10. Chapter 10
The day before a day off breeds a special kind of desperate genius.
By the time I reached the reinforced doors of the high-security wing, I was practically buzzing with the brilliance of my plan. From my pocket, I produced two small, neon-pink cylinders of dense plastic. Sound-proof, cordless earphones.
I rolled them between my fingers, jammed them deep into my ear canals, and waited a beat as the ambient hum of the facility died into a muffled, underwater thrum followed by my music. Perfect.
With a newfound swagger, I strode into Jester’s cell.
The heavy steel door sealed behind me, locking us in.
He was chained exactly where he always was.
Usually, the moment my boots crossed that threshold, his voice would weaponize, cutting through the air with razor-sharp taunts, intimate secrets he had no right knowing, and that maddening, melodic laugh designed to claw its way under my skin.
Not today. Today was blissfully, beautifully silent.
I casted a nonchalant, fleeting glance his way. I had no doubt his lips were moving rapidly, and his head was tilted at that familiar, predatory angle. He was putting on a masterpiece of a performance—whether he was whispering sweet poisons or screaming bloody murder, I hadn’t a clue.
The earphones held the line.
A genuine, petty smile stretched across my face as I swept the floor with an efficient, rhythmic vigor, the quiet only broken by the faint, rhythmic shhh-shhh of bristles against concrete vibrating up through my arms. For the first time since being assigned to his cell, I didn’t break a cold sweat under his gaze.
I was a ghost in his theater of psychological warfare.
Finishing in record time, I tapped the bars pointedly to signal the guards without giving him so much as a parting look. As the door groaned open, I let the triumph wash over me.
Take that, Jester.
The quiet of the late evening was shattered by a knock at my front door. I wasn't expecting anyone. When I pulled the door open, the shock froze me in place.
It was Emma.
Years ago during our college days, we had shared every mundane detail of our lives in a cramped 2-bedroom apartment, right up until a shiny new job pulled her across the city and out of my orbit. Now, she was standing on my welcome mat, vibrating with an unsettling kinetic energy.
“Elara! God, I’ve missed you!”
Before I could process her presence, she lunged forward, enveloping me in a hug. She smelled faintly of body spray that reminded me of something sweet, like cotton candy.
“Em? What on earth are you doing here?”
She slipped past my shoulder in a blur of blonde hair and a rustling trench coat, immediately scanning the perimeter of my living room. Finally, she turned back to me, forcing a bright, dimpled grin that didn't quite reach her blue eyes.
“This place looks exactly the same as the day I helped you haul boxes up those stairs."
“Yeah, well... decorating takes time, and I’ve been busy,” I replied.
Emma’s gaze flicked to the kitchen counter, lingering on the empty bottle of Pinot Grigio, before sweeping over the room one more time. When her eyes finally locked back onto mine, her smile faltered.
“Sorry I didn't call first. I figured I'd surprise you. And I know how much you love surprises.”
I narrowed my eyes, crossing my arms. The Emma I knew was grounded, calculated. The woman standing in my living room was a live wire, her words tumbling out in a frantic rush, her fingers restlessly drumming against the strap of her handbag. Something had gone sideways, and she was running from it.
The last time we'd spoken, she was blissfully playing house across town with her girlfriend, Stella. Had they broken up?
Or was it something worse?
“Is your work schedule still the same?” Emma asked casually, though her fingers were doing frantic laps around the edge of my kitchen counter, tracing the grain of the wood.
“Yeah. Tomorrow is my one holy, uninterrupted day off.” And hell, I needed it. After spending the week playing psychological chicken with a chained psychopath like the Jester, my brain felt like chewed bubblegum.
Emma seemed to spark to life at my words. “Then let’s go out!”
“Tonight?”
“Yes! Tonight. I got a huge raise at work, Elara. Drinks are on my tab. Come on, when was the last time we actually had a proper girls’ night? It’s been ages.”
I hesitated. The temptation to collapse onto the couch, bury myself under a blanket, and pass out before midnight was a siren song. But as I looked at Emma—vibrating with that strange, desperate energy—and thought about the suffocating walls of the facility I’d just left, a counter-urge struck me.
Maybe drowning out the phantom echoes of Jester's laughter with loud music and cheap gin was exactly what the doctor ordered. After the week I'd had, I earned a distraction.
“Okay,” I said, a slow smile finally breaking through my exhaustion. “Let’s do it.”