27. Chapter 27
The heavy steel door thudded shut behind me, the sound echoing like a gunshot in the cramped space. Deep in the shadows of the corner, a pair of eyes caught the dim fluorescent light.
“Cat got your tongue?”
The Jester was perched on the edge of his bolted-down cot, this time with only his arms chained to the wall. His legs were crossed at the ankles, swinging back and forth like a bored child at a playground.
I didn’t spare him a glance. Gripping the handle of my trusty mop bucket, I plunged the mop into the gray water and began scrubbing furiously.
Left, right, aggressive, fast movements.
I needed to move. I needed to drown out the noise in my own head, and I needed to get the hell out of his radius before he crawled under my skin.
"Oh, come now, doll. You’re scrubbing so hard you’re going to take the bristles off the mop. What's got those pretty little shoulders so tense? Did the big, bad warden yell at you? If so, I could have his tongue cut off."
I ignored him, plunging the mop back into the ringer and slamming the lever down with a harsh clack.
"You're pale and sweating. Your pulse is jumping right here in your throat—thump, thump, thump–like a trapped little bird. Tell me. What’s wrong? Who hurt my favorite girl?"
"Leave it alone.”
He clicked his tongue—tsk, tsk, tsk—the sound echoing like a ticking time bomb in the quiet cell.
"Why does everyone always want to leave the best parts alone? You’re hiding a secret, sweetface, and secrets are like cheap makeup—they always start to run when you cry."
Something inside me snapped. The dam broke, fueled by hours of suffocating, blinding rage, and I whipped around, slamming the mop handle against the floor.
"He's out!" I shrieked, the words tearing from my throat, raw and guttural. "He’s free!"
The Jester didn't flinch. If anything, his eyes widened, drinking in my meltdown like a rare vintage.
"The man who slaughtered my family," I gasped, chest heaving, tears finally hot and angry on my cheeks. "The man who tore my entire family away from me was just released on parole yesterday. Parole! Because he followed the rules in a cell for a few years. The justice system is a joke! It’s unfair, it’s broken, and it’s a sick, twisted lie! "
I braced myself for the cackle, the cruel mocking that usually followed someone else's misery.
Instead, the cell went dead quiet.
The manic energy vanished from the Jester's posture, replaced by something shockingly... still. His head tilted, and for the first time, his smile completely disappeared.
The sympathy in his eyes was more terrifying than his madness.
It was intimate.
Human.
"Oh, doll. Look at you. Bleeding out over a world that doesn't care about your scars.
You're right, you know. The justice system is a flaw–a grand, theatrical illusion designed to keep the sheep asleep.
They put on their little black robes and play God, pretending there's a scale that balances out good and evil. But there isn't."
His words were a seductive poison, echoing the exact, dark thoughts I had been trying to outrun all day.
"He’s walking the streets right now," the Jester continued, his voice growing more animated, a dangerous spark reigniting in his eyes as he prodded at the wound.
"Breathing the fresh air, eating good food, sleeping without a care in the world.
While you're in here, cleaning up filth and drowning in your own tears. "
"Stop," I whispered, though I couldn't move.
"Imagine it," he whispered. “Imagine him cornered.
Imagine the look of absolute terror in his eyes when he realizes the universe has finally caught up to him.
Think of how good it would feel to watch the light leave his eyes, knowing he's finally paying the real price.
It would feel like... breathing for the first time in years, wouldn't it? "
A shudder ran down my spine. A dark, terrifying part of me—a part I never knew existed—screamed yes!
"I could make that happen, you know. Walls don't stop me. Prisons don't stop me. I have friends on the outside who owe me very... bloody favors. One word from those pretty lips of yours. Just a name, a location, and I can have him erased from this earth. Gone. Forever."
He leaned back against the wall, but his gaze held me locked in place.
"Think about it, doll. In a world full of bureaucrats and broken promises, there is one universal truth: if you ever want anything done properly, you have to do it yourself. Or, well... have someone like me do it for you. You want real justice? You just have to say the word, and I’ll be more than happy to oblige. "
My heart hammered against my ribs, a violent, chaotic rhythm. I looked at the mop in my hands, then at him. The line between right and wrong, between law and vengeance, had just blurred into darkness.
And I didn't know if I wanted to find my way back.
