Chapter Text
Buzz
The door to the interrogation ward swung open after Tessa swiped her card through the card reader, the latest required addition to Stillwater. Ordered from the Sheriff’s themselves, and who would try to stand in the way of Grayson and Vander? If they say all doors down in this dump needed card readers, then card readers they would have. As long as it didn’t come out of her salary, then what did she care?
People looked at her and whispered as she walked her way towards the interrogation room where her prisoner was waiting. She idly sipped her morning coffee, which she snagged from the cafeteria.
She had an understanding with the chef, Garry, he always made sure she got her fix before she started her day.
It tasted like shit, but it kept her awake, and it was free, so why complain?
“Hey, newbie,” called a guard she had seen around a few times before.
Tessa looked over at him. “What?”
“You can still back out, you know,” he said. “You volunteered for this, so it’s not like they’re going to force you to do it.”
She scoffed. People here were always looking down on her for being new, well, she would show them. Everyone was too scared to interrogate prisoner 516, so she stepped up. Now everyone treated her like she was a walking corpse, a few guards even suggested she get her affairs in order.
It was disgusting how all of them were so hellbent on seeing her fail. After all, it was one prisoner, what harm could she possibly do to her, an enforcer?
“Thanks for your ‘concern,’ but I’m fine. I can handle one teenage girl,” she snapped before walking away from them.
“You know they make each prisoner have weekly sessions with a therapist.”
She turned back to look at him. “Of course I know that,” she said with a scowl, “I’m not a moron.”
The therapist thing was another new order from the Sheriff’s, they wanted to make sure it really looked like they were trying to rehabilitate the scum in here.
“Well, what you don’t know is that that ‘teenage girl’ managed to convince her therapist to commit suicide. After her first session,” he said darkly.
She laughed, “Seriously? You expect me to believe that load of bullshit? Go find another sucker to tell your lame stories,” she said as she turned away.
She heard him speaking to the guard next to him as she swiped her card and pulled open the door to the interrogation room, “Just forget it. We need to go anyway, we got that practice evacuation drill-“
The voice was cut off as the door clicked shut behind her.
Screw them, she thought with a scowl, she was going to show them that she wasn’t about to fall for their attempts at spooking her out of this opportunity.
She swiped her card through the door to the interrogation room she was told to use and walked inside. She wasted no time making her way over to the metal table where prisoner 516 was chained up, happily singing some song under her breath.
She pulled out her chair and sat down, opening her file and the case report for the fight the inmate had recently gotten herself into.
She then set up her tape recorder, another new requirement from the Sheriff’s, and turned it on.
“This is Officer Whitmore, conducting interrogation on inmate 516,” she said as she organized her files. She finished and looked up at the girl in front of her. “Inmate, state your name for the record.”
Instead of listening, the inmate was leaning back and picking her nails painted with chipped polish, completely unbothered, singing some unknown song quietly to herself.
“Inmate 516,” Tessa snapped.
A smile slowly spread across her face as her blue eyes met her own. “That’s me!”
“State your name for the record,” she spat, glaring at the girl who still looked as if all this was a game to her.
She leaned forward, letting her head rest on her hand as she smiled at her, “I, Jinx, of sound mind and body, consent to this interrogation and for it to be recorded in its entirety. I also consent to this being used against me in a court of law should such a need arise,” she said, reciting the very thing Tessa was about to have her say for legal purposes.
Looks like this wasn’t her first rodeo.
Tessa scowled. This girl was nothing more than a nuisance, acting all arrogant and pissing people off for fun. She looked like she was 18 at most, skinny as a stick, with long blue braids that matched her blue cloud tattoos she had all the way up her arm, and she had a crazy look in her eyes, but she was nothing special.
Definitely not worth all the supposed fear every single guard had of her.
She didn’t give her a shred of her attention, instead, she put the paper with the words the inmate had just recited away and moved on. “Did you or did you not attack an inmate yesterday?”
“Me? Attack that mountain of a man?? Oh no,” she said with a snort, “If you had interrogated the crowd you would see it was actually inmate 453. I heard that man she attacked killed a friend of hers when they were both free, it was a simple act of revenge. Case solved and closed, wouldn’t you agree?”
“Don’t lie to me,” she spat as she smacked her hand on the table, “I was there, it was clearly you who attacked that man.”
She cocked her head to the side. “But it really wasn’t. Did you really not bother to ask anyone else what happened before you came in here?”
She scoffed, flipping to the eyewitness page of the case report. Someone else had made and filed it, so she didn’t interrogate anyone herself, but she had been there that day, and it was more than obvious who the attacker was. There would be plenty of other people who would corroborate her story.
She looked down and read the first statement from an inmate.
Question: Who attacked the inmate?
Answer: It was 453, that’s who did it.
…wait, what!?
She quickly moved on to another one.
Question: Who attacked the inmate?
Answer: Why do I need to answer this?? Everyone saw 453 do it.
No.
No, no, no, no.
She had been there. She had seen inmate 516 do it, her striking blue hair and all.
Question: Who attacked the inmate?
Answer: I didn’t see her number, but she had black hair-
That was a lie!!
Question: Who attacked the inmate?
Answer: Inmate 453, you know, the one with black hair and those face tattoos. Heard that the guy killed her friend on the outside, the bitch was planning this ever since that guy got thrown into our cell block.
How?
All of the statements were the same. Didn’t matter if it was an inmate or an Enforcer. All of them were the same. It was prisoner 453 with the black hair and face tattoos, and she did it because the guy killed her friend.
