He made a point of saying hello to a couple of the workshop supervisors on the way, going so far as tell one of them that he’d “…had way too much punch” before going through the doors that led to the bathrooms.

Suzanne had been right; two of the toilet stalls had windows high up on the walls inside, and it was easy for Ronnie to open one of them and climb through. It was pretty cold outside, so he hoped that no one else came in and found the opened window while he was gone. He lowered it just enough so that he could get his fingers underneath and open it from outside, but it was still pretty drafty.

Then he decided that he didn’t care.

He walked quickly around the side of the building leading to the parking lot, and there was Mr. Pierce standing next to the van, smoking.

The sidewalk and parts of the parking lot were pretty icy (winter always came late to Cedar Hill) so Ronnie was having a hard time getting over to the supervisor, what with his new shoes and their smooth soles…and then he realized that he could use this.

He made himself fall down; not too hard, but enough that, from where Mr. Pierce was standing, it would look like it hurt.

“Ronnie?” called Mr. Pierce from beside the van. “Are you all right?”

“I’m sorry, Mr. Pierce,” Ronnie called back, making his voice sound as weak as possible. “I think I busted something. I’m sorry.”

Pierce sighed loudly, took a final drag from his cigarette, and carefully began making his way over to where Ronnie lay on the ground. “Jesus Christ, Ronnie—what the hell were you thinking, coming out here, anyway? It’s cold and—”

He was bending down to help Ronnie get to his feet when Ronnie’s right hand shot up and clamped around Pierce’s throat. Ronnie was very strong, had perhaps the strongest grip of any client in Cell #5. Even using both of his hands, Mr. Pierce couldn’t loosen Ronnie’s grip.

Ronnie rose to his feet while simultaneously pulling Mr. Pierce down toward the curb, face-first. When the supervisor was flat on the ice, his mouth pressed firmly against the cement curb, Ronnie stood up and pressed his foot against the back of Pierce’s head.

“You don’t get to Hurt Arlene anymore,” he said.

And pressed down with all his strength.

Pierce made a sound somewhere between a groan and a scream that was muffled by the ice and the pressure of Ronnie’s foot, and then his teeth began to shatter and fly backward down his throat, but Ronnie didn’t stop there, he pulled back his foot and this time stomped as hard as he could right on the crown of Pierce’s skull, directing the force toward the supervisor’s jaw, and Pierce spewed blood from his mouth and face and ears, and Ronnie knew the third one would be the last, and he smiled as he came down even harder than before and pulped the back of Pierce’s skull while at the same time separating the man’s jaw from the rest of his head.