14. Peace Talks
14
Peace Talks
The rest of the night came and went without event. Anytime I strayed from my cell, everyone stared, but no one approached. Maybe it was because I was the unofficial sidepiece of an actual giant, or maybe because that giant was wrong, and I didn’t have friends here after all.
I sat in the cafeteria at breakfast the next morning, pushing my food around until Clyde asked if he could finish what I hadn’t. I should have been starving, having lost yesterday’s lunch down the drain then passed on dinner, but I couldn’t muster enthusiasm for stale Danish pastries and milk.
“Knock yourself out.” I slid the tray to the big man.
“Farrow!” barked a guard, closing fast.
Any head not already turned my way tracked his approach until he arrived tableside.
“You’re with me,” the guard said.
I swung a leg over the bench seat and stood as he produced a pair of handcuffs and commanded, “Wrists.”
This procedure was old hat at only three days in. Restraints meant I’d be leaving the cell block but, since it wasn’t yesterday’s ankle chain, I was less certain of the reason for this field trip.
Clyde looked on as the guard marched me out of the room. When we reached the relative privacy of the hall, the guard explained, “Investigator’s here to see you.”
We wound our way through the rat maze to a new area. It was no less drab than the rest of the prison, and more closed in. Finally, he walked me into a windowless room furnished with only a table and two chairs. No Plexiglas or phones, but the table rail to which he chained my wrists felt equally demeaning.
Holland Lyle had told me to expect her, so it came as no surprise when she strode confidently into the room, toting a designer bag she set on the table across from me.
“Do you need anything else, Miss Lyle?” the guard asked.
“No, thank you,” she replied. “I appreciate it.”
The guard nodded and left the room, pulling the door shut in his wake.
I shifted in my chair. The nicotine patch I’d picked up this morning itched my arm, but I couldn’t scratch it with the table rail giving me scant inches to move my hands. After fiddling with the chain for a few seconds, I scooted forward and let it drop with a clatter onto the steel tabletop.
Holland sat. Her white hair was tied in a loose bun, and she wore the same sunglasses as before. It was unnerving to find my reflection where her eyes should have been. After three nights of restless sleep and only washing up in the cell sink, I looked like shit.
Judging by the way she cringed when she finally looked at me, the investigator must have agreed.
“Good to see you again.” Holland’s forced smile puckered a dimple in her left cheek. “I thought we could continue our conversation from the other day.”
“Or we could not and say we did,” I muttered.
Unzipping her purse, she pulled out a waxed paper bag and held it aloft. “I brought you something.”
“Is it a bribe?” I asked. “Don’t try to shortchange me, Investigator. I know what I’m worth.”
She opened the bag and dumped out its contents. Colorful hard candies in clear wrappers scattered.
“Remember these?” she asked. “From when we were kids?”
There used to be—apparently, still was—a sweet shop downtown. The owner had culinary magic and specialized in sugar art. Her window displays were populated by living candy animals and cotton floss clouds that hung overhead. It was the first place I took Holland when we were old enough to go without adults. I spent all my allowance on candy, and we both ended up with stomachaches.
“I never meant to imply that you and I don’t have history,” Holland said. “That’s a large part of the reason I was able to convince Maximus to take a chance on you.”
My nose wrinkled. “You can just call him Dad. I’m pretty sure everyone knows.”
“Let’s see…” She picked through the candies until she found a swirled green one. “You like lime, right?”
With a flick, she slid it across the table for me to catch. Nostalgia aside, it was the most edible-looking thing I’d seen in days.
She unwrapped a candy and popped it in her mouth, and I hunched forward to follow suit.
The bright zing of citrus tingled the sides of my tongue as I cheeked it long enough to say, “So, this is how they get drugs into prisons.”
Holland swallowed so abruptly that she almost choked. “ What? No, it’s—”
“Relax, Investigator,” I stopped her, smirking. “Everyone knows it’s the guards that bring the drugs in.”
She wore another skirt suit today. The short hem and sheer black hose had been interesting before she sat down, but now my view was pressed lapels and a shirt buttoned all the way up. Pity.
“I assume you heard about the trial.” Holland’s lips pressed a thin line, all seriousness while the lime candy melted in my mouth.
“I heard you don’t have the evidence to convict me,” I said. “Starting to wonder if that’s what this is really all about.” I tried to lean back, but the handcuff chain held me upright.
The investigator shook her head. “I already told you we don’t want a conviction. We want your cooperation.”
“Not a chance.”
She pinched the bridge of her nose. “Then you’ll go to court. And you’ll lose.”
