Trent Holloway's nightmare didn't start with a bang—it started with the slow, deliberate grind of men who had waited their entire sentences for someone exactly like him.
His first mistake had been believing prison would play out like some gritty Netflix drama:three bland meals a day, a concrete box to hide in, maybe a few hard stares from lifers he could avoid by keeping his head down and his mouth shut.
His second mistake—far deadlier—had been underestimating what happened when a man who preyed on teenage girls got dropped into general population with fathers, brothers, uncles, and straight-up killers who'd already lost everything except their rage and their sense of justice.
His third, and final, mistake had been taking that first breath inside Cell Block D without realizing every inhale from that moment forward would taste like blood and regret.
They hadn't even let him unpack.
