.” The knife fell from his hand loosened grip. “And how lucky you are in that regard.” He swung his dry, cracked hand toward the cell behind him like a woman on a game show presenting a prize. What he wouldn’t have given for a prize far better than solitude. “At least you don’t have to live by yourself.” He looked down. “With yourself.”

His mother sounded as though she was annoyed with his words. “You wouldn’t have to be alone if you wouldn’t kill everyone around you.”

Rubin turned and pressed his back to the bars and tried to let his tense shoulders relax. “Like old times. When I was a child.” Nothing. “Please. A moment later there were two hands on his shoulders, two thumbs burrowing deep into his back between his shoulder blades. He closed his eyes and exhaled. For a moment the memories of sitting on the floor between his mother’s legs flooded into his mind. A fire burning warm beside them. Nigel staring stupidly as his blank drawing pad, contemplating what to draw next. Oftentimes, the boy would simply settle upon whatever their mother would suggest after he had spent countless minutes of staring at blank paper. Skilled with a pencil, yes. Creative, no. A particularly vicious quandary for an artist. Rubin loved it. Such entertainment, the kind that struck an ironic chord with him, was hard to come by. Yet, he lived with a barrelful. Fortunate. That’s how his father would have described it.

“Nigel deserved it. You and father were an accident. But Nigel. I wanted him dead.”

“We knew you felt that way.”

“And you didn’t try to stop me.”

“I did. But your father insisted you’d never hurt your brother. He called it an itch you’d never be able to scratch.”

“It was an itch alright. My entire mind was full of them. Is full of them.”

“We know that now.” She’s scoffed. “I should have never listened to your clueless father.”

Rubin spun around and lunged at the bars. His mother lurched backward. “Don’t you dare insult him. He put up with you in silence for years. Constantly enduring your judgmental stares and nitpicking.”

“And yet I wasn’t the one that killed him,” his mother said coldly.

Rubin was taken aback for a brief moment. Then he said, “You put him in his grave long before I ever killed him. And he just laid there silently, waiting for the end to come.”

There had been so many times when Rub and Nigel had sat quietly in the background as their mother tore into their father for a choice he had made or a circumstance they had to endure because of his shortcomings. Never once did the man fight back. Verbally or physically. Nigel may have been the one to make Rubin pull the trigger that night, but he had not been the one that made him search for the gun.

“You alright?” His mother’s voice was manlier than usual. And muffled as if she was standing within a glass cup. “Rubin.”

He opened his eyes. Theodore was sitting up on his bed across from Rubin. The brute’s eyes were fixated on the knife in Rubin’s hands. The tip of the blade was pressed firmly against Rubin’s stomach. The pain there told him that his cotton prison uniform would have a nice bloodstain the next time he managed to find himself in some light.

“Put that thing down.” He turned to Theodore. His thick neck looked ripe for a quick slashing. The thought of blood pouring down his gray prisoner’s uniform was almost too much for Rubin to ignore.

Rubin pulled the knife closer to himself, now flat and harmless. “A friend gave me this.” It was partly true. Isaiah “Icebreaker” Early had been as much of a friend as anyone Rubin had met inside the walls of the prison. Though, he wasn’t fully committed to believing the man was his friend. It seemed a tad overzealous of him to assume Isaiah wouldn’t have a grudge against him if he was still alive. “Only friend I’ve ever made here.”

“Been in a lot of prisons and I ain’t never made a friend,” Theodore said.

Rubin shrugged. “Perhaps you’re not as likable as me.” Theodore laughed. Genuinely.

“Or maybe I ain’t dumb enough to think a prison full of murderers and thieves is the kind of place where friendship blossoms like a little flower peaking through soil.” Theodore’s voice was deep and smooth, like a blues artist. He wasn’t a particularly handsome man. But the darkness of the cell helped.

Rubin lifted the tip of his blade to his earlobe and made a strained face. “What’s that there?”

Theodore stopped and tried to hear what Rubin was referring to but looked annoyed when there was nothing and the other man was offering no explanation. “What’s what?”

“You don’t hear it?” asked Rubin. His melody of bad intentions was blaring in his mind.

“Obviously not.”

“Strange. It seemed you were finally hearing it.” Rubin stood and walked toward the stone block resting in front of his stone table. “A man like you should be able to hear such a melody. Hell, I daresay it’s essential for a man like you to hear it. And if you’re as wise as you seem, you would make it a point to do so.” Rubin dug the tip of the blade into the wall to start his next tally mark. A task that always seemed particularly easy. Seldom took more than a slight strain of his muscles.

“Keep talking like that and your face will be as much of a puzzle as your words.”

Rubin spun on his block and nibbled at his bottom lips. The idea that Theodore might actually bring his bulbous neck to him willingly was tantalizing. “Please do it.” His voice was barely audible. That was fortunate for Theodore. It wouldn’t be farfetched to think the brute might misinterpret Rubin’s words as a plea for a beating. Who knows what would ensue at the point.

Theodore slid backward along his stone bed until his back rested against the wall. He cracked his neck with a sharp shove of his knuckles across his chin then reached under his thin pillow and retrieved a book that looked laughably small in his giant hands. Or perhaps it was the darkness that made a book so pointless that made Rubin giggle inside. Either way, the brute looked downright silly. Rubin grinned and held it far longer than what would be socially acceptable. By the end, even he could tell what started as a grin had become a strange amalgamation of innocent enjoyment and uncontrollable insanity.

Theodore spoke without looking at Rubin. “Go back to talking to yourself. It’s clear you provide yourself with a better conversation than I ever could.”

