CHAPTER TWO:FROM THE DEVIL'S DEN
1234 Words
North Side Prison was located as its name implies. It sat in the northmost area in the north, in a place people called the Devil’s Den. It wasn’t just any prison, it was where dangerous women were kept. Assassins, mercenaries. Women no one wanted to deal with.
No one had ever escaped from it.
I had spent decades there, and somewhere along the line, I stopped hoping. I told myself I would die here to meet my maker. It felt easier that way. each day in the prison was a living hell so unbearable that many infamous people had died with in its confines while those that survive faced relentless and terrible torture everyday
The elevator rose from below and opened, I didn’t believe what I was seeing.
A woman with a hard, strong face stepped out and looked at us. There was this terrified expression on our faces, as if the angel of death had arrived.
“Congratulations,” she said firmly. “You’re being released.” Released?.
The word didn’t make sense.
She looked at all of us, including Molly, my prison buddy, the one who made life bearable. “We are free Rhoda” she laughed, we hugged ourselves, we cried because we will never see each other again.
“You will be free once you leave this gate.”She said
Free. It still sounded like a joke.
When I stepped outside, I withdrew as the sky exploded into a blinding, white glare that seared my eyes. The air was as fresh as a newly baked bread from the oven.
Back then in my graceful era there use to be my one and only gees Stanley and Jenna who somehow became family
Coming out from prison was Stanley and Jenna.
They looked at me like I had come back from the dead.
“Hey, girl!” my friend shouted, throwing her arms around me. “Welcome back to the world!”
Stanley smiled, softer, calmer. “You’re finally out.”
“Put up a cheerful face girl, it is a happy day for us when you are out of the den.”
I tried to smile, but it didn’t feel right on my face. I didn’t even know how to be normal anymore.
“Welcome back Rhoda,” Jenner brought flowers with cold juice and chilled water
“I bought you these stuff to calm your nerves for now, take this baby pinky wear I know it will look good on you”
“Nothing good can fit me now you know I feel worn out, you should have bought black or any nicer colour.” They both laughed then we went inside the car
We drove to Stanley's apartment kilometers away from the Devil's Den
At Stanley’s house, reality hit me harder.
I stood before the full-length mirror in Stanley’s guest room, my breath caught.
The woman staring back was a stranger. My collarbones dug sharply against my skin like broken rocks, and my hands once soft were mapped with thick, grey callouses. My lips had lost their color, turned a bruised, permanent purple from years of dry cell air and chewed nerves."
The next few days passed in a blur.
Stanley took care of everything: food, clothes, a place to stay. He never asked for anything in return but my mind wasn’t free.
I would wake up drenched in sweat, the phantom smell of the 'Devil’s Den' stinging my nose.
Closing my eyes only brought him back, Daniel, lying on that uneven pavement, his eyes wide and vacant.
I could still feel the weight of the wood in my palms, the vibration of the strike traveling up my arms until I bolted upright in bed, gasping for air. Stanley noticed. Of course he did.
“You need a break, Rhoda,” he said one day.
“A break?” I asked. I felt lost, like I had nowhere to stand.
“Let’s go out, let's go for a picnic. Somewhere to have fun.”
“Where?”
"uptown we can lodge there for some time" I laughed. “You’re joking.”
He shook his head, smiling. “Just the two of us.” Jenner already left for her daily 9 to 5 job.
The uptown sun baked the salt into my skin, and for the first time in a decade, the ice in my chest began to melt. We sat on the balcony with glasses of crisp white wine, watching the sky bleed into shades of violet and gold.
When Stanley’s hand brushed mine, a spark flared in my gut, a warm, humanness I thought had been beaten out of me in a concrete cell." We forgot everything.
And somewhere in the middle of all that, we fell into each other.
It wasn’t perfect. It wasn't planned, It was messy and real. But it felt like home. And for the first time, I realized something
I was still desirable. Still human.
Weeks passed like that.
We enjoyed ourselves. Even Jenner called to check on me.
Stanley and I… we got closer. Very close.
But then he had to leave for a few days because of work.
And just like that, I was alone again.
On a cool afternoon, I decided to take a walk, to clear my head. That's when I saw her. Cassandra.
She sat there calmly, sipping coconut milk like she owned the world.
Daniel’s sister.
My stomach twisted instantly.
I hid without thinking. Guilt crawled up my throat like something alive.
I don’t know why… but I followed her.
And then
Everything fell apart, I saw Daniel Alive.
Standing there, laughing, playing with two children.
Like nothing had ever happened.
Like I hadn’t… killed him. Cassandra stood beside him.
Then she kissed him, not like a sister,
Not even close.
A sudden, violent cramp seized my stomach, doubling me over. My mouth went bone-dry, and a bitter, acidic heat rose in my throat. I ducked behind a palm tree, the rough bark scraping my shoulder, as my lungs suddenly refused to take in the humid afternoon air. I ran. I didn’t stop until I got back to my room.
My hands were shaking as I called Stanley.
“Rhoda, what’s wrong?” His voice was calm, but I could hear the tension.
“It’s him,” I whispered. “Daniel… he’s alive.”
“What? Rhoda, are you sure?”
“I saw him. I know what I saw. I’m not crazy.”
Another pause. Then
“We’ll fix this,” he said. “We’ll fix
everything.”
“Fix it how?” I asked, the man I thought I killed was alive, living happily.
With a woman who was supposed to be his sister. The ground beneath my sandals felt like it was dissolving into sand, leaving me hanging over an empty."
Everything I believed in crumbled in seconds.
My past, my guilt, my punishment.
All of it felt like a lie.
“Calm down,” Stanley told me. “I’ll be back in a week. Then we’ll figure this out.”
I held onto his words because I had nothing else.
“We’ll make them pay,” he added quietly,
for everything.
Maybe that was the moment something changed in me.
I didn’t start believing in justice again
or forgiveness no. I started believing in something else. Taking control of my own truth.
- Writer
