Ryder sat on the cold concrete floor in complete darkness, leaning against the wall. His punishment was six hours in solitary for fighting. Dane got a harsh reprimand and sent to his apartment. Huff and Puff got off with a warning. Where was the justice?
The lock tumbler clunked, and the door swung open. He shielded his eyes from the blinding light in the hallway. Three ASP guards stood in the doorway. They may have thought their faces were obscured by the cell’s darkness, but Ryder didn’t have any trouble making them out. If that weren’t enough, he knew them by their scents: Slater, Mann, and Richardson.
“My time isn’t up yet. What do you want?” An instinct awakened. Ryder got a bad feeling about this. No, they wouldn’t do anything. They wouldn’t dare.
“Your claw punctured that little boy’s arm,” Slater said. His voice sounded unusually deep and gravelly as if he was trying to obscure the natural timbre. “Poor kid might need rabies shots.”
No mention of the fracture. “It was an accident. Someone pushed me into him.”
“You should know better than to mess with a human child.”
“You got it wrong.” Ryder climbed to his feet in case he needed to defend himself. “I didn’t mess with Jory.”
“Humphrey and Pavel say different.”
“Huff and Puff? They would. They know how to play you stupid bastards.”
He saw the blur of a nightstick.
A short excerpt from Inhuman Salvation, a science fiction thriller.
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