18. THE JESTER
THE JESTER
The silence that followed the heavy thud of the steel door was the pressurized, suffocating silence of a bomb that has been armed but not yet detonated.
I remained seated in the center of my cell, legs crossed, spine perfectly upright.
I don't move for several minutes after Elara left. I listened to the rhythmic thrum-clack of her footsteps retreating down the corridor, then the muffled buzz of the security gate, and finally, the distant, hollow sound of the facility’s exterior doors closing.
Inside the cell, the air seemed to thicken.
I stared at the spot on the wall where her shoulder pressed, where she shrunk away from me in terror. I saw the color of those marks. Deep plum. A sickening, mottled yellow at the edges.
The specific shape of a hand that wasn't mine.
The heavy canvas and metal restraints pinned my torso tight to the cold concrete, but that only concentrated the heat building in my chest. I leaned my head forward as far as the straps permitted, pressing my forehead hard against the rough brick where she had leaned earlier.
I inhaled deeply, catching the lingering, faint trace of her scent beneath the stench of institutional rot.
Then, the fury broke the surface.
I slammed my head back against the wall behind me—once, twice, three times—with enough force to split the skin at my hairline. I didn't feel the pain; I felt the insult.
The audacity.
My hands move independently of my body, my fingers twitching as if I was pulling invisible strings. I imagined the throat of the man who did it. I am calculating the exact amount of pressure required to make a windpipe collapse—not fast, but slow.
So I can watch the light go out of his eyes.
"A guard?" I muttered, my tongue darting out to lick the blood trickling down my forehead. "No. Too clumsy. A work friend?" I spit the word onto the floor. "No. No, no, no."
I looked up at the security camera. The red eye was watching me.
But I knew the schedule. I knew that in the monitoring room, Miller will be finishing his coffee.
Miller, whose gambling debts were currently being paid by a series of untraceable offshore accounts managed by my associates on the outside.
Miller, who was a coward, but a smart one.
I tilted my head toward the camera. I knew that for a brief window during the shift change, the digital logs were "cleansed" to allow for maintenance.
The thought of those bruises—the way they looked against her pale, delicate skin—sent a fresh wave of rage through my chest. I felt a possessiveness so visceral it is almost sexual, a dark, romantic rot that told me she belonged in a glass box where only I could look at her.
To have her "marred" by the clumsy, violent hands of a common thug...
it was a crime against the only thing I found worthy in a world I wanted to burn.
"I’ll give him a choice. I’ll ask him if he used his right hand or his left. And then I’ll take both. I’ll take everything. I’ll leave him as a smudge on the pavement, a cautionary tale for anyone else to see."
Cling-clack.
I didn't look up. I knew the camera is glitching. I sent the signal moments ago—a specific pattern of behavior that Miller knows means "turn the eyes away." The screen in the booth will be flickering with "signal loss" for exactly 120 seconds.
On the other side of the my cell, a shadow shuffled closer. A guard—not Miller, but one of the "bought" ones—stood there, his back to the door, pretending to check his clipboard.
"Tell our friend... I have a very delicate task."
The guard doesn't turn around, but his shoulders stiffened.
My fingers curled around the edges of the meal slot, my knuckles white. The image of Elara flinching from my touch flashed in my mind, and the rage surged again. I didn't want the man dead. Not yet. Death was too quick. Death was a punchline.
I wanted him to live through the misery.
"I want the man who touched her brought to the basement of the warehouse on 5th. No masks. I want him to see who is doing it."
I paused, a dark, wet chuckle bubbling in my chest.
"But before I get there... I want a down payment. I want a sign of his... commitment. So he knows what to expect."
I lean my forehead against the wall, closing my eyes, visualizing the man’s hands. The hands that squeezed Elara’s throat.
"Fingers," the word felt like silk on my tongue. "All of them—wrapped nearly in a box. I want to know they’ll never touch her again."
The guard outside began to walk away.
I listened to the footsteps disappear. The red light on the camera stopped flickering and returned to its steady, watchful glow.
I felt a a strange, euphoric calm. The storm hasn't passed; it has simply found its direction.
I would break every single hand that tries to take a piece of her. When I was done, she wouldn't have a single soul left in this entire, miserable world to fear.
A quiet chuckle bubbled up from my chest, catching on a sharp, jagged edge of manic amusement before spilling out into the dark.
"Well..." I grinned, my head tilting sideways as the laughter began to ripple through me, breathless and unhinged. "Anyone but me, of course."
I lean back, my scarred face illuminated by the harsh, flickering light of the hallway. I begin to laugh then—a low, quiet sound that grew in volume until it filled the void.
A sound that promised that while I may be behind bars, the world outside was no longer safe for anyone who touched what was mine.
I didn't sleep tonight. I sat in the cell, counting to ten over and over again, my fingers dancing in the air as if I was already holding the box.