Chapter Twenty-Seven
I’m back.
Back in the concrete tomb.
Back in Alabaster Pen.
I’ve been breaking into the prison for weeks, wandering the halls, avoiding being caught, while accepting help from a mystery source watching out for me.
Stalking and observing.
The storm they’d been preparing for was, in fact, a wild one. The mansion lost power a couple times while we were there, and we wound up staying for five days before it was safe enough for the ferries to bring us back.
I loved it. More than anything, it solidified what I’ve been thinking for a while now.
I’m going to find a way to stay.
I think it’s really the best way to infiltrate The Ivory’s world.
For all the security in place, the cameras and his bodyguards, none of it is truly that secure.
The prison seems like it’s hanging on by a thread, and the island itself is so rife with secrets, it’s bustling at the seams. The best thing about being unseen is that I get to know them all.
I hear things I’m not supposed to hear, see things I’m not supposed to see. I’ve become the eyes of this island, supported only by the other eyes, in the prison’s control rooms.
There are people in there, watching. I’m fully certain that these people have seen me coming and going. But they haven’t sent Velle after me, nor have they told The Ivory.
El Diablo isn’t exactly patient. I’m sure if he knew I was here, he’d be acting on it.
And if he’s aware of a random female roaming the halls of his prison, why isn’t he, at the very least, coming to see who she is??
It makes no sense, but there’s only so much baiting I can do before I throw my hands up and say fuck it.
Come at me, Diablo.
If you know where to find me, then come find me.
Being in here has filled me to the brim with information.
I know how twisted the doctors in the East Wing are, on behalf of their even more twisted boss.
I know about the best places in the prison to keep hidden, and all the many places where Warren Xavier—aka Ren—goes to canoodle with guards and prisoners alike.
I know Joy has been bringing contraband to Dash, and I know that not knowing who it’s from is sort of fucking with his head.
I know that Jasper and Hancock spend an almost excessive amount of time together. They work most shifts together, and they’re committed to acting like when they hook up, it’s just meaningless sex. But I think it’s abundantly clear that it’s more than that.
I know Linetti, Brenner, and Lucas are highly invested in this underground prisoner fighting ring they call Quiet Night.
Velle knows about it, but he doesn’t care. He’s a little busy, after all…
What with running this entire place, keeping a hundred and one prisoners and twenty guards in line, while also catering to The Ivory’s every whim.
Torturing prisoners for him during the day, and torturing himself with whatever physical hold has him kneeling at Manuel Blanco’s feet night after night, like a masochistic junkie.
And all the while, he’s been fighting an attraction to Rook as the only good thing he seems to have in his life—other than Joy, that is.
Running from them both as if he doesn’t deserve happiness, when that couldn’t be further from the truth.
Granted, I don’t know Velle personally or anything.
We haven’t talked, and I’ve still been keeping my distance, because I think he might be one of the few people who would actually rat me out to The Ivory.
The claws are in that deep; cavernous cuts, exposed and bloody, but he just won’t break free and let them heal.
I don’t know what to think about the very undeniable thing happening between Velle and The Ivory. It doesn’t feel good, I’m sure because I feel for Velle. I know what it’s like to be on that hook.
You didn’t choose it, but it’s there, and you’re powerless to wriggle yourself free.
But then, I also can’t help obsessing over the idea that the reason The Ivory hasn’t been concerned with the intruder in his midst is because he’s too busy wielding his manipulative control over John Chevelle…
The way he did to me before I disappeared.
But I didn’t disappear. I’m right fucking here, and sometimes, in my most depraved moments of weakness, it has me resenting this disguise. Because he doesn’t know it’s me, and maybe if he did…
No. Es ridículo.
I feel stupid even thinking that, because I do not want The Ivory’s attention on me the way it is on Velle.
Velle is tortured. Even when it seems like it feels good, it’s a mirage. A spell of vicious black magic from an evil being who doesn’t fucking care.
That’s the point. He’s the problem; the source of all this pain and suffering.
If I kill him, then it’ll be over. Spell broken. And we can all finally move on.
So there you have it. In a few short weeks, I’ve become an Alabaster Isle expert. Except that no one knows it. I’m forced to keep all these things to myself, as I’ve been doing my entire life.
All alone, a shadowperson, existing purely to wait, and watch.
