Delivering a prisoner to Special Lockup always made Officer Grey Walker uncomfortable. Most Normals wouldn't enter the place. Officer Lucas Marshall opted to remain in the car while Grey took the prisoner inside. Grey signed in with his palm print before escorting the shifter to his holding cell. He unlocked the specialized handcuffs and shoved the man inside the virtually escape proof cell. The cell door latched shut as soon as Grey was clear. Grey stood for a moment to watch the prisoner test the confines of his cell. The prisoner could pull his disappearing act all he wanted. Grey made sure that the cell was marked as occupied. On the way out, he informed the office that he had just locked up a shapeshifter for attempted robbery.
Back inside the car, Lucas sighed with relief. "What was that for?" Grey asked.
"Oh, you know, I'm always afraid that you'll go in there and they won't let you leave." Lucas laughed nervously.
"Me, too, partner. Me, too," Grey muttered.
As they drove away, Grey remembered the one time that he had been locked up there. He had just turned sixteen and his schoolmates had managed to get their hands on a case of beer. It was his first time out drinking with his schoolmates and they cheerfully passed him a fresh can every time he finished the last one. When he needed to pee, he chose to relieve himself on a nearby car that was blocking the alley. It wouldn't have been so bad, except the police car was occupied at the time. He probably would have outrun the officer chasing him if he hadn't been certifiably drunk. The officer didn't know that Grey was a daywalker at the time. He took Grey to the Special Lockup with the intention of scaring him straight. It worked.
Grey shared a cell with other drunk Extranormals, one of which was a belligerent troll, who was half as broad as he was tall and covered with a thick coat of brown hair. The breath of a troll is bad enough, but when combined with alcohol, it becomes absolutely foul. Most of the other cellmates kept their distance from the troll. But the beast had cornered Grey and was looking for a fight. That was the day Grey discovered that he was more than a fast runner.
Deciding that he couldn't take any more of the troll's foul breath, Grey raised his feet off the floor and kicked the troll in the belly. The beast was sent sliding on his ass clear across the cell. The troll picked itself up off the floor and charged at Grey, who dodged the creature's fists as they hit the cell wall. Before the troll could gather its wits for the next attack, both it and Grey were tasered by the guards.
Grey woke up in a cell opposite that of the troll. Both had been sentenced to another night in Special Lockup because of their fight. The cells in which they were locked were secured with both self-latching and deadbolt lock mechanisms. The bars were barely two inches apart making it nearly impossible to pass an arm through. Instead of iron, still a standard in Normal jails, the bars securing the prisoners and the bed frame were made of heavy steel.
Grey and the troll stared at each other for several minutes before the troll broke out in laughter. "What's so funny?" Grey shouted at the troll.
"I got my ass kicked by a mere boy. That don't happen often," the troll smiled. "You got a name, boy?" he asked. "Mine's Duncan Riddle."
"I thought trolls didn't give out their names," Grey replied.
"You've been reading too many fairy tales, kid," Duncan laughed. "C'mon, I know you got a name."
"It's Grey," Grey replied. "Grey Walker."
"Well, Grey Walker, I'm pleased to meet you. What did you do to get in here, Grey Walker?" They talked for hours. It was the beginning of a long friendship and the only time that Grey was locked up in the Freak House.
As the two police officers pulled away from the Special Lockup, a call came through requesting their assistance at an abandoned building scheduled for demolition.
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