by C. R. Jane
"He killed the Light fae King?" I asked with a gasp, not expecting that. The fae were notoriously reclusive, spending as much time in Fairie away from the rest of the supernatural world as possible, but still...you would have thought that I would have heard about something like that. Or at least, heard Julian discussing it, since he sometimes did trade with the fae. "The fae have a way of looking back into the past to ensure they don't make mistakes. And whatever they did proved that he killed the king," the cook continued.
Another of the workers, a cyclops, piped in just then. I'd been so enthralled in the cook's story that I hadn't noticed her walk into the room. "I've heard that he wasn't just a run of the mill fae," she said, her one eye wide-eyed and unblinking. "He was the eldest of the light fae princes. And the king was his father."
The cook cleared her throat. “That’s not true. I heard he’s an assassin from the Dark fae Kingdom sent to kill their enemy.”
Rolling his eyes, the man shook his head, disgruntled.
I stopped stirring, horror-stricken at the story and possible reasons for the fae killing a king. It hadn't been what I was expecting at all. For some reason, I'd created some kind of tragic backstory for the fae where he'd been falsely imprisoned, but I'd also heard about the magic the fae used to see the past. And as far as I'd heard, it was never wrong.
Still, a part of me just couldn't connect those tortured, broken flame infused eyes with someone who would murder his father.
I just couldn't.
A guard stepped in just then, the one that was with me the time I'd served in the fae's section of the prison, and I couldn't stop my heart from leaping with anticipation. Did that mean I was going back there?
I knew I shouldn't feel this way, but I was a little hopeful that seeing him again would cure this ridiculous obsession I'd started to develop.
"Get that cart and get going," the cook who'd been gossiping with me ordered primly, going back to work.
I much too eagerly went to my cart and began to push it behind the guard.
Sure enough, he led me the same way we had gone the other night.
I was going to see him.
The section of the prison was just as depressing as I remembered, and I hurried while I delivered the trays, slipping a few times on the moss covered floor as I tried to get to the fae as quickly as I could. The fact that I couldn’t hear any whips or cries this time should have been comforting, but the absolute stillness was a little unsettling. The prisoners that I passed didn't even look up as I delivered the food.
I was a few cells away from what I thought was the fae's, when an angry cry catapulted towards me.
The guard, who had appeared bored this whole time, snapped to attention. "Stay here," he ordered as he set off in the direction of the cry. There were more sounds now, the sounds of destruction. And despite the guard's orders, I followed behind him, leaving the cart behind me.
By the time I'd made it to where the sounds were coming from, the guard had thrown open the cell door and was trying to grab the unruly prisoner.
The unruly prisoner who happened to be the fae.
"Where is it?" he screamed over and over again, clawing at the guard, at himself, at the rocks on the walls.
Chunks of the wall were littered on the floor. The fae was so manic in his movements that the guard couldn't control him. I watched as he radioed for backup.
Still, the fae continued to ask where something was.
What could he have been looking for?
Suddenly he caught sight of me, and there was recognition in his eyes this time.
"You. You need to help me find it. I have to find it," he growled at me nonsensically, his voice almost musical in its foreign inflection.
"What is it? What are you missing?" I found myself asking through the bars of the cell...much to the guard's displeasure, who had just noticed my presence.
"Get back to your cart," he screeched at me, just as another guard rushed in to help him subdue the wayward fae.
"The crystal. Where is the crystal?" the fae yelled at me as I slowly backed away from the cell. Then the guards began to beat him with batons laced with purple electricity.
“Calm down and get back into your cell.”
The fae’s hoarse cries surrounded me, and I covered my eyes as great sobs wracked my body at the sound of his pain once again.
Suddenly I froze. A crystal.
I knew where a crystal was. Surely it wasn't the one that the mouse had given me? The one that I'd given the Warden in exchange for a different fate?
It couldn't be.
A sick dread passed over me at the thought that I could have added more pain to this poor creature.
I was only faintly aware of the guard returning and dragging me back to my cart, out of that section of the prison without finishing the rest of my deliveries, and back to my cell.
The odds of me getting that crystal back were about as slim as me getting my power back.
What was I going to do?
I felt listless for the next few days. I wasn’t let out of my cell during that time, I suppose as punishment for disobeying the guard during my food deliveries although no one bothered to tell me that.
I had lost track of how many days I’d been here. You couldn’t even depend on when they turned on the lights as being daytime, since the prison liked to fuck with its prisoners by turning them on all hours of the day.
My only friend was the little mouse who visited me, bringing me trinkets I assumed it had stolen from other prisoners. Well, I guess I counted the spider in the corner as my friend as well. We both were wasting our lives doing nothing of importance.
I dozed off for the umpteenth time when all of a sudden, the clang of my prison cell signaled that someone was opening the door. I lazily opened my eyes, not really caring who it was at this point. A guard with green tinged skin I hadn’t seen before was standing there, looking affronted that I hadn’t jumped to my feet to greet him.
“Come on,” he hissed at me, a forked tongue peeking out from his lips as he spoke.
