Chapter 22 #2
“No, seriously, what’s wrong with you?” he asks again, ignoring her nonsense. “There is something about you that makes people feel the need to take advantage of you.”
Wren’s face is unbothered; there’s not a trace of ire nor a hint of despair. Her mouth is curving into a smirk, and it’s genuine, almost a challenge.
“That’s enough,” Leroux says loudly, using his cop voice to attempt to cut the tension.
Jeremy ignores him, now hell-bent on seeing Wren break. “Even as someone who took advantage of you myself, I just can’t pinpoint what it is about you that made it so easy.”
“That’s enough!” Leroux yells now, slamming his fist against the table and standing.
“You’re caught, Jeremy. You’re losing any privileges you had in here. You’re going to be restricted more than you could ever imagine,” Wren says calmly.
She touches Leroux’s arm gently, a silent communication, and he slowly sits back in his seat, never once taking his eyes off Jeremy.
Now Jeremy lets himself laugh, a forced reaction while his mind reels at the thought of actually losing his few perks.
His only solace is his group of select allies, who he knows won’t allow that to happen.
He shakes his head, intending to remain as unbothered as Wren seems, matching her energy to try to break her down.
“Caught doing what exactly? All you have there are letters from a psychopath confirming he’s a psychopath. ”
“Wyatt’s place was rife with information.
Of particular note were the letters from you, letters in which you instructed him to destroy any and all communication after reading.
” Leroux grins again, leaning forward to close some of the distance between them.
“He didn’t. We have all we need to remove any sense of autonomy that you think you may have or might hope to gain as you spend the rest of your life rotting in here. ”
“I think you two had some little fantasy brewing, where you were going to walk in here and shock me with all this.” Jeremy raises his eyebrows in a show of amusement, but it’s put on, because inside his stomach churns.
He hasn’t taken to imprisonment like he thought he would.
He doesn’t break easily, but the sudden loss of sovereignty was like a poison dart.
It was quick and painful, a shock to his system so severe that he considered putting an end to it all.
One sharp jab to his femoral artery and it would be over in a matter of minutes.
He had even broken off a piece of his bedpost, planned to somehow whittle it into an instrument too sharp to even feel.
But then he caught himself slipping, and he cut it off at the root.
He adapted, like he always does. He chalked his spiral up to culture shock and then did what he’d trained himself to do: He took it apart.
He broke down the system that was created to hold together, to maintain control.
He pulled it into digestible pieces from the inside, and he looked at each part to understand the inner workings.
That’s when he found himself again. He got into a routine, although rudimentary, and started figuring out ways to make confinement more of a game than a sentence.
He put in the work, gaining allies in some of the guards and earning the trust of other inmates.
Even though parasitic spores like Vex and his cronies still exist, still try to break him down just to say they can, none of that will stop, regardless of what they think they have accomplished.
Knowing it would be an honor, the highlight of people’s careers, to see him break?
Well, that’s all Jeremy requires to keep it together, to reinforce any weak spots in his structure.
“You had to wait a little while before we came in today, huh?” Leroux asks, feigning concern.
Jeremy stares at him, completely still, his system harkening back to the bitterness of being kept waiting.
“Had to give the guards time to upend your place.” He shares a look with Vex that turns Jeremy’s blood to broken glass. “Yours is the one-bedroom with the view of a concrete wall, right? Great place. Love what you’ve done with it.”
Jeremy doesn’t respond, but he’s sure something is registering on his face.
He doesn’t hide anger well, and the idea of his cell being torn apart, the idea that they found those letters, that somehow they got the administration to agree to set him up while he sat in here twiddling his thumbs? It’s making him see nothing but red.
Leroux continues, unabated, “The warden isn’t your pal, Rose.
In fact, he’s no one’s pal, but, man, does he appreciate having a standing reservation at a specific restaurant in the French Quarter—a restaurant where I happen to have an in with the head chef.
” Leroux grins, and it’s exactly like the Cheshire cat’s.
He’s positively pleased as punch to have dipped his toe into the corruption pool.
“Bully for you, John,” Jeremy responds sarcastically.
