FOUR
"You stink."
I sat in a room the color of rotten mint. The pale green that had once covered the walls was stained by centuries of cigarette smoke, sweat, blood, and humidity. On my left was a metal door painted the same color as the walls; a small window showed the buzz of the hallway beyond it. Too high to see anything, but visible enough for prisoners to know that a free world existed just beyond its frame. The tops of heads drifted past.
Before me sat my captor; behind him, an obsidian-dark glass wall, which reflected a shadowy version of myself back at me, as if I was trapped in oily tar. I looked worn, beaten, and tired. My caramel-colored skin was darkened by the sun and my dusty brown hair was longer than I typically preferred. My brow was caked with weeks of road dirt broke
