Chapter 6
SINN'OUS
“No. I. Did. Not.” Jasper’s words are strong and seething.
Carrying right over to Sinn'ous’s table.
“If whoever left the thing was stupid enough to do it without arranging a deal beforehand, then they are going to be sorely disappointed when I tell them to piss off. I’m keeping the mattress, their claim to it became null-n-void the moment they left it on my bunk. It’s mine now. They can screw off.”
Well, well, well. His prey might just have claws after all.
The prospect of his prey fighting back awakens a deep need to indulge himself. The gratification that will come once he puts him on the floor and watches him beg and plea for his life. You’d have to be insane to deny that self-indulgence.
To see those doe-eyes all blood shot and filled with fear, surrounded by a river of red.
He can’t help the smirk that tugs at his lips. Their eyes clash and Sinn'ous drops the expression, his features flattening to give nothing away. Hopefully the mask hadn’t slipped too obviously. Can’t have the prey being scared off now can he.
He has a fire I hadn’t foreseen.
Sinn'ous distracts himself by scanning the room. The cafeteria has the same air to it. Filled to the ceiling with a combination of body odour and prison food stink. Kiddie friendly hard plastic utensils still manage to scrape over the trays in an obnoxious way.
And the men, loud and rowdy, fill every table apart from the one he occupies and the table immediately in front of it.
The guards are few and far between, spread out to watch over the entire room, their uniforms standing out almost as much as the orange on his prey.
They’re standing by each entrance in pairs, talking amongst themselves or scowling at something an inmate did that they disapprove of.
Once Jasper leaves trailing Reni’s clique, Sinn'ous takes his own exit. Ditching his tray in its respective slot by the bins, he joins the ever streaming line of inmates coming and going.
Downtime equals men loitering in every corridor and crowding every bench or raised surface one might sit on.
It means even for him it’s a slow walk to B-Wing.
He arrives at his destination, clean of blood and sanity intact.
Although it was a miracle considering how many living bodies had been in his path.
So many sacrifices he could have made to Satan.
His lawyer would be proud of his self-restraint.
In order to coax reliance from Jasper, Sinn'ous needs to place himself in the role of provider and protector. The two p’s to secure his prey’s naive trust.
And while he has never been much of a smoker he did dabble in his teen years. If Jasper needs his hit of weed, Sinn'ous will step in to offer it. A game of manipulation to coax his fawn closer for the kill.
And prison is nothing if not sufficient in providing your every narcotics need. It’s a drug addict’s wet dream. More addicts come out than what comes in, and the prison system does nothing to stop it.
The man he’s here to see is a peddler for the StaZos. The StraZos are the main supplier of imported goods, courtesy of their boss, Levis, running things through the kitchen.
The stocky redhead he’s here for has tattoos colouring his face and neck, which do nothing to hide the way he pales when Sinn'ous steps into his cell. If anything they highlight how ashen his skin has turned. Alone in his cell he looks like he’s contemplating the merits of hanging himself in the flimsy bed sheets.
“S-sorry, I’ll get out of your w-way.” He stutters in heavily accented English. Pressing himself back into the wall, as if this isn’t his cell and Sinn'ous has a right to anything in it.
“You selling?” Sinn'ous tips his chin to the open weed the man had been rolling, and counting.
“Ahhh. Yes.” His accent is thickening the more his body visibly shakes. His eyes darting everywhere but at Sinn'ous.
“How much?”
“It-it’s fine.” His hand gestures openly at the supplies. “Consider it a good graces gift.”
Disregarding the open weed, rolling paper, and pile of throw-away lighters, the rest of the bunk and its companion bunk are orderly and put together. No other contraband in sight. But that doesn’t mean that they aren’t here or being mixed in.
“What’s in them?” If they are cut with other substances he won’t be taking them. The only one who gets to kill Jasper is Sinn'ous, not some white powder.
“Strictly marijuana.” He pulls out a bag from his waist band, stuffing trembling fingers in to fish out a pre-rolled joint to present it for Sinn'ous.
Which Sinn'ous makes no move to take, taking pleasure in the way his stillness injects fear into the living thing occupying the cell. The longing he is hit by to stop its heartbeat is almost too tempting to pass up.
He reluctantly stifles the urge.
The inactivity stretches long enough for sweat to bead down the peddler’s face.
“Here, you can—here.” He places the whole bag onto the cupboard’s top, leaning over in a way that keeps his body as far out of Sinn'ous’s reach as possible.
“Take it all.” He cowers back to the cell’s far corner, hands tucking under his armpits to still their tremors and eyes glued to the floor.
Sinn'ous does just that. He takes the bag of weed, the rolling paper, and a couple lighters. Leaving the pre-rolled to their own devices.
To further enact his superiority, he stands perfectly still for several heartbeats, to watch the squirming bag of blood sweat under his scrutiny. And he devours every second of it. His darker cravings front and centre.
Satan, give me strength.
He doesn’t have time to draw blood, to inflict pain, and prolong a death. Not right now, anyway. And not out in the open like this. He can feel fleeting glances cast their way from outside the cell. The crowded Wing waiting on bated breath to see the destruction that is Sinn'ous.
It’s in great reluctance that he backs out of the cell, waved off by a hefty sigh of relief from the peddler’s trembling lips.