Merciless (Merciless 1)

That cold, heartless look in his eyes is there and gone just as quickly as it came.

He stares ahead of him, at the cinder block wall and ignores me for a moment. I almost speak but I don’t know what to say. And even if I asked the questions that keep me up at night, Jase wouldn’t know the answers.

Mindlessly, I pick under my nails. Maybe if I begged him, he’d let me go. The huff of a genuine, but sarcastic laugh gets Jase’s attention. I can feel his eyes on me, but I don’t look up until he speaks.

“Carter said to buy you a drawing pad. But I thought maybe you’d want something else as well?”

“Sleeping pills,” I answer him without thinking twice. I’m hungry, but more than that, I need to sleep. “It’s hard to sleep in here.”

When I peek up at him, Jase is looking at me like I’m trying to fool him and that thumping in my chest beats harder and faster. “I need to sleep,” I beg him. “I take them at home. That or wine some nights. Please, I’m not trying to drug anyone or OD or anything. I just need to sleep, please.” My voice cracks and that pathetic feeling that plagued me only moments before he walked through the door comes rushing back to me, hard. It nearly makes me bury my head between my knees with shame.

“I just want to sleep,” I plead.

“Sleeping pills… any particular brand?” Jase’s question eases the anxiety slightly.

Composing myself as best as I can, I brush my hair behind my ear and answer him, “I’ve tried a lot of them. There’s a pink box at the drugstore. I forget the name,” I say then close my eyes tight, trying to remember it. Trying to picture the box that sits on my nightstand.

They open quickly at the sound of the chair scratching on the floor.

But Jase is just leaning back, grabbing his cell phone and typing into it.

“Do you want anything else?”

“Tarot cards,” I blurt out without really thinking and the expression on Jase’s face tells me that I’m being stupid or naïve or weird. I don’t know. I mean, even if I am losing my mind I do realize it’s an odd thing to ask for. “I’ve been bored out of my mind and I like to think with them. It’s just something I like.” With each sentence, my words come out softer.

Every day I read my cards. The damn things didn’t tell me this was coming though.

“Maybe clothes?” Jase asks me, giving me a pointed look and my cheeks flame with embarrassment.

“Clothes would be nice.” I haven’t thought much about my actual clothes; I know I’m dirty and covered in filth. The only place I’ve sat or slept is on this tiny mattress and I know I smell.

“I could use a lot of things-”

Jase cuts me off. “I’ll get you some toiletries and you know… those things.”

I nod my head, swallowing down every bit of humiliation that threatens to consume me.

“You’re very nice for a prison guard,” I tell him although I stare straight ahead at the empty corner of the room.

He huffs a short, humorless laugh and asks, “Food?”

“Carter said he has to be the one to feed me,” I answer Jase immediately and then close my eyes as my empty stomach tightens with pain. I should have eaten before. I have to be smart. But how many times have I told myself that, only to end up in the same place with no change?

“That sounds like something he would say.”

Everything hurts at this moment. My body from exhaustion, my heart from hopelessness. Starvation is only third on my list.

“What else would Carter say?” I ask him, just to continue talking. To get to know him. To make him feel like I want him to stay. My heart flickers with the hope that he may hold the key to me leaving.

“Carter would say he’s sorry it had to be this way.” I’d laugh at Jase’s words if they didn’t hurt me the way they do.

“I don’t think I believe that,” I nearly whisper.

“He never wanted any of this,” Jase tells me. “He was only a kid when everything escalated, and it was kill or be killed.” The silence stretches as I imagine a younger version of Carter, one who hadn’t been hardened by hate and death.

“You always have a choice,” I manage to speak, although I find it ironic as I sit in this cell, without a single choice of my own.

“It’s a nice thought, isn’t it?” Jase offers. There’s no sarcasm, no sense of anger or sadness. Only matter-of-fact words.

“I’d like to leave this room,” I tell him although it comes out a question. As Jase nods, hope rises inside of me.

“It will happen,” Jase says. “I know it will.”