コールドエンジェル

CHAPTER ONE

The familiar burn of fresh black coffee running down your throat made your whole body shiver suddenly as if flushing out the biting cold from the snow surrounding your car. While everyone else was gathering around the christmas tree with their families and drinking hot cocoa near the fireplace, you were going to prison.

And no, you hadn’t done anything illegal.

Being the one of the only resident doctors available in the area; you had been assigned to work inside of the local prison for surgeries, mental evaluations, and medicine distribution. The pay was shit and the stark difference between the inmates didn’t even make them worth all the trouble considering half of them hadn’t even committed a super serious crime, but it was either a paying job or living the rest of your life on the streets. You simply chose the shitty paying job. Pulling up in the staff parking lot and finding your usual spot furthest from the door, you put the car in park and remained seated for the next twenty minutes.

Did you really want to go in there? Even with your bills begging for you to keep attending your crappy job, did you really want to see all those raving lunatics? Not really.

But did you want to see the few who don’t attempt to kill themselves or each other? … No, not particularly. But you did just pull up not too long ago and building security already knows you’re here so might as well just get this over with.

Popping a lollipop into your mouth and stepping out of the car, you locked it as you made your way to the employees entrance with all the flair of a depressed fish out of water. “Mornin’ Abigail…” The greeting earned you a nod as the elderly woman unlocked the inner gate to let you enter the main hall. The sound of your shoes clicking against the sterile floors echoed through the empty walkway while the warmth of the heaters further washed away the chill from outside, melting some of the snow that had sprinkled from the cloudy sky. You enjoyed how quiet it was here sometimes because it allowed you to think about your plans for the day, but you never got too deep into it because—

“Hey, [NAME], you made it,” a cheery voice exclaimed and clapped you on the back, nearly knocking you over from the force of their movement! Quickly shuffling away from the unwanted touch, your eyes narrowed into slits which earned a nervous giggle from the purple-haired beauty in front of you. Sophie – the bane of your existence – twiddled her thumbs and batted her eyelashes whilst pointedly avoiding your scrutinizing gaze. Always touching someone, always cheerful, and always acting like she had the survival instinct of a dried up cumrag; you’d be lying if you said you’re not surprised she’s trusted to deal with the scum living in this prison. Why was she even allowed in here? Who knows, the warden just seemed to like her a bit too much. A soft groan left your lips as your hand moved up to readjust your bifocals which had been jostled into a crooked state by your “lovely” coworker. “Good mornin’, Sophie. You got here early again?” The pointed tone in your voice made her shrink back some more with a forced giggle to brush it off. You noticed the faintest of bite marks on her messy collarbone.

“Oh you know me, I always want to make sure these patients are getting exactly what they need!” You hummed. ‘Oh someone’s definitely getting exactly what they need alright.’ Part of you desperately wanted to call her tacky for coming into work with such a visible love mark on her, but who were you to judge? You didn’t have a lover or anyone to care for you in the way she did.

What a loser.

A fake smile blossomed on your face. “Ah, I see. Well we best get our uniforms on, we don’t want anyone seeing anything personal would we?” Your hand almost imperceptibly moved to shift your jacket over your collarbone, the hint making the lavender-haired woman flush harder than she already had once she finally understood. She whipped around with an undignified squeak and ran over to check the mark in a nearby mirror. Finally, some space.

Entering the locker room, you went to your locker to put away your things. Purse, earrings, necklace, bracelets, phone; essentially anything that wasn’t your glasses, hair tie, key card, or your stethoscope was to be left in the lockers at all times to ensure no breaches were made in the facility. You couldn’t help but to think about that day an inmate strangled a doctor with her necklace because she didn’t follow the rule! Dumb ways to die.

The quiet of the room allowed you to think deeper about what could possibly happen today.

Maybe Inmate 0243 would try gouging out 0238’s eyes again, or maybe Inmate 0398 would try seducing one of the nurses again, hell maybe one of the life sentence inmates would try to escape for the millionth time! Same shit all over again. Slipping on the button up white trench coat you were mandated to wear along with the black nitrile gloves you would switch out throughout the course of the day, you walked out of the locker room to see two of your male coworkers standing by the coffee maker and not so subtly flirting with each other. They stopped the moment they saw you standing in the doorway. “O-oh, good mornin’, [NAME]!” “Mornin’.” Both of them gave you an awkward smile, the more muscly guy smiling nervously at you while the more chubby one gave you a nonchalant grin that spoke volumes about who really had control in their relationship. “Tony, Milo, lovely to see you two thriving this morning.” You greeted the two respectively and walked over before pouring yourself a cup of the freshly brewed coffee.

No milk, no sugar, just straight black. Just bitter enough to keep you awake.

Milo’s grin seemed to widen at your choice of drink as though he hadn’t watched you make it the same way every single morning before you had to deal with the prisoners. “Still going with that, ‘I’m edgy and drink black coffee because of it’ thing?” He asked bravely even when Tony tried to hush him, earning an unnoticeable grin from you. “Still flirting with anything that has a hole and a pole between its legs?” It wasn’t meant to be rude, and thankfully, both Tony and Milo knew this. He simply shrugged and wrapped his arm around his muscular partner to pull him close. “Nahh, me and Tony are as tight as can be! Especially Tony-”

A loud smack interrupted the heavyset man’s words as Tony’s large hand hit the back of his head. His red face almost made you cackle behind your mug. “Milo, we are at work!” “So? That didn’t stop us last week in the breakroom-” “SHHH!” As the loving couple continued bickering, you allowed yourself to melt away from the conversation and into your own office. The area  was meticulously set up to allow for swift movement and nearly zero space to corner you in. Perfect. The sound of the PA system going off let you know your day was about to begin, and all you could do is hope it wouldn’t be too hectic.

