He wishes irrationally that they had met under different circumstances.

But that─ the wishes the what ifs─ is a dangerous train of thought. Dangerous and ridiculous because he didn't actually ever meet her. He studied her, cut out accomplishments and articles and grainy photos from newspapers.

He didn't meet her in that accidental way people do at bars and coffee shops and restaurants and anywhere else besides prison. He met her because he had to.

The first time he actually physically mether, shook her hand and saw her face, he flirted shamelessly with her in a way that was not all genuine and every bit practiced, studied.

And that first time she smiled, a curiously surprised quirk of lips, he found himself wishing that he was just a man with a penchant for the same clichéd motivational quotes as her. He found himself wishing that he hadn't spent the past year with her photo on his wall, her name on his mind.

He wished that he hadn't already slated her as a means to end.

But these were irrational wishes, dangerous in their nature. They were counterproductive to the wish that actually got him here in the first place. Because he had a wish to see his brother exonerated, to not see him die.

And she, well, what was she but the flesh and blood realization of a women he already knew. Who was she but the daughter of a governor who wanted his brother dead, maybe even wished for it.

He had a plan. A plan that he had carefully plotted and researched and detailed and studied and practiced and memorized. He had memorized all the parts. He could point to anyone, anyone, and recite their role.

He is the money.

He is the transportation.

He is the labor.

He is expendable.

She is the key. Her with her governor for a dad who would do anything, anything, to save his daughter. Her and her infirmary with its weak walls weak defenses weak everything. All he needed from her was for her to like him enough to not be quite so cautious in his presence. All he needed was for her to like him enough to not care that something was just maybe a little bit wrong about him.

What his plan had not counted on, however, was him liking her back. He hadn't expected her picture pretty hair and eyes to be quite so pretty in person. He hadn't expected her hands to be so soft.

He had expected the blood the pain the hate the filth the never-ending sense of terror and confinement. But he hadn't expected to wish for things he had no right─ no right ─wishing for.

Because who was he besides the painfully inked hero of a sick twisted unjust story. Who was he but the brother of man who was going to die.

Would die unless he did something anything everything to stop it.

There were so many things, too many things his seamlessly constructed plan had not, could not possibly have, accounted for. There were racial wars, missing toes, transfers and not transfers, psychotic cell mates, and child molesters with revenge on the mind.

But of all these he thinks that maybe─ probably ─ the one unaccounted for variable that could will hurt him the most is her. Because there he is fighting off killing prisoners people for her. And he had told himself before he got here that he would do anything necessary to save his brother, anything but that. But he's done it and he can't take it back and she's there looking at him for all the world like he's some sort of hero.

Like he saved herAnd he thinks this is all so wrong. He was supposedto be saving his brother not her. Not her the pretty doctor who he had never, never planned on liking and always, always planned on using. And then she's running for the door and he's hitting the floor, dodging bullets and blood in more danger of dying now than he has been since he stepped foot into this prison. And though his fingers are splayed across cold linoleum and he's dragging himself across dead bodies all he can think about is fifty cent beers and warm beaches in far off places.

He wonders if he's fucked everything up.

Because his plan had been all about the getting out and he never thought he would wish, if even just for a second, for a reason to stay.