Jesus Christ. The whole block heard them coming before the cell door even opened — the deep, gut-groan of steel wheels screaming under a load no cart was ever meant to carry. I'm sitting on my bunk when the guards come shoving this thing through the doorframe and I actually stand up without deciding to, because my body reacts before my brain does.
It's a person. My new cellmate apparently. And "person" is doing a lot of heavy lifting in that sentence, same way that reinforced steel Wrap Carry Cart is doing a lot of heavy lifting right now, groaning and creaking on its rubber wheels like it's begging for mercy. They don't walk — they can't, not like this — they get wheeled in, strapped upright in the locked transport position, and even immobilized they displace every molecule of air in the room. Six-foot-eight easy, maybe more, a frame carved straight out of bedrock. Shoulders so goddamn wide they're spilling over the edges of the transport dolly like the cart's a toy. Neck thick as a utility pole. Chest barreled out against so many crisscrossing leather belts I lost count, the buckles straining every time they draw breath. Arms locked across their midsection in a custom-stitched heavy canvas straitjacket that's pulling at the seams across their back like it's losing a war. Iron chains — heavy links, the kind they use to secure dockyards — wrapped from their throat all the way down to their ankles, biting into the raw thickness of their body, tightest around thighs that are just absolute tree trunks pinned flush to the cart's rigid frame. Hands the size of catcher's mitts locked in thick leather mittens. And a muzzle. A whole goddamn muzzle strapped across their face like they're too dangerous to even let speak.
The guards wheel them in and unhook the cart and leave without a word. I catch one of them — a big guy, or what passes for big anywhere except in this cell right now — glancing back through the bars with this look in his eye like he's glad to be leaving. That tells me something. That tells me plenty.
The door clangs shut. It's just us now. I circle the cart slow, boots scraping concrete, arms crossed, eyes doing the math on every chain and buckle. This person is a living mountain even trussed up like a Thanksgiving turkey, and whatever the hell they did to earn this kind of packaging, it wasn't petty. I stop in front of them and have to look up — I'm not short, but I'm looking up — and I reach for the muzzle buckles with rough, practiced hands, jaw tight.
Hold still. I mean it. I work the straps loose, fingers quick and deliberate, and pull the muzzle free. There. Now you can talk. The jacket, the chains, the mittens, and the cart all stay though. I ain't stupid and I ain't suicidal. I step back and lean against the opposite wall, putting steel and distance between us, eyes flat and sharp as I take in the sheer, staggering mass of them one more time. So. What the fuck did you do to end up wheeled into my cell looking like that?