20. Chapter 20
“Oh, sweetface, you know I hate those.”
The Jester's voice greeted me the moment I stepped into his cell.
Even with the earbuds jammed deep into my ears, his voice carried a low vibration that seemed to cut right through the barrier.
Narrowing my eyes, I deliberately tightened my lips, turned my back on him, and plunged my broom into the bucket of sudsy water.
Behind me, his voice became a muffled, distorted drone beneath the heavy bass of the music pulsing through my headphones. It was a beautiful shield. Ignoring him was effortless.
And ignoring the Jester was like throwing a match into a powder keg.
The low hum of him speaking quickly spiraled into a distorted roar.
The heavy, metallic clang of iron chains rattling against the concrete floor echoed through the soles of my shoes.
I couldn’t stop the small smile that tugged at the corner of my mouth.
I kept my back turned, savoring the sound.
For once in my miserable life, the power dynamic had shifted.
I had him at my mercy, trapped behind a wall of total indifference.
But then, the chaos abruptly vanished. The vibration in the floor stopped. The rattling ceased. The silence that followed was heavy, thick, and wrong.
Sighing, a knot of unease tightening in my chest, I reached up and paused my music. I turned around.
The Jester was standing.
The heavy iron shackles that were supposed to pin him to the wall lay open and empty at his feet, looking like shedding skin. Somehow, impossibly, he had broken out. Yet, he didn't lunge for me; he just stood there, his head tilted at a predatory angle.
Panic exploded in my veins. I dove toward the cell door, my arm outstretched to slam my fist against the steel bars and scream for the guards.
But he was a blur of lethal grace.
Before my fingers could even graze the iron, his hand clamped around my wrist. With terrifying strength, he spun me and slammed my back flush against the cold bars, knocking the wind from my lungs. My broom slipped from my grip, clattering uselessly against the concrete.
Our bodies were pinned together.
“Sweetheart, did you really think that would work?” he cooed, his breath hot against my ear.
I opened my mouth to scream, but he anticipated it. His palm slapped over my mouth, pressing so tightly against my lips that the sound was choked into a pathetic whimper.
“Shh,” he whispered, his eyes dancing with a terrifying, playful malice.
“Here’s the thing. I’ve told you once before, if I remember correctly, that I don’t take well to being ignored.
I mean, who would like that, hm? You’re not being a very good girl by buying yourself a new pair of earbuds and bringing them here.
Not when I look forward to our daily chats so, so much, sugar plum. ”
“P-Please,” I choked out, the plea dying as a pathetic, muffled vibration against his palm.
“Don’t worry, doll. I’m not going to hurt you. Take this as a little lesson—bad girls get punished, and good girls… well, good girls get rewarded.”
To emphasize the promise, he shifted his weight, deliberately grinding his hips flush against mine.
The sudden, intense friction sent a jolt of liquid heat straight through me, leaving me paralyzed.
It was a dizzying, sickeningly beautiful sensation—a volatile cocktail of blinding terror and awakened desire.
This was the Jester. He could snap my neck right here, paint the concrete walls with my blood, and laugh while he did it.
Yet, he hadn’t.
Not yet.
“Trust me, Elara, I’m a man of my word.”
With agonizing slowness, he reached up and plucked the foam earbuds from my ears, tossing them carelessly onto the floor.
Without breaking eye contact, he brought his heavy prison boot down, crushing them into the grime.
I flinched. He let out a soft, satisfied sigh, as if my tremor of fear was a masterpiece he had personally painted.
“Oh, I love seeing your fear. The fun we’re going to have…” His voice dropped an octave, dripping with dark anticipation. “…but you need to be a good girl for me, hm?”
Suddenly, his fingers clamped around my jaw, his grip agonizingly tight as he forced my face up, pinning me under his relentless gaze.
The sheer terror of the moment finally broke me; hot tears blurred my vision, spilling over and trailing down my cheeks.
The moment he saw them, his eyes glinted with a manic, predatory delight.
Humming, he traced the path of a tear with his index finger, catching the moisture on his skin. Then, keeping his eyes locked onto mine, he brought his finger to his lips and sucked it clean. My knees went numb at the sight. And as he tasted my terror, he let out a low moan.
A fucking moan.
“Now, here’s the deal,” he murmured, leaning in so close that his lips brushed the shell of my ear before he slid lower, his chest rising as he explicitly, deeply inhaled the scent of my neck.
I froze, every muscle locking into stone as the stray, wild strands of his hair tickled my chin.
“So things don’t have to get messy…I’m feeling very generous today.
So, give me a name, and I’ll overlook this little behavioral hiccup of yours. ”
“A-a name?”
“Mh-hm.”
“Whose name?”
My mind was a violent, spinning vortex. Under the weight of this kind of primal terror, every ounce of logic and self-preservation dissolved into white noise.
