This one lasts long enough for the strange, astringent scent of chemicals
to wake him up and roll him out of the hard, narrow bed, but fades by
the time he reaches the -- forcefield.

Well, that's new.

Still, he supposes it was about time for them to figure out that no
amount of bars and locks would actually hold him, if he chose to leave.
The forcefield won't, either, but he'll have a few hours in which he has to
consider strategy, at least. He schedules it in for a non-specified later.

It's still too early in the day for him to know precisely what he'll want to
do with his day.

Cain rolls his head on his neck and doesn't think about just how much
of a lie that is. Instead, he focuses on his body, and all the new injuries
she'd given him. The bruising is extensive and scattered. A thoughtful
medical professional could learn quite a bit about pressure points by
marking the center of each new contusion.

Prisons don't hire thoughtful types unless they have absolutely no choice
in the matter, although the tape over his ribs has been applied with some
degree of care. He must've been well and truly unconscious. He paces the
boundaries of his cell, feeling the short hairs on the back of his neck rise as he
moves along the edge of the forcefield. He centers himself reflexively, and
feels the lingering traces of his hangover drown beneath the weight of rising
memory.

The meaty thud of one guard after another hitting the floor behind him. The
shocking *life* in the air outside, stifled comfortably beneath the fug of
smoke and alcohol in the bar.

The girl, so pure and perfect even stifled beneath *his* leather and rules. The
girl in motion, and the way he'd been drunk enough to be able to not quite
see the way she pulled her punches and kicks to keep them from killing him.
He falls into an easy crouch, and rests his forehead against the cool, damp
wall, soothing the small cut she'd left them there.

He presses harder, and it isn't soothing at all. It's...

He wonders if she knows why he drinks. If she's been away from him, out of
his *reach* for long enough to think it's just loneliness and defeat.

He wants to believe she hasn't. That she still moves for him, and that she takes
him down so fast not because *he* thinks it's best, but because she wants...

He licks across the edge of a broken tooth, and reaches for the more difficult
memories. Last night's last kick, and the moments before unconsciousness. That
one, incalculably beautiful moment when he'd thought it would be *this* time,
that his head had snapped just far enough to end this. That one last second
before she faded into the black of his weakness.

Before he knew, again, that she wouldn't kill him this time.

And that she isn't his at all, anymore.