After a pause long enough for Rogers to sweat under the heat directed at him, Sinn'ous finally fills him in. “He tried to rape someone. That someone acted in self-defence.”
“Where?”
“Filing room.”
And the missing puzzle pieces, he hadn’t been aware were missing, fall into place. And the picture he thought he had completed changes drastically.
His hands dig into his hair. The stainedfloor holding his undivided attention while his mind works through the new information. Jasper’s pale image comes to the forefront of his mind—the kid’s frantic panic and rushed movements.
Shit, that kid has no luck in him at all. Did he break a hundred mirrors in a past life or something?
It’s hard to imagine the kid could actually kill someone. Then again, when you’re backed into a corner it’s surprising what you’re capable of doing to get out of it alive. He should know, his viewon the world drastically changed the day he stared death in the face.
And just like that, his dismay at destroying evidence shrivels away entirely. There is no camera in the filing room, so all it would have shown is an officer and inmate entering, an inmate leaving, and a dead officer being found not long after. It wouldn’t show any assault—attempted or otherwise. It would just be one inmate’s word against a dead correctional officer and a corrupt system that stuffs all incarcerated people under the same microscope of guilty evil. The kid wouldn’t stand a chance in court.
And it’s not like Rogers could get on the stand to help. What would he say? That he knows the kid did it in self-defence because a psychopath told him. And he knows he can trust this psychopath’s word because he’s seen him kill and Sinn'ous doesn’t lie about these things. He has no reason to, when Rogers does whatever he wants, including the cover-up of several other murders.
Ha. Right. That will definitely work out in mine and the kid’s favour.
They’ll all end up spending an eternityundera maximum security prison. And wouldn’t that just suck.
29
SINN'OUS
“Be a good boy, and do this for me, Sinnie.” His father whispers to him, his face inches from Sinn'ous’s own. “Satan wants you to do this for your father. You’ll be a good boy, won’t you?” Hands tickle over Sinn'ous’s stomach, crawling and snaking over his body, vile creatures eating away at his skin—
Sinn'ous jerks awake on a violent whole-body spasm, heart in his throat, skin clammy in a cold sweat. The memories of an old nightmare clinging onto his psyche and refusing to let go. Claws sunk in deep to let him feel every inch of them scraping against bone.
Memories alive that should be long dead. Buried and rotten. Are now revived and crawling their way out of the grave, demanding his acknowledgement.
He flops back onto the bunk, frowning at the discoloured cell’s ceiling. Splotchy paint over what might be concrete, no way to know unless you chipped away at the decades worth of grime. He can’t remember the last time he’s had a flashback so vivid his mind thought he was back there. Back in the clutches of his father, being taken apart and turned into someone he can no longer recognise.
Years of stuffing that scared, helpless little boy into a box where no one can hurt him. And then Jasper comes along bringing questions which have everything crashing back. In a few short muttered sentences, Jasper managed to rattle the very foundation of Sinn'ous’s core. A hole chipped into the carefully constructed wall he put up around his early childhoodmemories. Oozing the black sludge of his past into his carefully constructed present.
He would like to say that he took the first steps needed to crawl out from under his father. But it had taken the presenceof his adopted brother for Sinn'ous to stand up and break the chains. Zayne walked into their lives and had no idea what he was really stepping into. Too caught up in the starry-eyed awe of sharing a like mind with them. To kill among others of his ilk. Zayne hadn’t seen what was coming, but Sinn'ous had. And Sinn'ous had a choice to make—either step in and put a stop to his father or step back and watch what happened to him happen to his brother.
He’d chosen to step in. But events played out in front of them all in a way no one anticipated. And the choice was taken out of Sinn'ous’s hands.
Outside his cell is the telling signs of nightlife. Snoring to call forth the Hell demons. Grunts, which could swing either way—pain or pleasure. And every now and again, the thudof guards’ boots and jangle of keys. Keys that open all the unimportant interior doors, not anything barring them from reaching outside. Nope, those doors are controlled from the monitoring rooms found in every Wing. The push of a button to the freedom beyond the gates.
Sinn'ous throws his legs off the bunk and makes his way to the sink. Splashing his face in cold water, then relievinghimself into the toilet. He stares at the silver bowl, cock in hand, water droplets trickling off his face to splash onto the dullscratched-to-shit metal.
His father left him alone once he turned sixteen. The gradual loss of interest had taken place over the year leading up to it. All he remembers is he never had nights spent lying awake in pain after he turned sixteen. Then a wall built up over the early memories until he’d convinced himself it was nothing but a vividnightmare of his childhood. Until Zayne came along years later, and forced him to look at it, and do something about it.
Eyes pinching closed, Sinn'ous tries to strangle the thoughts. Stab them back into their box of forgotten. It had been so long he’d completely let them go. And now they’re back and he can’t escape them. The forced isolation isn’t helping, this damn lockdown has leachedinto a second day. It’s dragged out so far Sinn'ous knows they won’t lift it when morning arrives.
He has no way to escape his own mind. No sacrifices here for him to get lost in, so that he can use the killing to erase the damage one boy caused.
~~~
Lunch rolls around, and so does commissary. Trolley wheels squeaking their way out of the corridor, and into A-Wing. A rat of a noise worse than the clanging of bars and complaints of trapped men. The sound manages to rile the whole Wing. Growing voices combine into a slur of unintelligible speech.
The hesitation on the commissary inmates part would be bemusing, if Sinn'ous wasn’t lacking in sleep. Every time his head hits the pillow he is held awake by memories. His eyes close only to snap open as they grow more and more vivid.
Erik steps into view, a member of Reni’s clique, long hair loosely falling over his stick-thin frame, gaunt in a way only a prolongeddrug dependence makes you. His hands are clasping and unclasping on a clip board, flexible pencil in hand to write down orders. Erik works in the library, which would mean the guards have commissary slapped together with them. They’re doing the same for meals, Sinn'ous has seen commissary handing out trays to the various men in cells.
Erik visibly swallows, opens his mouth, closes it, swallows again. “Do you have any order you want to request—”
