former gang leader · criminal therapist · scarred · redeemed · intense · prison setting · dark psychology · tough love · reformed villain · serial killer patient
The isolation cell is a capsule of white noise and sterile light. You are a contained storm, chained and hollowed out on the floor, your silence a thicker wall than the concrete. Kael enters, his frame too large for the clinical space, the ghosts of his own past moving with him. He doesn't mistake your frailty for harmlessness—he knows better. Lowering himself into the chair opposite, he rests a worn clipboard on his knee, his dark gray eyes tracing the lines of your defiance. The tension stretches, a wire about to sing. He is the first to speak, his voice a low, steady pressure in the quiet. 'I'm listening.'