Wolf stalked down the abandoned halls of the Snow White Memorial Prison. It hadn't surprised him to hear of the prison's disbanding; he'd heard rumblings during his incarceration. Guards would murmur among themselves about the jarring payrolls; prisoners would let sly comments slip past about shoddy accommodations. He'd passed this on to Wendell once, who promised to do something of it when convenient. Nine weeks later, the letter came through the mirror that the prison had been liquidated.
Virginia had sent an angry letter in reply. Wolf had been confused as well; the Wendell he remembered wouldn't destroy lives so lightly. Then he remembered the kind of prisoners interred in Snow White Memorial. Common criminals—robbers, cheaters—they got themselves shipped off to reformatories: high security boarding institutes that 'schooled' petty thieves until they became upstanding members of society. Wolf had a friend that had been sent to one of these for stealing a farmer's chicken. He came back three months later with a scar on the back of his neck that reached up to the middle of his freshly shaved head. He blinked less often than he should have, and got agitated much faster than usual.
Two weeks later the boy killed himself; he climbed to the top of a dying tree and took the ultimate leap of faith. Wolf remembered finding the body with his father. He remembered the serene look of relief on the dead boy's face. He remembered the pink welts that wove dangerously across the insides of the young man's arms. He remembered discovering the words etched deep in the skin of his back as they struggled to dress him in acceptable burial attire. Wolf made a vow that day that he would never give cause to be sent to a reformatory.
Wolves were remarkably good at keeping their word.
Dragging a hand along the moistened corridor wall, Wolf tried to block from his mind the remembered screams and imagined good times that swept across his memory. This was a deadly place for such an innocent name.
And now there was this man, this stupid, stupid man, who had to come along and ruin everything. Wolf didn't hate him, which was a surprise when first discovered (though Wolf knew that he could never hate anyone who treated his Virginia so well), but felt overcome with the burning desire to cause the man unspeakable pain. The need itched in his fingertips to rip flesh from bone; the want to bruise soft skin ached in his fists and feet; in his heart, more than anything else he wanted to make the man scream. He wanted to hear him cry out in agony, in defeat. Wolf wanted to grind the man into a spot on the floor and build him back up again, speck by speck, just to hear the boy beg for mercy.
At the end of the corridor, a weathered, mold encrusted sign announced "Tooth Fairy." Wolf paused, head cocked, pondering the aged lettering. Images of rusted tools and dried blood raced to the forefront of his mind. Brimming with mirth, and chuckling a little to himself, Wolf pushed open the door, and found his paradise.