That got me moving. I hadn’t seen someone like him before. It was amazing how sheltered I’d been for a would-be prostitute. There were so many creatures in this prison that I’d never come across before. Maybe Julian and his coven were picky about who they sold our services to, because I’d only seen run of the mill creatures, like werewolves and such.
This guard resembled some kind of demon frog, and I couldn’t even begin to guess what he was.
I followed after him reluctantly, my muscles weak from doing nothing for so many days. It was amazing how I actually missed delivering food, since it gave me something to do. We weaved through a few hallways, passing by a door that I recognized as belonging to Dr. Brina. I shivered at the sight of the entrance, remembering how strange she’d acted. Then there was the crazy dream I’d experienced afterwards that I wasn’t so sure had been just a dream. I breathed a sigh of relief when he made no move to stop at her door.
We did pause at an entrance just down the hall though. The sign on the door said Prison Psychiatrist, and I grimaced. Apparently, it was time for my forced shrink session. I could only imagine what kind of psychiatrist I was about to meet in a place like this.
The guard knocked on the door and a high-pitched voice called for us to wait a minute.
I leaned against the wall, examining the guard out of the corner of my eye, still curious what kind of creature he was.
Finally, the door opened and a grim beast of a man in an orange jumpsuit stepped into the hallway. I could tell right away he was some kind of shifter. He seemed agitated, and his eyes kept flicking back and forth from humanesque to beast-like. Evidently, his session hadn’t gone well.
“Get in there,” my green guard ordered me. I guess he was dropping me off and taking the shifter back to his cell. I gave the shifter a wide berth as I walked to the office entrance. He looked like he was on the edge of shifting any minute, and I didn’t want to be around for th
at.
The room appeared empty at first when I entered. It looked like I envisioned a shrink office to look, based on books I’d read. There was a long, worn looking leather couch in the middle of the room, and the walls were lined with shelves filled to the brim with different colored books. Potted plants were set around the room, and there was a Tiffany lamp sitting on a coffee table by the couch.
“Please sit down,” a quiet voice said politely, and I squeaked when I realized there was someone sitting in the room in a leather lounge chair across from the couch. The woman was so tiny and unassuming that she hadn’t caught my eye upon entering the room. Her hair was cut in a dark brown bob, and she had perfect porcelain skin that accentuated her red lined lips. Even sitting down, I could tell that she was much smaller than I was. She was dressed professionally, wearing a white blouse tucked in a plaid, fitted pencil skirt with black high heels. Her hands were clasped in her lap, and she was looking down at the floor instead of at me.
I walked to the couch hesitantly. She was not what I expected.
I tried to see if I could sense what she was, but there was a strange blankness emanating from her where there should have been energy. She was once again something that I’d never encountered before. Not even human beings emanated nothing. Then again, I doubt many humans would be comfortable in a place like this.
I shivered. Deciding I probably didn’t want to know what she was.
“Thank you for coming here today, Selena,” she said softly, still studying the ground.
It was a silly thing to say, since I hadn’t had a choice in the matter.
“I’m the prison psychiatrist,” she continued. “Dr. Maynard.” There was a long pause, as if she didn’t know what to say next. “Do you mind if I smoke?” she suddenly asked.
I wasn’t partial to cigarette smoke in my face, but I wasn’t going to make a fuss in prison, in a room with a creature that was deliberately masking what she was.
“Of course,” I responded quietly.
She appeared relieved, opening a small metal box on the table next to her and taking out one of the long cigarettes like the ones that movie stars used to use in the olden days. She struck a match that was also in the box and lit the end of the cigarette, sighing quietly as she took a drag from it.
“I’ve looked at your file. It appears you were quite the troublemaker before coming here,” she commented.
I looked at her in surprise, wondering what was actually written in the file. I guess “wouldn’t sleep with Julian” wouldn’t have been something they could have put in my file.
“Is there anything in particular you want to talk about? Any problems you’ve been having?” she asked.
“You mean besides the fact that I’m trapped in Nightmare Penitentiary in the first place?” I responded dryly.
A wisp of a smile appeared briefly on her lovely face. “Yes, besides that, Selena.”
I didn’t intend on saying anything. I didn’t trust anyone who worked here. Especially a creature that was intentionally not showing her real self. That alone left me uneasy.
“Not much to say,” I finally answered when the silence stretched on for too long.
“Hmm,” she murmured, picking up a file that I assumed was mine. She flicked through the pages. “It appears you’ve been on lockdown after an incident with one of the prisoners. Do you want to talk about that?” she asked, finally looking up at me.
She must have been talking about what happened with the fae...although I guess I could have had a delayed punishment based on what happened with Alaric as well. But it was probably the fae.
My lips pursed as I remembered for the thousandth time the pain in his voice as he screamed for his crystal...the crystal that I’d traded away.
“You seem like you have something on your mind?” she said, watching me.
“I was just thinking that regret is a funny thing,” I answered.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean you can regret something, even if it was an accident. That seems to happen quite often,” I responded.
