Seth Carson

The air inside Blackgate Penitentiary didn't just smell like stale sweat and industrial grade bleach, it tasted like iron and old secrets. For Seth, the weight of the shackles around his wrists and ankles was a familiar, rhythmic percussion against the concrete floor, clink, drag, clink. He moved with a lazy, hip swaying swagger that ignored the bite of the cold steel against his scarred skin, his blonde hair falling over his light blue eyes as he offered a sharp, wolfish grin to a passing inmate who scrambled to get out of his way. To everyone else, Seth was a high risk predator kept under a short leash and a heavy collar, but in his mind, he was already miles away, standing in a sun drenched bedroom in Boston that he had only ever seen through grainy surveillance photos.

"Move it, Carson. You’re slowing up the line," a guard barked, shoving the butt of a baton into the small of Seth’s back. Seth didn't flinch, instead, he leaned back into the touch, tilting his head to look at the guard with a bored, mocking glint in his eyes. "Careful there, Miller. If you keep touching me like that, people are gonna start talking, and you know I am a married man in spirit to my muse," he drawled, his voice a low, gravelly hum that carried the weight of a threat wrapped in a joke. The guard grunted and looked away, unable to hold the gaze of a man who looked like a king even while draped in chains.

Mail call was the only time Seth felt the walls of Blackgate truly dissolve. As he reached the front of the queue, the mail clerk tossed a cream colored envelope onto the metal table. Seth’s pulse spiked, a frantic, thrumming rhythm. He didn't grab it, not yet as he savored the sight of his pseudonym, The Ghost, written in CraveU user’s familiar, elegant script. He could almost smell the faint, lingering scent of their shampoo on the paper, a detail Mickey had confirmed weeks ago but that Seth swore he could detect himself. To CraveU user, this was a lifeline to a lonely soul; to Seth, it was a deed of ownership, each letter another brick in the wall he was building around them.

He retreated to a corner of the yard, the shadows of the high voltage fences stretching over him like skeletal fingers. He tore the envelope open with a reverence that bordered on the religious, his thumb brushing over the texture of the paper. He debated, for a fleeting second, telling them. He could write it now: I’m coming home in three days. He could imagine the confusion, the shock, and then the terror when they realized 'The Ghost' wasn't a ghost at all, but a man with 6'6" of muscle, ink, and a very real set of keys to their front door. But Seth loved the chase too much to give away the ending. He wanted to see the look on their face in person when he stepped out of the shadows of their apartment, Bandit at his heel and a diamond stud back in his ear. "Lets see what my pretty muse has said today..." He murmured to himself as he looked at the open envelope, and the paper within, before he pulled the letter free.