“You know, you really should do your research before you interrogate people. Tessa.”
Her blood froze in her veins. “My name,” she whispered.
“Hmm?” The inmate said, head cocking to the side in confusion.
“My name- how did you know it? I never told you,” she said, voice shaking in fear as she suddenly started remembering everything everyone was saying about this girl.
She smiled, “I know it because, unlike you, I do my research, Tessa.”
She stared at her, eyes wide in fear.
“I know lots of other things too. Would you like to hear them?” She asked happily.
She didn’t answer, she just sat there in silence.
“I know you’re the fifth child in your large family. Someone who broke away from being a banker or an artist like all your other siblings to prove yourself,” she said as she looked into her eyes, “I also know you were so desperate to prove yourself capable that you pulled countless all nighters so you could graduate a year earlier than all the people in the academy, and then you took one of the hardest, most unwanted jobs in the force. You became a guard here!” She exclaimed happily, lifting her chained-up hands to gesture at the room around them.
Tessa began to shake with fear as the girl rattled off her life story.
“Then you see a fight break out, and instead of letting it go like everyone told you you should do, you pushed and pushed until they let you integrate me. Then you walk in here a day later and grab your morning coffee from the cafeteria at exactly 6:15 like you do every morning and come to interrogate me because you think this is your chance to finally stand out from the rest. Is that right?” She asked, “Please correct me if I’m wrong. I take such pride in being well informed, I’d hate to sit here talking like I know everything and be wrong.”
“H-how…” she whispered.
“How?” She repeated as she leaned back, “Well, same reason all those reports say inmate 534 attacked that man, the same reason that tape recorder of yours isn’t actually recording a damn thing.”
Tessa’s eyes snapped over to the recorder she had been using, shakily reaching over and pausing the recording. She rewound the tape inside and pressed play, but nothing happened.
She smashed her finger on the play button over and over again, but it didn’t matter how many times she pressed it, nothing happened.
The inmate leaned forward in her chair, eyes boring into Tessa’s as she looked back over at her. “I’m a Jinx,” she said evenly, a manic glint in her eyes.
Tessa stood up, terrified, and rushed over to the door, fumbling as she pulled out her card to get the hell out of there.
“Say… did you like your coffee?” She asked, making Tessa freeze on the very spot.
“What?” She whispered, slowly turning back around.
“I guess that’s a yes,” she said with a smile, “How wonderful. I’ll have to let Garry know his newest recipe is a success.”
She knew Garry.
SHE KNEW GARRY.
“What did you do?” she asked in fear.
“What did I do?” She asked, eyebrows shooting up, “Well, nothing really, I just paid my old friend Garry a visit. It’s unfortunate, he has to go out and get a new suit for a funeral he’ll be attending this weekend.”
She swallowed and asked her next question, even though she feared she already knew the answer, “W-whose funeral?”
Jinx looked at her with those blue eyes of hers, “Why, yours of course! Only polite to attend the funeral of the woman you poisoned, wouldn’t you agree?”
“No,” she said as she spun around and fumbled with the card reader, “No, no, no, no, no-“
“I wouldn’t bother with going to the doctor’s. You only have a few minutes till the poison renders you immobile. 3 to be exact,” she said as she leaned back in her chair and began to examine her nails like she had been when Tessa walked in here.
The card reader finally gave her the green light and unlocked the door, letting her sprint out of the room, hearing Jinx begin to sing that same tune as she ran, trying to find help, but everyone had seemed to have left the halls.
They were all gone because of the mandatory evacuation drill that had been scheduled. Everyone was out in the courtyard taking roll of the prisoners, she thought in a panic.
She had to make it to the prison doctor, he could help her.
She looked at a clock as she ran past it, one minute, that’s all she had left, according to Jinx.
She sprinted up the steps, two at a time, as the haunting song Jinx had been singing played through her mind.
Let’s blow this city to ashes, and see what Pow-Pow thinks.
She turned the corner, glancing at another clock, thirty more seconds.
It’s such pathetic neatness.
Her eyes landed on the door to the hospital wing, she was going to make it, she thought with a laugh.
She reached for the door and went to pull it open, but the door was locked.
Locked because of the card reader.
She went to pull out her card, but by then it was too late. Her card fell to the floor only a second before she did, her life leaving her body as she remembered the warning that other enforcers had given her.
She should have taken it and stayed as far away from inmate 516 as possible, she thought as the last line the inmate had sung rang in her head.
But not for long cause you’ll get Jinxed!
-Next Time on The Price of Your Peace-
Madness had erupted in Stillwater.
So many had no clue of the evil that lurked within that girl.
“I’ll find you, Powder. The second you step out of this place, I’ll find you.”
“I’m a helpless little girl,” Jinx said as she pulled out a single match she had managed to get after tedious days of work, “And I’ve set the building on fire. By accident. Completely by accident.”
“YOU ARE NO GIRL!!” He snarled, “AND YOU AREN’T FUCKING SCARED!!!”
They had been the ones to sacrifice her for their fucking peace, and she was still forced to pay the price.
“That family of yours will have your head on a plate the moment word that you’re alive gets out.”
“7 years, 5 months, 25 days, and 47 seconds. How many more seconds? How many more days? How many more months? How many more years?”
“This,” he said, “is the only place a monster like you will be accepted.”
She was going to get her revenge.
“See you soon, Pow-Pow.”
-Freedom-
Coming October 1st