“What other flavors you got?” I gestured to the candy pile.
Heaving a sigh, she slid a yellow lollipop to me. Lemon, with any luck.
“It’s you versus the Capitol, Fitch,” she said as I swirled my tongue around the sucker.
Banana. Damn.
“Do you really think they can’t come up with something to pin on you?” the investigator asked. “Or even put together an unbiased jury?”
Did Grimm really think that? Or was he too busy scouting his next recruit to care what happened to me?
Holland rose from her seat. She rubbed her hands down her hips in an effort to work out nervous energy. I wished I could do the same.
“As it sits, we have captured one member of the Bloody Hex,” Holland continued. “Only one.”
“And you want the whole set,” I supplied.
She raised her hand. “We want to cut off the head of the snake, and we’re willing to make concessions to ensure that happens.”
I understood strategy, and I recognized this one. I was not the biggest fish in this pond. Grimm, our leader—the commander of our army, as he saw himself—remained the ultimate prize. Cutting off the head of a snake caused the whole body to die. Presumably, without Grimm around, the gang would crumble, and those who owed allegiance to it would fade into the background.
“I know you didn’t want this life.” Holland had returned to her seat, once more on eye level with me. “I know you’ve had to do things you never imagined you would, or even could. The Bloody Hex and Grimm… they took your life away, Fitch. They murdered your family and poisoned you against everything you believed in.”
Hadn’t I told Donovan the same things? The tragedy of my life did not elude me. But when I pleaded with my brother to save himself from a future of corruption and crime, I was met with the same stony resolve I showed the investigator now.
“Bringing them to justice won’t undo all of that,” Holland concluded. “But it’s a start.”
I bit down on the banana sucker, crushing it into shards. She stared while I chewed, and silence swelled between us. Finally, I swallowed.
“Is it my turn to talk?” I asked.
She nodded. “By all means.”
“I get your angle,” I said. “We were friends way back when. Used to have a lot in common. You think you can come in here and remind me what a good boy I used to be. How great things were. But you don’t know me, Miss Lyle. Not at all. That na?ve kid you remember so well? He died. I killed him, then I rose from his ashes like a phoenix, majestic as fuck.”
A long moment passed before Holland heaved a sigh. “This is going nowhere.” She swept the leftover candy into her bag.
“It’s a dead end, Investigator,” I said. “If you want to take down the Bloody Hex, you’re gonna need to do it yourself.”
Zipping her purse closed, she stood. Agitation was plain on her face. “You have time to reconsider,” she said. “I’ll be back.”
“And I’ll be here,” I replied.
For seven more days.
Clyde was busy with laundry duty this time of day, so I found myself alone. Work assignments were for long-term inmates; too bad because learning how to fold a fitted sheet would have been the highlight of my week.
I’d avoided the communal shower since my arrival. Watching prison movies had given me a healthy fear of the place. Don’t drop the soap and all. But seeing myself through Holland’s eyes had been a rude awakening. I looked like I’d been living under a bridge and smelled about the same .
Loaded with my shower tote and a threadbare towel, I made my way to the bathrooms. Open stalls lined the wall opposite a trough-style sink. A sheet of polished metal served as a mirror, where I checked my reflection as I passed. Thin and grungy in wrinkled coveralls, I could disappear in this place. Part of me felt like I already had. As uneventful as my prison stay had been, I wished for a bit of theatrics. Was everyone here as clueless as Clyde? Enamored by my alter ego and entirely disinterested in me?
A bolted-down bench made as good a spot as any to set my things. I’d managed to grow enough facial hair to be scruffy, so a shave took precedence. Digging into the tote produced a bar of soap and a small plastic razor with a single blade. I was about to either cut the shit out of my face or fail to cut anything at all.
The bar soap made a passable lather, but the razor raked across my cheeks like sandpaper. I rinsed off and was checking for missed spots when two new arrivals entered the bathroom.
Jax and his tall friend, York, strutted in. Besides the towel thrown over York’s shoulder, both men were empty-handed.
I ran the razor under the faucet, watching the water swirl down the drain until Jax crowed, “Fitch Farrow!” He closed the gap to me, baring his sharp teeth in a grin. “We’ve been looking everywhere for you.”
Funny question because I’d been everywhere and so had they. The difference was Clyde had been there, too.
“Well, you found me.” I palmed the razor. “But I’m on my way out.” Sliding down the sink counter, I reached for my tote.
Jax stayed on me, uncomfortably close.
“Really?” he asked, his head just over my shoulder. “Because you look like you came for a shower. Look like you need one.”