I shook my head as I forced my eyes back down to the filthy concrete.
"No," I said, the word slipping out automatically, a desperate shield against the darkness he was offering.
I resumed my mopping, pushing the handle with a sudden, violent burst of energy.
Back and forth.
Left, right.
The rhythmic slosh of the dirty water was the only thing keeping me anchored to reality.
"I’m a pacifist. I don't... I don't believe in killing anyone. Period."
"He, uh... killed your entire family, sweetface," he dragged out the words, his tone laced with a theatrical confusion, as if he were trying to explain a very simple math problem to a particularly dim child.
"He did," I choked out, my grip tightening on the wooden handle until my knuckles turned a ghostly white. "And that was wrong. Which is exactly why I don’t believe in murder. I won't become what he is."
Silence descended on the cell again, heavy and suffocating.
Then, a wet, deliberate sound cut through the quiet.
He licked his lips, a slow, loud, grotesque swipe of his tongue over his chapped mouth.
I had learned to read him like a map of a minefield, and that sound meant the gears in his warped mind were grinding, deeply considering a new way to tear my logic apart.
"What is there to believe in or not? Killing isn’t a religion, doll.
It’s an action–a mechanical function of the universe.
Most animals in the wild kill—for food, for territory, for fun, for various reasons.
It just is. So, why does killing have to be something you believe in? Some cultures have no problem with it."
“It’s wrong.”
"People kill in self-defense. People kill to carry out justice. It’s all just a matter of branding, isn't it?
In a way, letting a monster like him live...
well, you could argue that the people responsible for letting him walk out those gates have blood on their hands, too.
The judges, the jury, the parole board... "
Suddenly, he was in front of me. Of course he broke free from his chains. He leaned down until his face was level with mine.
"And you, doll. If you have the power to stop a mad dog, and you choose to look the other way because of your pretty little 'beliefs'... whose fault is it when he bites someone else? Hm?”
“That’s stupid!” I snapped, the words exploding from me as a sudden, furious heat rushed to my face, darkening my cheeks.
How dare he twist my grief into guilt? My hands shook so badly against the mop handle I had to drop it, the wood clattering loudly against the concrete.
“If you were to ask me whose fault it is, I’d say his! He’s the monster! Not me!”
The Jester didn't even blink at my outburst. Instead, his grin softened into something agonizingly pitying, his eyes glittering with an eerie, razor-sharp accuracy.
"Oh, doll," he cooed, "You can yell at me all you want to drown out the truth.
But we both know why you're really scrubbing these floors so hard.
You think if you clean up enough of our filth, you'll finally wash away the guilt of surviving while they rotted.
You're angry at him, sure. But you're furious at yourself for being too weak to do anything about it. "
The truth hit me like a physical blow, stripping away the last thread of my sanity.
"Shut up!" I shrieked.
Before I could think, before my brain could process the absolute danger of what I was doing, I lunged forward.
I slammed my hands into his chest, shoving him back with everything I had.
He stumbled, but I didn't stop. I shoved him a second time, harder, pouring all my blinding, suffocating rage into the blow.
The Jester flew backward until his spine hit the heavy iron bars of the cell door with a loud, metallic clang that vibrated through the room.
Instead of throwing a punch or snapping my neck, he just threw his head back and laughed.
"Look at you go!" he cackled, his eyes gleaming with genuine amusement.
A cold wave of realization washed over my anger, making it burn even hotter. He wasn't overpowered. He wasn't caught off guard. He had let me shove him, playing along just to see what I would do. Realizing I was being completely managed like a child throwing a tantrum made my blood absolutely boil.
I pinned him there, my hands gripping the fabric of his prison jumpsuit, my chest heaving as I stared into his face, expecting him to snap my neck.
But he didn't. He loved it.
His breath hitched, his head tilting back against the bars as a low, breathless laugh rattled in his throat. His eyes were completely wide, blown out until his pupils darkened into bottomless pools of black, drinking in my violence like it was oxygen.
"Oh..." he murmured, his voice a ragged, ecstatic purr as he looked down at me. "Oh, look at the little bird finally baring her talons!"
The sheer, chaotic heat radiating off him was intoxicating, a dizzying contrast to the freezing despair that had consumed me all day. The line between hatred and obsession, between anger and desire, completely dissolved.