Blood in, blood out.

That was the way it always had been, that was they way it always would be, and that was the way that it was. Alvin had known it. Everybody who knew about the Brotherhood knew it. That's why he hadn't hesitated when they'd lined him up with the nigger in cell 43/K. He'd just gone straight in and done what was required.

Sometimes, when he thought about it afterwards, he felt kind of funny. Kind of sick. He never let on, though. He wanted people to think that he was a cold blooded killer. He wanted them to remember that fire-hardened plastic was as dangerous as an AK in his hands, and that the coroner had said that the body was already dead by the time he'd inflicted the twelfth stab wound, let alone the forty seventh.

He wanted them to think these things because he wanted respect.

People talked about prison currency. They talked about cigarettes, or drugs, or sex. But Alvin didn't give a shit about any of that because he knew, right down in the middle of him, that the only currency that mattered was respect.

That was why, when the order had come down from the Grand Master to off the governor, he hadn't hesitated. The governor had failed to show respect. Perhaps he'd let his job and his uniform and his pension go to his head. Perhaps there was some other reason. Alvin didn't care. He just slipped the splinter of razor blade under his tongue, got himself within striking distance, and sliced open the governor's carotid.

It was incredible really, the amount of blood. Even when Alvin was on the floor, wondering if the guards were going to carry on beating him until he was dead, he was amazed by it.

The guards didn't kill him. Not quite. But by the time he'd been transferred from the infirmary to the isolation cell, the new governor had settled in. He'd brought his own guards with him, and they were the ugliest bunch of weirdos Alvin had ever seen. Then, after a while, he started to hear the stories. Stories about cons disappearing and going crazy and committing suicide on the wire. He didn't care, but still. It was interesting. The new governor seemed to be having some sort of effect.

Then, one night, the new governor came to visit.

He wasn't wear a uniform. He hadn't shaved. He didn't even seem to have washed. He stank of stale sweat and pickled cloves and Alvin smelled him before he even entered the cell. Before he could comment, though, he caught the new governor's eye and all of a sudden he didn't want to talk. He just wanted to listen.

Afterwards, they went for a walk. The lights in the halls had all been smashed, so the only thing Alvin saw of the guards was the hungry glitter of their eyes as they padded past. He was pretty sure that removing the lights like this was against regulations, but the strangest thing was that it was so quiet. There were no whistles, no catcalls, not even any screams of men gripped by nightmares. Instead there was a heavy, liquid silence, breathless and terrified.

When they stepped outside into the moonlit sand of the exercise yard the first thing Alvin noticed was the archway. Despite the fact that it was the middle of the night sunlight, gold and green as if filtered through a forest, streamed out of it. Things moved on the other side, too. Fascinating things that he couldn't quite make out.

The governor smiled when he asked Alvin if he wanted to go through, because of course Alvin did. He'd never wanted anything so much in his entire life.

Then the governor asked him if he was prepared to pay the price. He gestured to a shadow on the sand, and Alvin found that he wasn't surprised to see the Grand Master of the Brotherhood, gagged and tightly bound. When the governor gave Alvin the familiar shard of razor blade, rusty but still sharp, the Grand Master whimpered but it did him no good.

Alvin didn't hesitate. Blood in, blood out. That was the way it always had been, the way it always would be, and the way that it was. How could it be any different ?

After he had finished he stepped though the arch and into the sunlight, as gory and innocent as a new born babe.