“Yeah, your pal Jimmy McCormick is also being investigated. So bully for you too,” Leroux says.
One down, Jeremy thinks to himself, realizing he is now losing an ally. Jim McCormick is an idiot, but he’s been some of the muscle in here, and that matters.
“What did you think would happen, Jeremy?” Wren asks, breaking through the tension. “Did you think Wyatt would carry on what you started? Did you think that somehow it would make you less imprisoned, less shackled?”
Jeremy looks at her, studying what’s happening. She’s doing it again, trying to make him believe the power has shifted.
“That’s all you have, huh?” he asks, leaning forward onto the table.
She doesn’t flinch. She stares into his eyes, unblinking. “It’s more than you have.”
He laughs. “You think because you can stand up and walk out of this place that you are free?” He shakes his head. “You’re not. You’re never going to be free, because I took the one thing from you that you thought was safe.”
He just lives to see the little change in her face when he says something about Richard. He waits days and weeks to see that little light keep dimming behind her eyes with each figurative stab. It’s like a drug to him now.
“You only get partial credit for that one,” she says flatly.
He’s genuinely stunned at how cavalier she is, but something about her desperation just tickles him.
She can’t take the thought of him being the person who stole Richard’s last breath.
She keeps silently begging him to confess that there was another person there, that maybe his own hands weren’t the last things to touch her husband.
He’ll never give it to her, never give her the diminutive comfort of that.
“Whatever gives you solace, Emily,” he says, shooting her a look of pity.
A grin forms on her face as she leans forward, closer than she ever dares to get to him. “We have definitive proof that Philip was there.” She swallows, a small indication of the grief punching its way to the surface, trying to thrust itself up to greet him.
He pounces on it, ignoring her desperate bid for control.
“You really think throwing another name around makes it any better? You think it will make it easier?” He moves forward, closing the gap between them.
He expects her to move back, but she meets him head-on, unwavering, even though he can sense the tears threatening to spill out.
She doesn’t respond, just stares back at him, silently daring him to go further. So he obliges. “It won’t bring him back,” he whispers, venom dripping from every word.
Her eyes narrow, but she doesn’t retreat. She moves closer, her voice dropping into a low, measured tone. “It means you didn’t have the final say.”
“Is that so?” he hisses, thrown off by her resolve.
“Yes,” she answers. “That is so.”
He smiles, trying to find another point of weakness, something to tear apart, but he finds nothing, so he sits in silence.
When the tension in the room gets to be too much, Leroux clears his throat, forcing his way into the conversation by physically moving in front of Wren. “So there is nothing you want to say about your conversations with Wyatt DuPont?”
Jeremy shrugs, feigning contemplation before shaking his head. “Like what, Detective?” he asks, his voice taunting and cruel.
“You gave him the fucking ideas! You encouraged him to kill Melissa Evans!” Leroux slams his fist on the table. The chains around Jeremy’s wrists rattle with the sudden movement. “He was following your directions.”
“If he were really following my directions, then he would have taken it easier with the embalming tools.”
Leroux and Wren look at each other quickly, a mix of anger and surprise in their expressions. Neither of them knows whether he is about to admit to something or not, and that’s a damn fun game to play, especially when he has had nothing but the inside of a cinder block cell to look at for weeks.
“We know you sent him your blood. You realize that’s going to result in new charges, right?” Wren asks, a look of disgust forming on her face.
He shrugs again. “Probably. But it’s like spitting into the ocean. It won’t matter much.”
He’s not being led, and it’s pissing them both off—a welcome change from Wren’s sudden bravado.
Both their voices are getting louder and more desperate with each word uttered.
They think adding time to an already infinite sentence is going to bother him?
They came unprepared, then. The only thing that rattles his bones is the idea of losing allies in here or losing the small bit of control he has amassed.
But that’s not a problem. He will always come out with someone by the neck.
He’s always managed to keep his head above water, and he always will.
A sigh escapes Wren’s lips, and she looks at Leroux, who nods. Something has been silently communicated between them. Jeremy struggles to predict what might come next. Whatever it is, he needs to meet it with indifference. The state of pure, cold indifference is how he kills them slowly.