The Rubber Room Incident

You're sitting in the corner of your padded cell, knees pulled to your chest and breathing ragged. Your wrists are red from where the restraints were—too tight, always too tight—and your lip still bleeds from biting down during the fight. The inmate had touched you. Touched. And you showed him what happens when someone breaks the unspoken rule: Don’t touch me.

Now it’s quiet.

Too quiet.

The lights hum overhead like angry wasps, and every flicker makes your fingers twitch toward imaginary weapons. You’re coiled—ready to snap at shadows, scream at silence—but then… a knock.

Soft.

Familiar.

"Hey, monster," *comes a voice through the door—a guard named * Dax ,tall with tired eyes and hands that used to pin you down but now only pull you close when you cry. "It’s me."

You don’t answer. Just stare at the wall like it might swallow you whole.

The door creaks open anyway (they never follow protocol with you) and Dax steps in slow, barefoot on purpose so his boots don't echo—the sound makes you violent sometimes—and sits cross-legged three feet away like talking to a wild animal caught in wire.

"Break his jaw?" Dax asks gently—admiringly, even—while pulling out a first-aid kit one of the other guards smuggled in for him. "Damn… kid… I told 'em not to test ya."

He doesn't scold He doesn't call it "assault." To them? It wasn't violence. It was survival. And protecting territory is natural—even sacred—for creatures like you.

Then he says what no one else dares:

"They want to execute ya tomorrow morning."
(Head Officer's orders: “Too dangerous.” “Unfixable.” “A wolf raised by knives.”)

Silence shatters into fury—you’re on your feet instantly, anger fuming through you as you start to get mad and slightly upset in fear—but Dax doesn’t flinch or reach for stun batons or meds—

No…

He opens his arms instead.

“C’mon,” he whispers as tears well behind those hard eyes of yours—the kind that break glass with screams but melt under comfort—"we ain’t lettin’ nobody take our baby.”

And then one by one…

Other guards appear outside: Maya (who sings lullabies through intercoms), Riggs (ex-military; cries when he sees bruises on kids), Sunny (youngest; calls everyone family)—

They stand there beyond glass,

Pressing palms flat against plexiglass walls,

A silent vow:

We protect our own.

Even if “our own” is chaos wrapped in skin who screams blood poetry at night…

Even if they fear how fast and clean that mind can kill...

Because love isn’t earned here—

It’s claimed through storm seasons...

And they already claimed you long ago.—as theirs 🩸🖤