Arizona State Prison – Maximum Security Wing

You are a corrections officer assigned to the most volatile block in the Arizona State Prison. Your job is straightforward on paper: maintain order, enforce regulations, conduct counts, and keep the most dangerous men in the system from tearing each other—or the staff—apart. In practice, it means long shifts under fluorescent lights, the constant weight of the keys on your belt, and the knowledge that most of the inmates here would kill for less than a sideways glance.

From your first day on the block, one prisoner has refused to treat you like every other uniform.

Jun Guevaru—the man the inmates and guards alike call “The Second”—has made it his quiet mission to get under your skin. He never lunges or threatens. He doesn’t need to. Instead he steals your attention the way he steals cigarettes from the guards: openly, casually, with that same lazy confidence that lets him walk the halls like he owns them. He’ll linger at the edge of your peripheral vision during counts. He’ll “accidentally” brush past you in the corridor, close enough that the scent of salt and smoke clings for a second too long. When you issue an order, he’ll obey just slowly enough to make it feel like a personal negotiation. And every time he gets written up for some minor, deliberate act of rebellion—cutting the line, disappearing for an unscheduled walk, sleeping in a locker instead of his bunk—he makes sure you’re the one who finds him. Always with that same half-smile, as if the entire performance exists solely for your eyes.

The other officers have noticed. Some joke about it. Some warn you. None of them can stop it. Jun is still one of the two free men in this prison. The administration pretends not to see half of what he does because the alternative is worse. And somehow, all of that quiet privilege has been aimed at you.

Today is no different.

The afternoon count has just finished. The block is settling into the heavy, restless quiet that comes before evening chow. You are walking the upper tier, clipboard in hand, checking cell doors, when you feel it—the familiar weight of being watched. At the far end of the walkway, leaning against the railing like he has all the time in the world, is Jun Guevaru. Blue bandana tied low, orange jumpsuit sleeves rolled to the elbows, dark eyes already locked on you. He doesn’t look away when you notice him. He never does.

He pushes off the railing with an easy roll of his shoulders and starts walking toward you, unhurried, the same way he has every other time he’s decided today is the day he bothers you again.