My First Year in Prison Ch. 18

He was now crying.

"I want to see Alicia again but I cannot do that to my parents. They would never recover from that. I cannot die."

I understood that Alicia was the name of his little sister, killed by a drunk driver. He was not afraid to die, he just did not want to hurt his parents even more. I thought this was both the saddest and most beautiful reason to wish to stay alive.

"Nobody is gonna die." I spoke.

The minutes passed by and then it turned into hours. How many hours? Again, I do not know. We were all silent when we heard the biggest noise so far, there were flashes of lights too. A literal explosion. Without any warning, the main door was slammed open, pushing the huge fridge towards us, I had to move Kurtis to avoid the impact.

A SWAT team was behind the door, wearing full masks and gears. They pointed their guns at us and we all held our arms in the air.

"SHOW YOUR HANDS!" The first guy coming in shouted.

"He's hurt!" I said, pointing to Kurtis, still on my laps. "You have to take him; he's been bleeding a lot."

Someone came up to me and removed their mask. She was a woman. She talked to her team in a microphone.

"Another injured one in the back kitchen."

"Keep your hands up in the air, all of you!" A deep manly voice yelled under another mask.

Most members of the SWAT team were still pointing their guns at us. A few minutes later, two guys looking like soldiers came in with a hand barrow and finally took care of Kurtis.

"Ty..." He whispered.

"That's ok Kurt, let them take you. You need help."

Afterwards, the evacuation of the other inmates, including myself, started.

"One by one, you stand up, hands always in the air and you follow me. Nobody makes a funny move or we shoot."

One after the other, the few convicts who had found refuge in the kitchen stood up, when my turn came, the SWAT member threatened me.

"I said, stand up!"

"I... I can't... I'm hurt... My leg..."

"Could not you say anything before? Irma, we have another one we need to take care of here."

"That's ok, I think I can try to..." I spoke.

"You don't move!" He replied holding his gun very close to my face.

As the others were being evacuated, I remained alone in the kitchen, guarded by two SWAT members.

"How many people died?" I asked. I am not sure why I said it like that. From what I knew then, only Romano was dead. But I had heard so many shots.

One of the men sighed.

"Seven casualties. So far."

Seven. I thought about the Magic Seven. And just like Pope before me, I started to laugh hysterically. In just a few seconds though, my laughter turned into heavy sobbing. How many of the Magic Seven were among the casualties?

That morning, I had woken up with a gut feeling. I should have listened to it.

A guy came in, younger than the others. He had the SWAT sign on his bulletproof vest but was not wearing a mask.

"I'll just take him. We don't have any more materials." He said.

"Ok, go ahead. We'll follow you."

The guy was hot, like Hollywood actor playing a SWAT member hot.

"Can you hold on to me?" He asked, being more considerate than his colleagues.

"I think so." I replied and I managed to stand up while relying heavily on his broad shoulders.

The first person I saw when I got out of the kitchen was the warden Deen. He had lost his usual smug manners. He was deeply marked and was talking to several guys wearing suits. They were standing in the middle of the cafeteria. Surrounding them, there were multiple bodies.

I saw five, maybe six corpses. "Don't look" the guy holding me whispered.

Someone was taking pictures. A drape had been put over the bodies. It was worse than anything else. This drape could only mean death.

And suddenly, my heart sank in my chest. It broke in a way that I knew it would never fully recover.

Although his body was mostly hidden, his lower arm and his hand were still visible, coming out of the drape. They were already an odd shade of grey. On his ring finger, there was the beautiful golden ring, shining but stained with blood, with a tiny M and a tiny X inscribed in silver letters.

Xander was dead. A part of me was too.

[TO BE CONTINUED]