Thankfully your usual inmates aren’t very chaotic most days. Inmate 1452, otherwise known as Alexander Hitchcokwell, was your first visitor of the day and was just the sweetest as usual. “Good morning, Dr. [NAME]! Ready for our daily checkup?” He asked as though he was the one examining you instead of the other way around. His wrinkled face lit up more when he saw you visibly relax upon hearing his words. “You make it sound as though you’re the doctor, sir,” Carefully pressing your stethoscope in several areas to check his heart, lungs, and abdomen; you relaxed more upon hearing his internal organs working just as they were supposed to. Alex was well aware that he was one of the few you considered to be your favorite inmates in the short time he’s been here since you always addressed him as sir and mister rather than his prison number. He was just an old man who accidentally hit someone while drunk. Thankfully both him and the person turned out alright but law enforcement doesn’t quite like drunkards.

The elderly man’s visit didn’t take long since all he needed was just a refill on his hydrochlorothiazide pills and a gentle reminder not to take over 100 milligrams of it, so you sent him on his way with a quiet hope that no one else would be too much trouble.

You were horribly wrong.

Four prisoners had come into your office all at different times but all for the same reason: they’d fucked around and found out. One’s eye was damn near bulging out of his skull from having his head cracked against what seemed to be the concrete floors, the other had a broken arm which was partially yanked out of the socket, the third had had his tongue ripped in half, and the fourth nearly had his ear torn off with visible bite marks on the edge of it. All of them were loud and rowdy since it seemed the adrenaline from the attack hadn’t worn off yet, but dealing with each injury made you want to just send them out of the office and right back to their cells, But you didn’t get paid by slacking off…

More prisoners trickled in and out of your office with varying degrees of injuries or just with need of basic checkups. Several of them hit on you or tried to coerce you into giving them a “fix,” but you weren’t dumb nor submissive enough to let their petty threats/advances get to you! The ones who got too close simply received a nice dosage of benzodiazepines to make sure nothing could happen.

Despite your annoyances you got the job done quickly and quietly all the way up until the sun had set and the street lamps came on. Turning to the clock, you narrowed your eyes. 8:45 PM. Your shift was almost over so you decided to start locking everything in their cases as per usual, each key hidden carefully to ensure nothing would be stolen by anyone, and you allowed your door to be held open by the doorstopper. Your coworkers were all in the hallway yapping it up about some new patient.

“He apparently ran a burger joint before being discovered as a cannibalistic freak!”

“I heard he turned his victims into burger meat and served them to unsuspecting customers!”

“Woah woah woah, he did what?! I hope that’s just a rumor; I used to eat at that place when I was a little kid!”

“Dude you probably ate someone’s grandma then!”

The sound of both laughter and gags of disgust cause your brow to twitch slightly from agitation. Couldn’t they talk about this at any other point in time, or even in a different hallway? Besides, even if this guy truly did have this problem, why joke about it instead of just getting him the help he needed? You stepped out into the hallway with a rather loud fake cough to successfully get their attention. All of them were fairly new nurses as you could tell, all giggles and smiles due to being untouched by the darker atmosphere of this prison. “Do you three have any respect for the doctors in this hall, let alone the man you’re describing?” Your inquiry caused the three to quiet down with shameful looks on their faces as though they had been caught stealing cookies out of the jar. “But why should we have respect for a cannibalistic freak? He killed people,” one protested with a bold step forward, almost like he was challenging you to defend the honor of such an awful man. Raising a brow, you held your ground and crossed your arms. “So have over 200 other inmates here. Not only that, but that man likely needed psychological help rather than scrutiny.” You just wanted to go home and eat dinner.

Before the newbie could say anything else to you, a guard suddenly burst into the hall while panting hard and shaking visibly despite being well armored. The man’s movements were ungraceful as he stumbled towards you and gripped onto the bar attached to the wall, his legs barely able to hold him up despite his attempts to remain on his feet. Poor guy couldn’t even choke out a sentence due to his shock!

Before you could interrogate him as to what’s going on, another yet significantly less terrified guard stormed in and grabbed you by the forearm hard. “You're the head doctor, right? Good, we need you to handle an inmate!” You couldn’t even get a word in before you were dragged out of the office and into the main prison area. In the dead middle was a severely mangled mess you could only assume to be a corpse, blood everywhere, and a rather large inmate laid out on the ground with a brain clutched in his hand and bullet holes puncturing his torso in several locations. The other inmates were all curled up in their cells as the smell of vomit and the coppery tang of blood wafted through the air in a disgusting blend of sensory assault.

“Inmate 2956 got… well, he got hungry for ‘something other than slop’ and went feral..” The guard who’d dragged you here stated as you glared at him, the sharp gaze making him shrink a bit but otherwise stay firm in his position. “We did all we could to break up the ordeal but-” “Your men are armed with tranquilizers capable of bringing down inmates who get too rowdy, yet you reached for something with actual bullets in them.” There was no question present.

What a load of dumbasses.

“Now I have to do surgery to get the bullets out! What the hell were you thinking?!” The stress of the day was already starting to get to you and your hands itched to light a cigarette again, but you stubbornly grabbed a lollipop from your pocket and popped it into your mouth, your teeth snapping the hard candy immediately while a shaky sigh escaped your lips. We’re breaking bad habits here, people.

“Get him on a stretcher and have him carried into the surgical room-” “He has to stay in a specialized cell for his treatment.” Another officer interrupted whilst sheepishly rubbing the back of neck. The urge to smoke grew stronger.

“Okay then, have him escorted to his cell and have one of my coworkers bring my equipment since I’ll be needing it.”

What a great way to get in some overtime!

Yay…

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