12. Chapter 12
"To making it to Friday!"
Mugs and shot glasses slammed together, splashing foam across the table and onto my sleeve. I didn’t even care. I threw my head back, downed the rest of my whiskey, and slammed the empty glass onto the wood to a chorus of cheers. Flushed and laughing, I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand.
The Copper Fox was a wall of noise, and the third round of shots had tasted like liquid fire, but the fifth tasted like a terrible, wonderful idea.
A loud thunk echoed from their corner booth as Emma’s forehead made sudden, enthusiastic contact with the sticky oak table. She didn't stay down long; she bolted upright, eyes wide and glassy, pointing a dripping finger at the remaining shot glasses.
"If I drink another drop of this," I managed, "I’m going to tell you something that will probably get me killed. Or worse, fired."
Emma stopped her mug halfway to her mouth, blinking through a pleasant, liquor-induced haze.
"Right. Gods forbid you get a pink slip instead of a noose, Elara.
I hear the unemployment line is way more crowded than the cemetery, and frankly, the executioner doesn't make you fill out three references. "
The bartender caught my eye from across the stained counter, raising a bottle of vodka in a silent question. I shook my head, the motion making the room tilt dangerously. I was already far beyond my limit.
“So?” Emma pressed, her fingers drumming an impatient, erratic beat against her sticky mug. “What happened?”
I leaned in until our foreheads nearly touched. “Have you ever heard of the Jester?”
The effect was instantaneous. The alcohol-flush drained from Emma’s cheeks, leaving her skin stark and pale under the bar's amber lamplight. Yet, beneath the sudden dread, a morbid intrigue sparked in her eyes.
“Who hasn’t heard of him?” Emma whispered, her voice dropping into the low, breathless register people used for ghost stories.
“Well, he was just transferred to Blackthorne.”
“He’s in your prison?” Emma’s voice spiked an octave, cutting through the low hum of the bar chatter.
I winced. “Not so loud! This is very, very confidential.” My heart hammered against my ribs. I knew I should keep my mouth shut, but the secret was a hot coal in my chest, burning to get out. I desperately needed to share the weight of it.
Emma nodded frantically, her gaze darting over her shoulder to ensure the nearby booths were empty before she scooted closer. Her knees bumped against mine under the table. “Have you actually seen him? What is he like?”
“Oh, I’ve seen him,” I said, the memory sending a cold shiver straight through my drunken haze. “In fact, I just got assigned to clean his cell.”
“No way.” Emma’s eyes seemed to triple in size. “You’re shitting me. Is he as terrifying as the rumors say? Does he really have those scars? What does he do in there?”
I let out a heavy, exhausted sigh, rubbing my temples as the mental image of the Jester filled my mind.
“He's a nightmare, but not in the way you’d think,” I muttered, leaning back against the booth. “He's got this awful, high-pitched laugh that rattles around in your skull hours after you leave the cell block. And he doesn't stop poking and teasing, trying to get under my skin."
I paused, a dark, wicked smirk breaking through my exhaustion. "Honestly? He’s far more enjoyable when he’s gagged.”
Emma stared at me, a mix of horror and fascination plastered across her face. “You gagged the Jester?”
“I didn’t gag him. But administration did. See, the other day he took down four armed guards during a transfer. And when the lead detective tried to pin him down, the Jester tore her ear clean off. With his own teeth.”
Emma blinked, the breathless excitement completely draining from her expression.
She let out a low, grim whistle that cut through the bar's ambient roar.
I couldn't hold her gaze anymore; I looked back down at my water.
By now, the ice had melted. I twirled the glass in my grasp, watching a ring of sticky residue bleed into the worn wood of the table.
Then Emma murmured, “This may not be the safest idea. Perhaps you should quit.”
“Quit?” I repeated, the word sounding foreign and absurd through my alcohol-induced haze.
“Yeah. You need to be careful around him. Don’t let your guard down for a single second. Don't look him in the eye, don't listen to his jokes, and don't pity him. He's done some really fucked up shit.”
She reached across the table, her hand gripping my forearm tight enough to leave a mark. “Because if you get on his bad side, he’ll come looking for you the second he breathes fresh air. It’s only a matter of time before he breaks out."
For a fraction of a second, the ambient warmth of the bar vanished. My blood ran ice-cold beneath my skin, the alcohol losing its power as a jagged spike of raw dread pierced my chest. I had only thought of the daily chore, the annoying laugh, the creepy pokes. I hadn't thought about the after.
But the fear was too heavy to carry, so I forced a scoff, shaking my head and easing my arm gently from her grip.
“I’m a nobody, Em,” I said, trying to inject a confidence into my voice that I didn't remotely feel. “What would someone as infamous as the Jester ever want with me?”
"I don't know, but the man's insane and nobody really knows what he wants or why he does what he does."
"True."
"Just promise me you'll watch yourself around him, okay?"
I nodded. "Of course."
Emma finally let the subject drop, turning back to her mead with a troubled sigh, but the silence between us remained heavy. As the tavern roared on around us, I stared into the dark depths of water, unable to shake a terrifying, intrusive thought: I wasn't just afraid he would remember me.
I was afraid he already did.
The narrow apartment stairwell echoed with our atrocious, alcohol-fueled harmony of a song we used to listen to on full blast when we lived together, long before we actually reached the landing.
Emma shrieked the last note, her voice cracking as she leaned against my shoulder, sending us both careening into the wood paneled wall.
I burst into a fit of breathless giggles as I fumbled blindly in my pocket for my keys.
My fingers felt like clumsy sausages, dropping the brass ring twice onto the floorboards before I finally managed to spear the lock.
With a triumphant, dramatic flourish, I twisted the key and threw the door open.
"Welcome," I slurred, sweeping an arm out wide to gesture into the pitch-black entryway, "to my humble abode."
We stumbled across the threshold in a tangle of limbs and cloaks, Emma still humming the chorus of the song under her breath.
She kicked the door shut behind us with her heel, the loud thud reverberating through the small, dark room.
I reached out, tracing the familiar groove of the wall until my fingers found the light switch, casting a warm, flickering amber glow across the apartment.
The laughter died in my throat.
Sitting dead center on the kitchen counter was a single playing card. It hadn't been there when I left. Emma stepped up beside me, her breath hitching.
The card was propped up perfectly against a 3-wick candle, facing the door.
Painted on the cheap cardstock was a grinning figure in a mismatched coat of red and black, holding a scepter topped with a severed skull.
A jester. Smeared messily across the jester’s stylized grin, layered right over the ink, was a messy smile drawn in a deep crimson color.
Tucked just beneath the edge of the card was a small square of parchment, folded neatly into a precise, perfect diamond.
Emma's dug painfully into my elbow. "Don't touch it. We need to call the police."
But my hands were already moving, operating on a wave of cold, detached adrenaline. My fingers shook as I pinched the edge of the paper and pulled it free. The parchment was thick, stolen from the Blackthorne administrative offices—I recognized the watermark immediately.
I unfolded it.
Written inside in elegant, looping cursive that looked like it belonged in a love letter, were a few sentences:
You didn't say goodbye. And I get so bored when people don't play along with my jokes. Let's not make it a habit, doll.
Signed,
J ?
Beneath the message, the letter J was drawn with a flamboyant flourish, tucked neatly inside the center of a crudely sketched heart.