The Color of Jade (Jade Series Book 1) (34 page)

“I warned you, Jade,” Damian sneered. Rubin stood next to him. “I don’t know if I can give you another chance now.”

“Another chance for what?”

“To accept me,” he said, the mattress gave way as he dropped to his knees onto it. I was stupid to think I could ever be strong enough to get away from him.

“I would rather die in here than spend another day out there with you.”

He leaned over me. My breaths staggered as the space between us decreased. “Morrison is determined to bring you back after you are through with your punishment but I can fix that. I won't have you making a fool out of me. Don’t think that I can’t live without you… Disappointed… Yes, devastated… No.  If its death you want, then I can arrange it…
After
I get through with you,” he said, and then an evil smile surfaced. “I could always sell you.”

Reminded once again, he viewed me as property, expendable and easily replaced as if throwing away your favorite toy after it lost its luster. My heart sank as I heard the door shut behind him. My mind and body numbed as I stared blankly at the gray cement wall. He returned me to that room, that cold cement room.

***

I woke slowly to the eerie buzz of silence. My breaths echoed loudly, painfully in my head and I tried to slow them. My jaw trembled. I shivered uncontrollably while goose bumps crawled across my skin. My tremors grew stronger. I curled my knees up tighter to ward off the cold as it seeped into my skin. I opened my eyes. The blackness remained the same so I let them drift closed.

The pain in my head shot into my eyes like jagged, pulsating spears and grew with intensity. The remnant effects as the drug wore off became intolerable the longer time passed and I wondered why Damian hadn't shown up yet. I felt conflicted, as I wanted him to come to relieve the pain and dreaded what came after.

The injections became a part of the routine that I welcomed. Despite of the bugs that appeared and warped walls that spun, the drug took me to a place other than the cold cement tomb. The effects left me barely able to breathe and took away my desire to do so. I drifted in and out of consciousness. I longed for the time that I wouldn't wake up and I wondered why my heart continued to beat. He wouldn't let me die. Damian wanted me alive, barely alive, but alive just enough, that I wished for death.

My heart quickened with each panicked breath and I felt dizzy as the faint sounds of heavy steps echoed in the empty hallway. They grew increasingly louder then stopped in front of my door as the jingling of keys rattled on the other side.

I pressed my face into the stale, dank mattress as the door opened and he entered, but something wasn't the same. The usual thick tension along with Damian’s eerie, desperate breath patterns were absent. I turned to look as a man pulled at the string overhead. I put my head quickly against my knees to shield my eyes that burned from the bright light. I flinched when I felt a hand smooth over the back of my head and I waited for whatever was next. Then the mattress gave way as he sat next to me.

“Turn off the light.” A man I'd never heard before spoke to someone in the hall.

I managed to open my eyes as the room went dark again. The dim lights from the hallway bled through the open door and provided the only light, but enough that I saw, he wasn't Damian.

“Here, have a drink.”

I took the bottle hesitantly as he handed it to me. My hands shook and I needed both to clutch onto it.  I drank slowly as the cool water tasted good on my dry tongue and I was glad for the drink.

“Thank you.”

“I’m Casey, and I won’t hurt you. Damian is gone, for now.”

My eyes adjusted slowly. I eyed him with caution. I hadn’t seen him before and he confused me. He didn’t barge in and grab me, but kept his distance as he sat on the mattress instead of the usual invasion of my space.

My eyes burned as I rubbed them and blinked a few times before my vision cleared. Solidly built and tall, he looked to be about Kane's age. The light from the hallway cut into the dark room and revealed his straw colored hair that hung in his eyes. His scent filtered through the room, with a pleasant, clean musky smell, a welcoming change that masked the damp stench of the cement room.

A young woman, not much older than me, walked into the room and held a tray of food. “This is Megan.”

“Hi,” she said quietly. Small, pinpoint dimples popped into her cheeks as she offered a timid smile. She bent to her knees in front of me and set the tray down then glanced at Casey as he nodded. She stood and quietly left. I glanced quickly at the tray to see a covered plate and a syringe with a needle.

“She brought food for you.”

“I don’t want anything to eat.”

“You need to eat to get your strength back,” he paused briefly, as his gentle eyes quickly scanned over me to assess my condition, “you’ll be dead soon if you don’t.”

“What do I want my strength for? So I can live through more of this?”

My anger sat just below the surface but I felt weak, barely able to argue as I rested my head against the cold cement wall. “I would rather be dead… I will never be strong enough to stop Damian from … what he does.”

My voice threatened to give out over the humiliation I felt, as if spoken aloud made it more real, more painful. For the first time in over a month since I returned to the jail, I wanted to cry. My eyes grew moist and my throat tightened as I forced it down with a hard swallow.

What I really wanted, I didn't dare ask for. I hated that I needed the drug, the only way to calm the tremors, dull the pain and to lose myself. Tears welled up in my eyes and one ran down the side of my face. He went to touch my hand, a kind gesture but I jerked away from him.

“Don’t touch me!    Please…”

He didn’t seem too surprised at my reaction as his hand returned to his side. “I’ll give you something for the tremors.”

A sigh escaped me and he took that as my agreement. He pushed the tray closer.

“Eat first,” he paused, “you’ll be out as soon as I drug you.”

I hesitated for a moment, but decided to eat. He handed me a sandwich and I forced myself to take several bites then washed it down with a sip of milk as I swallowed hard to force the knot from my throat. It looked better than it tasted as the texture and taste of cardboard came to mind.

“Eat.”

He looked at me, and then the nearly half-eaten sandwich.