“Hmm. I suppose that’s right.” she paused. “‘There was a long hard time when I kept far from me the remembrance of what I had thrown away when I was quite ignorant of its worth,’” she quoted.
“What’s that from?” I asked, confused.
“Charles Dickens. I find human literature so fascinating.”
“I thought you were reading my mind for a second,” I told her, thinking of how I had no idea the worth of the crystal when I traded it...I still had no idea what exactly it’s purpose was.
“I know you don’t want to be here, but I’ll leave you with a few words of advice before you go,” she told me. “It doesn’t do well to let yourself be defined by your regrets. We always have a choice.”
She stood up just then, as if she hadn’t said anything of importance, and strode to the door to let me out. “I think it would be good for us to meet again, Selena,” she told me, opening the door where I saw the green guard and another, different prisoner, waiting outside.
She didn’t seem like she expected an answer, and I didn’t think I had a choice whether I visited her or not, so I walked out without saying anything further.
Her words pounded in my head as the guard led me back to my cell.
She may be a psychiatrist, but she gave shit advice.
Because in truth, I never had a choice.
Chapter 12
Days passed.
And more days.
Then, my solitary confinement finally ended.
I fell into a routine, a routine that cemented the fact that I was trapped in this prison for the next year. A year that felt like forever.
Sleep.
Food delivery.
Avoiding inmates, especially the men who’d caught my eye more than they should.
Sleep again. This was my only escape from reality.
Getting up in the morning was becoming a chore. Reminding myself I had a purpose despite being stuck in his hellhole of a place grew harder with each passing day. The dark walls were becoming unbearable, it felt as though they were closing in around me. Choking me. Wearing me down.
I’d even gone back to the library only to find the doors locked—no matter what time of the day I visited—which only added to my mood. I was drowning in here, suffocating. There was no fresh air, no windows to look outside, and refocusing on my job as a food deliverer just wasn’t cutting it. I’d only been here a few weeks, and already, I felt like a caged wolf ready to burst free.
Lying on my cot, I stared up at the gray ceiling of my cell, having returned here after breakfast delivery, unsure what I wanted to do to fill my day. Something to tame that growing void inside of me that threatened to send me spiraling into madness.
A squeak came from behind me, and I rolled onto my stomach to look up. My little friend, the light brown mouse with a white face stared at me from where he perched on the metal frame of my cot. At the top of my pillow sat someone’s white toothbrush, the bristles worn and bent outward from overuse.
“Who did you steal that from today?”
A faint squeak responded. If there was one thing I had been enjoying, it was my regular visits from this little guy.
“One day, you’ll get caught, my friend,” I murmured, no longer feeling silly about talking to a mouse.
He turned and scurried across the frame and hopped down before vanishing somewhere under my bed.
The tiny kleptomaniac mouse found a way to keep himself occupied while trapped in here, even if it involved taking other people’s belongings, which was exactly what I had to do. I needed a distraction, not the stealing part… but something that kept my mind occupied.
Up on my feet, I collected the toothbrush and walked it over to the two metal shelves bolted to the opposite wall. I lifted my pile of folded uniforms in reds and orange fabrics, and I pulled out a small cardboard box tucked underneath. Inside lay all the gifts the mouse had brought me. Feathers, a ring, a
clump of fur, a scrunched up piece of paper with the words, “there is no escape” on it, a sock, and somehow he’d even dragged a studded leather collar in here. They all sat in the box, and I added the toothbrush inside.
The mouse’s first gift came to mind… the teal crystal. Along with me giving it to the Warden, and then discovering it belonged to my tortured fae.
I gave away the one thing he seemed to cherish above all else.
I once again remembered his panic stricken expression as he ripped apart his cell to find the missing crystal. I couldn’t bring myself to say anything at that moment.
Guilt hit me, and I tightened my grip on the box’s lid. This was why I now held onto everything the mouse brought me. No matter what it was, the items belonged to someone, and I’d find a way to return them to the rightful owners. Including finding a way to get that crystal back for the fae… somehow. I hadn’t worked that part out yet, as I doubted getting into the Warden’s office was an easy feat...or even possible.
But maybe figuring that puzzle out was the distraction I needed. Closing the box, I tucked it back under my clothes and headed over to the sink to wash myself with a damp cloth. I left my orange prison pajamas on as I washed, since my door was open like everyone else’s. Not many inmates wandered past my room, but it still left me uncomfortable to be so exposed.
I finished washing and dressed in fresh orange prison pants and a black tank top over my bra. I then stepped into my grungy tennis shoes that were the standard issue in my section of the prison.
“Perfect timing,” Keon’s deep voice came from behind me.
I could hear the smile in his tone before I even turned around, and immediately, my body reacted. Burning fire licked the length of my spine, my nipples stiffening and rubbing against the fabric of my bra.
I turned, wondering how long he’d been standing there. I hadn’t seen him during my punishment, but I’d sometimes sensed eyes watching me at night from the darkness. I’d always hoped that it was him, rather than some other creep I didn’t know. The creep you knew was always better than the one you didn’t.