I turned into him, ready to shove past if I had to. “Maybe later,” I said. “Couldn’t get the water hot. ”
My step toward the exit was interrupted by his arm, held level with my throat.
“Oh, York here can help with that.” Jax’s yellow eyes angled toward the other man. “He knows everything there is to know about water.”
I glanced at York, glistening with that same unnatural sheen I’d noticed before. The dude was a few scales short of fishy.
Jax took hold of my shoulder and turned me toward the shower area. Grime covered the tiled walls and floor around four fauceted pipes. Without even a partition, there was plenty of room for the three of us to cluster around a corroded showerhead.
York moved to the wall. He pulled the towel from his shoulder and dropped it on the floor, then twisted the knobs till water spewed out. I stared at the discarded towel getting soaked while Jax yammered on.
“See, the trick is to mix the two knobs,” he said. “Kinda old school, but so’s everything around here.”
Steam began to rise.
Jax thumped his hand on my back. “There you go. Nice and toasty.” He beamed a feral grin.
York stooped to retrieve the soggy towel while Jax watched me with unmasked expectation.
“Why dontcha get in?” He gestured to the water pouring out. “Unless you’re shy.”
The air around us grew heavy and damp. Did they expect me to strip down in front of them? Lack of privacy was one thing. Voyeurism was something else entirely.
“If you wanna see my dick, man, just ask.” I dropped the tote but made no move to undress. Instead, I glanced back to where York had blocked the path out of the bathroom. His lanky body obstructed my view, but I managed to identify another figure lingering in the hall outside. Mohawked Jette Black stood guard. My grip tightened on the safety razor.
“Funny, funny,” Jax said. With him in front of me and York behind, I was thoroughly boxed in. “I see you’re still flaunting that tattoo.” He nodded at my hand. “You know, you’re the only thing stopping me from getting one of my own?”
Bad news, Clyde had warned me.
I needed to get past York to flee the bathroom but, with Jax within arm’s reach, he made the easier target. I jammed my thumb against the head of the plastic razor, snapping it off at the handle. It was a flimsy weapon, designed to fail at what I needed it to do, but I had no better option.
Lunging at Jax, I swiped for his throat. The shiv caught his flesh and tore. I finished my swing, ripping through what I thought was a hell of a gash until only a thin, stuttering line of blood beaded on the other man’s neck.
That didn’t stop him from howling in pain. He staggered into the shower stream, where his blood tinged the water pink.
“You bitch!” he screamed.
Adjusting my grip on the razor, I dove toward him again, aiming for his jugular.
Something thick and wet wrapped across my face, then darkness blanked my vision.
It cinched around my throat, held tight at the nape of my neck. York’s towel, gripped by what must have been his clenched fists, threw me off balance. I stumbled into the scalding spray, grabbing at the makeshift noose as it ratcheted down.
Magic sparked in my brain but fizzled out just as fast. I was powerless here. I’d done a decent job remembering that, but the reality of it struck anew .
A fist plunged into my gut, and I doubled over, blind and sucking wet air. Jax cackled while York did his damndest to drag me to the ground. When my knees hit the tile floor, I shoved back, colliding with the tall man’s legs. With a grunt, he toppled onto me. The towel remained secure as it wrenched my head sharply to the side.
Panic spiked as the shower soaked me. The terrycloth plastered across my mouth and nose moistened every gasp. I coughed and kicked, struggling to loosen the fabric cutting against my windpipe.
“Guards!” a distant voice yelled. “Incoming!”
Pain pinballed inside my ribcage as blows struck from all sides. Survival became a choice between fighting for air or shielding my face, and breathing took precedence. My fingers scrabbled, turning into blunt claws that scraped the skin of my throat. My efforts became feebler as the rest of me started to go limp.
“Hey! Break it up!”
Something slammed into my face as abruptly as an explosion. Pain spread from my nose to both eyes, and the taste of copper left me sputtering. The towel noose fell slack as I rolled out from under the onslaught of water.
People scuffled around, sounds more than sights as I peeled the wet, bloody fabric off my face.
I laid on my stomach with my ribs rattling as I tried to make up for lost breath. Sensation returned in a flurry. I groaned, wishing it hadn’t.
When a hand grabbed my arm, I flailed back.
“Knock it off!” the same voice yelled, very near my ear.
I craned my neck to see the guard holding me.
Other officers restrained Jax and York, hauling them away .
“That’s a strike for you, inmate,” the man gripping my arm said.
“They started it,” I spat past the watery blood dripping from my lips.
“Get him to the infirmary.” The guard holding York nodded toward me. “That nose is broken for sure.”