“So long as you understand that you can only do so much,” I go on. “At a certain point, you’ll need to let her decide for herself… whether she wants to live, or not.”
He’s gawking at me, likely wondering if I have any personal experience in this, based on my advice. I suppose I do…In a sense.
“Do you think… you’d be willing to put in a word with your men? Let them know not to sell to her…?” He asks me this warily.
And he’s right to sound that way. From anyone else, such audacity would earn him a pistol whip, no matter how pretty the face on the receiving end.
Jonathan Chevelle is either fearless, or stupid…Orhe knows that he might have some leverage himself.
“We can discuss it,” I hum calmly.
That’s exactly the type of free will I’ll need to exterminate.
He nods in acceptance, offering a small, gracious smile as we get out of the vehicle. But it falls away when he sees it…
Massive and foreboding. Its dark shadow cast over us.
“So… this is it, huh?” He gulps, chin lifted. “Alabaster Penitentiary…”
I nod, placing a hand on his shoulder. “This is yours. Own it.”
He’s stiff, I can feel it. But his shoulders straighten, the ocean breeze breathing confidence into his lungs. The control that I know he wants.
The intoxication ofpower, a vice I’m offering him, like el diablo on his shoulder.
“You will reign over every inch of despair in this building, Jonathan,” I whisper by his ear. He sucks in an audible breath. “Welcome toyourcastle…Officer Chevelle.”
The way I’ve been wrapping my head around things lately, you’d think my cranium was made out of ace bandage.
Seriously, over the last year or so, my life hascompletelyflipped upside down. And now, I’m a goddamn Demogorgon.
But like, a hot one.
My life is completely different from a year ago, in terms of where I live, and what I do for a living… The people who are actively a part of my day-to-day existence. And that’s fine. I’ve since made my peace with where I am physically.
It’s meinsideI’m worried about.
I’m not the same guy who lived on Staten Island, drove an Acura, worked as a bouncer at Americana, and spent ninety percent of his daily life worrying about his emotionally unstable addict mother. He’s been slowly fading away with each moment that’s stretched in time, since the night Manuel Blanco found me covered in the blood of the two scumbags I’d killed. Like I’m hanging onto a bungee cord that’s stretching further andfurther… Eventually, it’ll snap. Iknowit will.
The thing is, I can’t tell if I’m concerned by this, or if I just feel like Ishouldbe. I wonder this often… Given the chance, would I go back to that night?
Would I warn myself? Talk myself out of killing those rapist fucks, despite knowing with absolute certainty that they needed to die…
Would I convince myself to fight harder against him?
I guess it doesn’t matter. I have nohot tub time machine… The choices I made are mine to live with, for the rest of ever. My only option is to swallow it; the jagged pill that is this hard truth…
John Chevelle doesn’t matter anymore.
Thisshownow irrevocably belongs to Officer Chevelle, Head Correctional Officer of Alabaster Penitentiary.
Velle…The Warden’s good guard dog. He’s completely taken over.
And that’s not to say I havenoconscience left. I’m not a sociopath—unlike some people I know.But I see how easily empathy could begin to fade over time, doing what we do here. Dealing in darkness, turning a shoulder to your fellow man’s suffering, denying people the most basic of human rights.
I canfeelmyself becoming desensitized to it already, and that is worrying. Because if it just keeps slipping further away… where does it end?
I suppose it ends with him. And if the last stage in this metamorphosis is becomingthat… I don’t want to let myself get there. Despite everything I’ve been doing, what I have to keep doing in order to run this place the way I’m being paid to—orforcedto, depending on who you ask—I refuse to ever becomethatcallous.
