Chapter 17
SINN'OUS
“For Jasper Marcelo.”
“No.”
“No?” Sinn'ous drawls in a way that moves the air, danger crackling in the wake of the refusal.
Warden narrows his eyes, screaming in every way how much he detests Sinn'ous. “You heard me. No. You don’t get special privileges here. If he wants a transfer he can put in the paperwork, and it’ll get added to the pile.
” His old eyes crease at the corners, in joint union to the creaking of the chairs protest when he leans back in an obvious attempt to feign an unruffled attitude.
Sinn'ous deliberately stretches the silence, flexing his hands where they are cuffed in front of him, his arms bulging. Taking the time to scan the room.
The office is cramped by furniture that looks like it was designed to sit in high rise office buildings. As though the rich government buildings had an upgrade and they passed down their used furnishings to the less fortunate.
Silence stretches, and tension rises. He can smell it, can taste it in the back of his throat. He is the only one in control here and they both know it.
“I’m doing you a favour.”
“Are you now?” Warden humours, his body language screaming that he wants to throw Sinn'ous out of his office, while simultaneously howling in fake bravado. And fearful unease—if the beading sweat is anything to go by, running down his hair line to trickle past his ear.
“You have enough dead bodies, do you not.” He doesn’t phrase it as a question, he cares not for the answer. They both know the body count.
He can remember them all like he just killed them.
The scent of blood. The begging cries for mercy.
The crack of bones or tearing of flesh. The sound of misting blood splattering over walls.
It’s all ingrained into his memories, livid and vibrant, full colour images in a movie he can watch at will.
Rewinding, fast-forwarding, freezing. It’s at his disposal to rewatch over and over and over again.
“That a threat?”
“Not at all.” Sinn'ous leans in, cuffed hands cluttering on the wooden desk. “A friendly warning. Levis and his. . . entourage . . . overstepped. Tried to rape an inmate. You know how bad that makes you look when human rights activists get wind of these scandals. Especially when nothing is done about it. All that bad press, and right when so many bodies have dropped. A board review would come back very lacklustre wouldn’t it? Can’t imagine they’d keep you on after everything that has happened.
” His words are a laced mix of sarcastic sympathy, and dark threat.
“You mean everything you’ve done?” Warden’s words are clipped, chewed off and ground into dust.
Sinn'ous smirks.
His smirk only grows the longer Warden glowers at him.
The disdain and impotent rage he can see in the other man has his spine tingling, his fingers twitching.
What he wouldn’t give to sacrifice to Satan right now.
The hatred he can see is fuelling his hunger for blood.
He loves that Warden hates him so much so that it’s written for all to see, it stirs his primal desire to demonstrate how right they are about him.
“Why don’t I just have you transferred?”
In other circumstances he wouldn’t mind a change in scenery. A new pond to cut through, countless fish trapped in a bowl in need of a good cleansing. A few dozen culled from the masses should empty the tank into a somewhat less crowded bog.
“You can try.”
“Try?” Warden scoffs. Picking up the phone in what he probably hopes is a good bluff, beginning to click numbers. “I can have it done before the hour’s out.”
Sinn'ous relaxes his shoulders, calming his body into a wash of loose muscles. Visibly changing his entire posture to one of laid-back indifference, even with his hands still fixed in front.
“Heard your daughter’s wedding was spectacular,” he murmurs softly, almost seductively. “Big turn out. Beautiful cake. Lovely reception.”
Warden’s eyes slowly crawl up from the phone, stopping on Sinn'ous’s own. The room goes still, held in frozen suspense.
Warden places the phone back down, and it clicks in a deafening finality.
“With these extenuating circumstances it would only be best to have Jasper removed from the kitchen staff, for his own safety.” Warden speaks to the room, not looking at Sinn'ous, like he just came to this conclusion out of the goodness of his heart and not the blatant threats from an outside force.
“His own safety,” Sinn'ous laces his tone in bemusement, kicking the Warden while he’s down.
Papers are pushed over the littered desk of a mildly functional prison, Warden’s hands busying themselves to hide their tremors. It’s a futile and glaringly obvious action.
He sends down a quick prayer to Satan to grant him the strength he needs to stay where he is and not vault the table and use his restraints to choke the life out of the warden.
Warden continues going over papers, feigning as though he is checking job listings. Jobs that he would already know which do or don’t have openings. Besides, it wouldn’t matter either way, he’s the warden, he can make an opening.
“There is a slot open in maintenance—”
“Laundry.” Sinn'ous cuts in.
Warden chews his tongue, angry eyes boring a hole into the wall over Sinn'ous’s shoulders. “Yeah, that’s what I said. Laundry.”
“And Romos Casimiro will be let out of solitary confinement.”
As much as he hates the loudmouth Reni getting in his way he will have to make do.
He needs someone to protect Jasper while he gains his prey’s favour and manipulates his trust. And he is willing to work around the irritation that is Reni to ensure his prey is healthy for the time when Sinn'ous gets to use his razors on that delicate skin.
“He’s shown remorse for his actions, he isn’t a threat to the general population, it was already being done.” Warden says, holding onto his act of authority.
Sinn'ous plasters on a warm smile, as fake as a plastic cadaver used in crime movies he sometimes perused when he was bored. “This has been a pleasant conversation, Warden. Thank you for your help and listening to my concerns,” his tone is one of synthetic appreciation and respect.
“Inmate welfare is my top priority,” he quips through gritted teeth.
In all the time Sinn'ous has been here he’s not had to call in a favour to Zayne to put pressure on outside family members. But the option is there, should he need it.
No one knows his connection to Zayne comes with a dangerous beast living inside his brother.
While they aren’t blood related, they were—for all intents and purposes—adopted by the same father.
Even if it hadn’t been in a legal capacity.
It’s surprisingly simple to buy documentations—for birth certificates and adoption agencies.
The dark web is the epitome of shopping to disappear and-or reinvent yourself.
Sinn'ous dips his chin in a near imperceivable nod to the end of the conversation of total bullshit anyone could smell from a mile away. Men locked on the other side of the prison are scrunching their nose and checking their shoes trying to find the source of it.
He leaves the room before being dismissed, the silence at his back is paired to the burning of eyes boring holes in the back of his head. A lesser man would falter at the intensity. Sinn'ous only preens.
Cuffed hands make doorknob turning a minor challenge, nothing that takes more than a brief pause to get around. Then he is in the corridor where Rogers is leaning back against the chunky paint of the white brick wall. Ready to escort him back to the prisoner side of Sandstone Correctional.
The warden’s office is set behind several locked gates—separating it and the visitation space.
They pass by the empty waiting area where the general public loiters to wait on whomever they are visiting.
Two barred gates are all that keep Sinn'ous in the corridor, and not killing his way through the fakely-inviting chaired space to the locked glass front doors and the carpark beyond.
The first thing he will do when he gets out is take someone out into the woods to kill them under the moonlit stars. Or maybe he’ll take two, and kill one while the stars peer down at him and the other while the sun’s warmth cascades over him.