Rubin couldn’t argue with that logic but he wasn’t done staring at the monster. He managed to do so without the face of a psychopath. Theodore’s arms looked like those of an athlete in some sport. Possibly the one his father loved. The one he felt had an ironic name at best. Football was it? Theodore’s legs were even more freakishly large. Half his nose was missing. Pink, puffy skin and scar tissue was all that was left where his right nostril should have been. Of course, Rubin couldn’t see the features on Theodore’s face just then. It was much too dark in the cell. He was calling upon the image he had seen the night before when he stood over the sleeping giant with a lit match and an anxious blade. Why he had let Theodore live was beyond him. Such was a first for Rubin. At least since he had broken the seal that had once contained his murderous temptations. Poor Archie. He deserved better. I can do better. “Perhaps there’s still hope for me.”

Theodore lowered the book he was holding so close to his face that it looked like a mask. “What did I tell you about speaking in riddles?”

Rubin thought of his father. “What fun is it to speak so clearly that there’s no thought necessary to decipher one’s message?”

“For one thing it helps keep little fuckers like you from dying over a misunderstanding.” Theodore lifted the book back to his face. No light seemed to be crawling over or around the edges of the book.

Rather than stir up the beast anymore, something he would typically do for nothing more than the fun of it, he simply turned to the wall and continued carving his tally mark into the stone. Two hundred forty-three days in a prison so secure it only had three employees in the entire place. Two that lowered the men into their cells from the holding blocks above and one that patrolled the corridors, delivering food, water, and the occasional item of entertainment. Rubin loved requesting the strangest things he could think of. Sadly, he had received no such items after killing Isaiah with a wildly useless cooking magazine and his hidden matches. He imagined the caramel-skinned Isaiah looking up at him from the floor. His throat slashed. A hint of regret boiled inside him. Not as much as he felt for Archie, but plenty more than he felt for most of his victims.

Isaiah was a man with good blood. Which helped him deal with the mistake. But in hindsight killing the man was a terrible mistake. Isaiah was a smooth-talker like none Rubin had ever met. How else could a prisoner convince a guard to provide him with a knife? Icebreaker, as he liked to be called, was Rubin’s ticket out of the prison. Sadly, what made Isaiah valuable and enjoyable to be around also made him a threat. In Rubin’s eyes words were weapons. Deadlier ones than any knife or gun. A wise man had once told him that and it had stuck with him. Though he had never truly given the man credit for his wisdom. At this point he couldn’t even remember the man’s name.

“Stop that,” Theodore demanded.

Rubin’s glossy eyes snapped back into focus. The insufferable tapping of his blade on the stone table was filling the cell with its gloomy tune again. He frowned at the knife. Then smirked. He spun around on his block again. “See. You’re not listening closely enough.”

Theodore laid his book on his bed slowly but his presence seemed anything but calm. He slid himself to the edge of his bed. When he stood there was a surprising tingle on the back of Rubin’s neck. Not surprisingly, the darkness of the cell only enhanced Theodore’s ominous presence. “I ain’t in the mood for listening to anything. I’m trying to read.”

There was a monstrous killer mere feet from Rubin, his muscular physique noticeable even in the shadows and his sinister side even more visible. Yet, all Rubin could think about was the strange imbalance of the hefty knife’s weight. Rubin looked down at the weapon. Its thick, round hilt hidden in his right hand, the middle finger on his left hand was playfully lifting the tip of the blade from his lap.

“Too much weight in the blade.” The insult slid from his mouth as if his lips were greased. He was ashamed that he would ever insult his father’s work.

One of Theodore’s massive hands was around Rubin’s neck a moment later. The other gripped Rubin’s right wrist tight. So tight that Rubin squeezed his eyes shut in pain. Then he was moving backward quickly until his back slammed into the iron bars behind him. He opened his eyes a moment later and stared at Theodore. Aided by the torchlight from the corridor, Rubin could see this man was not the Theodore he had come to know and love. This was a monster. A soulless demon with no interest in anything but killing. That or he was an angel fighting to wipe evil like Rubin from earth? It was an interesting debate raging wildly in Rubin’s head as he allowed the wind to exit his lungs through strained exhales. No air seemed compelled to replace that which he was letting escape.

“You’re an annoying pest. I should snap your neck and enjoy the peace and quiet.”

Unable to make a witty comment, Rubin nodded in agreement. Theodore’s fingernails dug deeper into Rubin’s skin. If two hundred forty-three days of meager meals and a lazy avoidance of exercise had not withered Rubin down to a twig he may have grabbed at Theodore’s wrist, but as it was, death seemed imminent. He closed his eyes and waited for his last breaths.

“How dare you?!” Nigel was standing in front of Rubin now. Both his hands wrapped tight around Rubin’s neck. His tone was full of anger and fury.

“What?”

“How could you do that to us?!” Nigel’s eyes looked like all the betrayal and anguish he felt from that night had congregated behind them.

“Settle down, boys.” Another man’s hand slowly helped loosen Nigel’s grip. Rubin did not gasp for air. Nor did he feel a single ounce of relief. In truth, he was upset that he had escaped death once more. And unfortunately, escaping death this time meant seeing his father. As Rubin turned, Nigel faded away. His furious snarl fading with him.

Standing on the other side of the iron bars was a bald man with a long, black beard with more than enough salty white sprinkled throughout. His physique landed right between Rubin’s withered one and Theodore’s obnoxiously strong one.

“Fancy seeing you here. What brings you to Barico Island?” Rubin asked. If you came looking for ma, she’s not here. Stops by more than she’s welcome though. Sure she’ll be back soon.” Rubin stepped away from the bars and waved at his father. “Come on in.”

As Rubin turned around he had no more than a split second to react before a fist landed square on his chin. He dropped like a ton of bricks.