A sharp gasp caught in my throat as his icy fingertips began to trace the fragile, exposed skin of my throat.
The bruises from yesterday had faded to an ugly, mottled yellowish-green, but their ghostly outlines remained.
Involuntary panic forced me to swallow, and his fingers pressed a fraction harder into my flesh, as if savoring the desperate, rhythmic flutter of my pulse beneath his touch.
“The name of the man who touched you. I just want a name, sweetface. That’s all.”
"I-I can't. I won't," I stammered, my voice cracking as I tried to pull back from the heat of him. "I already filed a complaint with HR. They're... they're handling it. It’s over."
The air in the cell died.
A low, guttural growl vibrated deep in his chest—a sound more animal than man. Before I could blink, his hand shot out, his fingers hooking into the collar of my uniform and yanking me downward. My knees hit the concrete with a bone-jarring crack, and I was forced to look up at him.
It was then I felt the sheer, rigid proof of his arousal straining against the coarse fabric of his jumpsuit. He was rock hard.
It was sickening.
It was intoxicating.
"HR? You think a paper trail and a desk clerk are going to protect you?"
He leaned down, his face inches from mine, his eyes twin pits of black fire.
"Quit the lying. Otherwise, you’re going to find out exactly how I handle behavioral hiccups."
I tried to scramble backward, my palms slipping on the slick concrete as I attempted to find my feet and escape the suffocating heat of his presence.
But I didn't even make it halfway up.
Before I could gain my footing, his hand shot out with the speed of a striking viper, his long, scarred fingers tangling deep into the hair at the base of my skull.
With a sharp, sudden yank, he forced me back down onto my knees.
My head was snapped back, exposing the curve of my bruised throat to the flickering light of the cell.
His grip tightened, his knuckles grazing the sensitive skin of my neck.
"You know, doll... I have a very specific image in my head of how I’d like to punish you," he whispered, his eyes scanning my face with a hunger that made my stomach flip.
He tilted his head, his gaze dropping to my mouth, then back up to my wide, tear-filled eyes.
"I've been having the most delicious dreams of those pouty lips of yours wrapped around my cock. "
I let out a broken, strangled sob, but he only pulled my hair tighter, drawing a sharp gasp from my lips.
"But... I wanted to take things slow with you," he continued, his tone shifting into a terrifyingly soft, conversational lilt. He shifted his hips again, the friction of his arousal against my cheek a constant, burning reminder of who was in charge.
Or who had always been in charge.
"But if you keep playing these little games, if you keep protecting a man who isn't fit to lick your boots..."
He leaned in until his nose was pressed against mine, his pupils so dilated his eyes were nothing but black voids.
"The choice is entirely up to you, Elara. Do we do this the slow way? Or do I just take what’s mine right now?"
The tone he used was airy, almost innocent, but it made the hair on the back of my neck stand on end.
I knew better. There was a bloodbath hidden behind that casual curiosity.
My mind raced, frantically digging through the morning's blurry memories.
I had run into him again just a few hours ago near the cell blocks.
Bert. That was his name. He had handed me another withering, venomous glare the second our paths crossed, prompting me to make a frantic, terrified beeline in the opposite direction.
“Uh, his name is B-Bert.”
He paused, his icy fingers slowly tightening, winding around the column of my throat.
“Bert?” he echoed, testing the syllables on his tongue as if trying a strange, bitter candy.
I swallowed hard against the constriction of his grip and gave a frantic, desperate nod.
At that, a breathy, melodic laugh escaped his lips, the vibration of it sending a tremor straight down my spine that made my knees physically shake. It was a sick, dizzying contradiction.
How could a psychopath this terrifying, this profoundly dangerous, also be so intoxicatingly beautiful?
“And some people say I have a terrible sense of humor,” he mused, his eyes dancing with dark amusement. “Imagine naming your child Bert.”
Then, with the suddenness of a snapped rubber band, he released me.
The abrupt loss of his heat left me cold and reeling.
As I stumbled back, trying to gather my shattered composure and draw oxygen into my lungs, I watched in sheer disbelief as he dropped seamlessly back to the concrete floor.
In a blink, the heavy iron chains were slung back over his ankles and wrists, locking into place with a heavy clink as if they had never been shed at all.
He sat there, bathed in the shadows of the cell, staring up at me with a soft, perfectly serene smile.
I was rendered speechless, my mind refusing to process the impossible transition.
“So, sweetface,” he finally broke the heavy silence, his voice returning to its light, conversational purr. “Are you, uh, going to get that spot?”
With a casual flick of his chin, he gestured to the floor, pointing to the mangled, flattened ruins of my brand-new earbuds.
I forced my trembling hands to grip the handle of the broom, knowing with terrifying certainty that I had just very likely signed Bert's death warrant.