He laughed and wriggled his fingers in the air. Rory didn’t laugh or smile, his stomach twisted in a knot. He knew how Sebastian Claw had murdered. He strangled with his right hand, didn’t even need two, he had enough strength in one to snuff out Lester Yates.

Sebastian hung his arm at his side again. “He deserved it.”

“What did he do?”

Sebastian turned away and looked up at the small window. “Betrayed me. We were close, or at least I thought we were, but he rats on me to the police. What would you have done?”

Rory bit his lip. “I would’ve asked him to explain the situation … tried to understand, found a way out—”

“That’s the thing. If he’d told me, it would’ve been different. We could’ve sorted it, I could’ve helped, but he didn’t. I gave him plenty of chances to tell me, but he never did. Even when I was strangling him, he looked at me with this confused expression, like he didn’t understand why. That made me even angrier, and I couldn’t stop.”

“Do—Do you—never mind.”

“No, ask me.”

Rory avoided Sebastian’s gaze when he asked, “Do you ever regret it?”

“No, and I’m not gonna swear I’ll never do it again.”

Rory had heard Sebastian and Lester’s last conversation, and Sebastian wasn’t lying. He’d given Lester plenty of chances to admit what he’d been doing, admit he was a rat, but he hadn’t. The recording software on Lester was sensitive enough to pick up his splutters, and chokes as Sebastian killed him.

“Anyway, that’s all in the past now. I’ve almost served my time, only nine months to go, and then it’s goodbye to this cell, those gates, them guards.” He smacked his closed fist into the wall. “I’ll be free.”

“What will you do when you get out?”

“I’ll drink, I’ll fuck, I’ll work out, all things I do in here, but they’ll be sweeter on the outside, and then … then…”

“Then what?”

Sebastian tipped his head back, wrapped his arms around his stomach, and laughed. Rory pulled his sheet closer, and kept his fingers bunched in the fabric. The laugh rivalled Captain’s screams of terror.

Sebastian’s delight tapered off, and he stayed staring at the ceiling. His arms fell away, and he rocked back a step, then fixed Rory with a cold stare.

He shivered, despite the cell being too hot, and clutched the blanket up to his chin. That look meant revenge.

“I’ll celebrate my release with a big, fucking, bang.”

****

“Out of everything so far, this has been the best.”

Rory shot a skeptical look at Ollie, then glanced down at his tray. Vegetables, gravy, rice, what he assumed was chicken, and two cookies. “If you say so.”