Would The Ivory be bothered by my hunting him? Is that even what I’m doing?
After all, what’s the point of revenge if the person you’re exacting it on doesn’t care?
It’s late, and I’ve been in the East, spying on the comings and goings of Felix Darcey and his new doctor, the gorgeous and robotic Dr. Love.
The screams of another tortured prisoner have me cringing.
His name is Kieran O’Malley, and he’s quite sick, made even sicker by the way they’ve been treating him. The poor soul is on his way out.
I predict him lying in a pool of blood in a matter of days, having swallowed his tongue or something like that.
When one of the East Wing’s creepier doctors, Templeton, heads my way, I scamper back in the direction of solitary. I’m heading down the row, going for the door at the end. But then I hear the familiar stomping and shuffling chains of prisoners being dragged this way.
Panicking, I dart back the way I came, making a spur-of-the-moment decision to slip inside one of the empty cells.
Leaning up against the cold concrete, heart hammering, I listen to the sounds of an inmate being deposited into one of the other cells.
I release a sturdy breath of relief… That is, until the door to the cell I’m standing in opens, and an inmate is shoved inside.
I’m literally just standing, frozen, eyes wide and gaping as Rook bends to remove shackles from around the ankles of an inmate I recognize as Dascha Reznikov. Neither of them have noticed me. It’s fucking crazy…
I’m so invisible in this place, I’m literally standing right in front of them—okay, across the room, shielded by darkness, but still. They don’t even see me.
It has me momentarily wondering if I’m actually here.
Am I real…?
Or have I fallen so deep into the shadows that I’ve become one?
As soon as Dash’s chains are off, Rook leaves the cell with a hasty clunk of the large metal door, wandering back up the hall, speaking to Joy as he goes. But I can’t hear what they’re saying over how loudly the blood is rushing in my ears.
Dash rubs his eyes, visibly hard, then winces, assessing his right hand.
Making a fist, then extending his fingers, as if it’s sore from hitting something.
I’m amazed, and also not, that he still hasn’t noticed me.
Dash is one inmate I’ve seen a lot of, simply because he’s spent so much time in solitary.
He’s always in here, though I’m not privy to the reasons.
What I do know is that he talks to himself when he’s in here. A lot.
Not that I blame him. I mean, you’re trapped in a ten-by-ten with no lights, barely any food, and zero human contact. You have to pass the time somehow, and Dash does that by singing, reciting lines from TV shows he remembers, and talking to himself. It’s not the weirdest thing.
The weird thing about it is that he’s not just talking out loud when he does it, like most people would—that stream-of-consciousness type thing. He’s more… conversing with someone else. Someone who’s also him, but not.
I’ve heard him have these aggrieved arguments with himself, mumbling things that make little sense.
One time, it sounded like he was hurting himself, and I couldn’t help but peer in through the small window.
He was on the small cot, arms stretched above his head as he gripped the metal bars of the bed frame, writhing and rocking around as if he were experiencing some unwanted pleasure.
Our eyes met, and he quivered out the words, “Officer… I am what you are.”
I haven’t stopped thinking about it since it happened. Something about Dascha Reznikov just screams unpacked trauma, or undiagnosed mental illness of some kind.And it hurts my heart because he’s just so unbelievably beautiful.
It’s almost unfair, really.
Dash is the type of gorgeous that draws you to him, like a moth to the flaring flame of his beauty, despite how broken he seems. So pretty, but so sad…
I feel it. A great sorrow that lives inside of you and never leaves, no matter what you do.
At least, I know what’s responsible for mine. Or who…
But standing in the corner of this dank prison cell in solitary confinement, bathed in shadows, while another damaged soul paces and mutters words in Russian only feet away, I’m not positive the anguish I house is all el marfil’s fault.
Because in this moment, I feel like Dash. Like there’s something wrong inside of me, so deep that I’ll never be able to reach it.
“Derzhi glaza otkritimi. Zakroy rot,” Dash mumbles over and over, pacing in a small circle. “I don’t want this… You know I don’t want this!”
He starts smacking himself in the face, and I step forward on instinct. Nervously, reaching out, without the slightest clue what I’m doing. He doesn’t know me, and I don’t know him. The kid is clearly not okay, having some kind of episode, and I’m a random stranger in his cell. He could hurt me.