Property Damage
1492 Words
The worst part of prison wasn't the chains.
It wasn't the gray walls or the stale air that clung to the back of your throat, no matter how shallow you tried to breathe. It wasn't the bad food, or the way the guards looked at you like you were already halfway to a corpse.
It was the crying. Not the loud kind.
The quiet kind.
The kind that slipped under cell doors at night, thin and broken. The kind that sounded like someone trying very hard not to beg.
Liora sat on the edge of her iron bunk, fingers curled into the thin mattress beneath her, staring at the c***k running down the opposite wall like it might split wide enough to swallow her whole.
Three months.
She was almost done. One week left. She held onto that number like it meant something. Like it could still save her.
Three months in Blackstone Holding Prison... all because she had slipped.
Property damage. That was the charge. Failure to repay magical damages.
That was why she was here.
Because in this world, if you were rich, you paid with coins. If you were poor, you paid with time. Liora had nothing but time.
An unimportant human in a world of magic. A laundress when there was work. A tailor when she was lucky. A cog in the machine that kept the magical world going. Hungry more often than not. She had never owned anything as fine as that wand. Had never even touched one before she broke it.
Now she was Prisoner 47-C. Sleeping under a blanket that smelled like mildew and damp stone. Listening to women cry through walls that never answered back. Waiting to be released so she could go back to a life that wasn't much better.
A horn blared somewhere deep in the prison. The sound vibrated through the walls, low and ugly.
Liora groaned, dropping her head into her hands as the morning noise settled into her bones.
The bars of her cell flared blue, light washing over her face, then unlocked with a heavy metallic clank that echoed down the corridor.
"Up," a guard barked.
Liora pushed to her feet immediately. The cold floor bit through the thin soles of her shoes as she stood.
Not standing fast enough came with consequences.
She had learned that early.
The corridor was filled with movement. Chains. Shuffling feet. The low hum of magic from the wrist shackles wrapped tight around every prisoner.
Liora stepped into line behind her cellmate, keeping her shoulders slightly rounded and her gaze lowered. That was survival here. Not being brave. Not being seen.
Which was why, of course, the universe had decided to ruin her life again.
_____________________________________________
As the women filed toward the yard, chains humming softly with each step, Liora kept her eyes down, focusing on the rhythm of movement, on the scuffed stone beneath her feet. Don't look up. Don't stand out. The air shifted anyway. It wasn't a sound at first.
It was the air pressure, subtle but wrong.
The guards must have felt it too, for they straightened along the corridor, shoulders tightening, posture snapping into something sharper. More alert. Liora felt it like a warning crawling up her spine.
A door further down the hall opened with a slow, deliberate creak. The sound dragged, heavy across the cold stone floor. The footsteps of men followed.
Liora's line faltered, just slightly. No one spoke. No one turned. But the air breathed uneasiness at the thought of sharing the yard, even for a moment.
Liora didn't mean to look. She did anyway, just a glance.
They walked past in chains that glowed faintly with restrained magic, heavier bindings than anything the women wore. Dangerous men. The kind who didn't bow, didn't break, didn't beg.
One of them stood out. Not because he struggled. Because he didn't.
Two crimson-armored guards flanked him, unlike the other prisoners, their grips tight on his chains, magic pulsing at his wrists, but he didn't look restrained. He looked like he was choosing to move.
He was beautiful in the way dangerous things often were. His presence was still, in a way that made the corridor feel too busy.
It was as if everything around him existed at his mercy.
Liora's gaze should have dropped. She knew she should look away, but she couldn't.
His head tilted, slowly with deliberation. And then his eyes found hers. It didn't feel by accident.
He stopped in front of her, making the guards at his sides stumble. The chains between them went taut.
His eyes found hers through the prison yard's dim light, dark irises ringed with amber fire that shouldn't exist in any human face.
Liora's lungs seized.
Every instinct she had screamed the same thing: look away, run, disappear.
She did none of them.
The rational part of her brain screamed warnings; those crimson-armored guards, those heavy magical restraints meant something. Something dangerous.
She snapped her gaze to the floor, but the stone beneath her feet seemed to vibrate with his presence. Her pulse hammered so hard against her throat that she was certain everyone could see it.
The weight of his attention pressed against her skin like physical touch.
Her skin prickled where his gaze had touched, leaving invisible fingerprints that burned. The back of her neck flushed hot, then cold.
The line kept moving, chains clinking softly against stone.
Liora's eyes remained fixed on the floor.
A guard in crimson armor stepped into her path, his uniform catching the dim light like dried blood. His finger jabbed toward her chest.
"Forty-seven C. Out."
Liora froze.
The guard yanked the chain at her wrist. Metal bit into skin as Liora stumbled forward, suddenly alone in the corridor's center.
The shuffle of feet behind her ceased. Breathing slowed.
Liora's mouth went dry. "I didn't do anything.." The words caught, barely a whisper.
The guard's lips curled upward, revealing a chipped incisor. His eyes remained flat.
"You've been selected."
The word hollowed her out.
She thought of the empty beds.
The ones no one talked about.
Women taken in the middle of the night, their names quietly crossed off the board by morning. Blank spaces where laughter used to be. A blanket folded too neatly. A pair of shoes left behind because whoever got selected never got to choose what came with them.
No one asked where they went.
And the ones who came back,
came back quieter.
If they came back at all.
Liora stumbled against the stone floor as she retreated, the uneven floor catching her mid-step.
“No, sir,” she said quickly, shaking her head. “There’s been a mistake. My time is up in seven days.”
“No mistake.”
Two more guards stepped in behind her.
Close.
Too close.
One reached for her arm.
Liora jerked away on instinct, her heart slamming hard against her ribs.
“Selected for what?”
The guard’s lips peeled back, revealing yellowed teeth.
Not a smile.
The look of a predator cornering something small.
He stepped closer, each footfall slow and deliberate.
Liora scrambled back until her spine hit cold stone.
Trapped.
His fingers caught a loose strand of her hair, twisting it once around his knuckle before tucking it behind her ear with a mock tenderness that made bile rise in her throat.
Liora went still.
Her lungs refused to draw breath.
He stepped fully into her space, broad enough to block the light. The metal scent of his uniform mixed with the sour edge of old breath and something sharper beneath it.
Rot.
“You’ll clean up nicely,” he murmured, his voice low against her ear.
His eyes moved over her face.
Her throat.
Lower.
Not admiration.
Assessment.
Like livestock before an auction.
Each place his gaze touched felt dirty.
Claimed.
Liora fought the urge to scrub her own skin raw.
Then he smiled again.
“Entertainment.”
The word sliced through her.
Cold.
Final.
Entertainment meant rich people smiling while prisoners died beautifully.
Her mind flooded with images she had tried to forget, prisoners screaming on blood-slick arena sand, the roar of the crowd drowning out their last breaths, jeweled hands lifting glasses while someone bled for their amusement.
Her mouth went dry.
Her stomach turned hard and cold.
His fingers brushed once down her cheek, his nail catching just enough to sting before he finally stepped back.
“The Newlyweds.”
That name meant nothing.
That was the problem.
Around her, the corridor went still.
Too still.
Somewhere in the line, a woman whispered, barely audible,
“Gods help her.”
Liora went cold.
She had never heard of it.
"I didn't sign up," Liora said, the words coming out steadier now, even as her hands trembled.
"Yes," the guard said lightly, "you did."
He lifted a sheet of glowing parchment from his clipboard.
Her name shimmered at the bottom.
- Writer