“Thank you, but...” I clutched my stomach as a gnawing pain growled inside me and I doubled over in an attempt to relieve it. “I can’t eat anymore.”

His brows knit together with genuine concern, his forehead wrinkled from the tension and he pressed his lips into a thin line. “You hardly ate anything,” Casey said, as he covered the tray of food and pushed it aside.  “I’ll bring you food and if you continue to eat, I’ll help you with the withdrawals,” he said, with a raise of his eyebrows. He held up the needle to tempt me.

“Okay.”

“This isn’t the same as what Damian gave you, but it’s similar. I will gradually give you less until you don’t need it anymore.”

“Where did Damian go?”

“Kane invaded Morrison’s hideout… Damian needed to help. I don’t think he’ll be back for a while.”

“Kane found Morrison?”

“Not exactly, just his hideout.”

“Where’s Morrison now?”

“I wasn’t privileged with that information,” he said, with an underlying bitterness in his tone. “He’s out there still.”

“What about the kids?” I asked. My breaths grew rapid as my weakened voice raised a notch to show my worry. My heavy eyes searched his for an answer. He met my diluted gaze as he revealed nothing.

“I don’t know.”

“Was there… anybody killed?”

“A few, on both sides.”

I offered my arm to him as it trembled and he looked at me with saddened eyes. Maybe second thoughts of giving me the injection crossed his mind. “I’m sorry, Jade, for what Damian has done to you. If he comes back, he can’t know I’m helping you.”

“Okay,” I answered, I shook uncontrollably as it grew difficult to talk. “Who… are you?   And why… are you helping me?”

“I’m Casey Jackson…  Damian’s brother.” I gasped, shocked by who he was. He quickly added. “But I am not like him… Or Morrison… Or my dad for that matter. And the way I see it, Quinn got what he deserved.”

Confusion muddled through my mind and with a puzzled look, I questioned why he remained here if he had a chance to leave, if he wasn't like them? Then, as if he read my thoughts, he offered a soft smile that sent warmth through me, that I hadn't felt in a long time.

“I can help better by staying here for now… I’m going to help Kane get you out.”

“You are?”

“Yeah…Are you ready?”

“Please…”

I looked down at my arms with little red track marks that followed my veins from the injections Damian gave me. I watched Casey pierce it into my skin. The room spun again. Lethargy took over and my eyes roll back as I closed them, and then drifted out of consciousness.

***

I traced invisible swirling koru’s into the rough grey cement for what seemed like hours. The cold walls seemed to close in around me, reminding me my wish for a new beginning was just that. Only a wish.

The door opened slowly and just in time as the internal trembling could be stopped with the one thing Casey brought me. He was the only one I had to look forward to. I appreciated him even more as he never barged in. Casey peered around the door then nudged it open further with his shoulder.

“You're awake,” he said, as if he answered his own question. He gave me a smile and reached for the string that dangled, to turn on the light. “Do you want the light on?”

“Yeah,” I giggled slightly as I returned a weak smile. “And yeah.”

“Are you starting to feel better?” He asked and pulled the string as the light flickered on. It surged with brightness then dulled to a muted glow. He glanced up at the ceiling. “Problems with the generator,” he said, with a shrug of his shoulders, as if I wondered why the lights weren't working well.

“Yeah, I'm starting to feel better for longer periods of time. The withdrawls are weaker,” I replied, and due to my increase in alertness, I had more than enough time to think. “Do you know where Trey is?”

“He’s in lockdown, in the basement.”

“Is he okay?”

“Trey’s okay… I’ve gone down to see him once but I don’t want the other guards to become suspicious.”

“Suspicious of what?”

“That I’m helping you. The other guards think Damian sent me to watch you. The truth is… no one was.”

I studied Casey intently as he sat at the edge of the mattress. I knew my judgment was somewhat clouded but I still saw that Casey possessed a kindness that the others here didn't have. He stood, able-bodied and muscular with an air of confidence, a lighter complexioned version of Damian and some of their mannerisms were similar, but he had striking, warm hazel eyes, not the cold calloused grey of Damian’s. His quietness lacked the dangerous, impulsive drive that fueled Damian's rage most of the time as if Casey actually had a brain he used instead of acting on anger alone.

His build resonated intimidation and power as he looked like he shouldn't be messed with but he mirrored the exact opposite with a gentle strength possibly used only when necessary.

“Damian will start this all over again when he comes back, Casey. I don’t know if I want your help,” I said, as the jittery tremors started through my body. A tingling sensation skimmed my skin and I knew the withdrawals would begin soon.  He glanced at me with hurt in his eyes, but I knew he understood.  “If there is no chance in me ever getting out of here, I would rather be dead. I don’t want to go through that again… I can’t…” My voice broke as the tears came and I was angry that I let them surface.

“Don’t give up, Jade. As long as you’re alive… there’s always a chance to get away,” he said. I felt the pinch as he injected me with the drug. “Just sleep it off.”

“Wait!”  I said, but it was too late. The room spun as I closed my eyes. “I wanted to ask… how… Gage died… did Kane find him?” I asked slowly, the sound of my own voice slurred and distorted as I fought the effects of the drug. I didn’t want to allow it to fully take effect until after I got my answer. “I need to know… what happened to him.” As much as it hurt, I needed to know the truth, all of it. As devastating as it would be, he deserved that from me.

Barely able to open my heavy eyes, I saw Casey, warped in front of me. I couldn’t fight it anymore and my eyes closed. The sensation of a whirlwind spun in my head as I surrendered to the drug. I wasn’t sure if I dreamt it or if Casey really said it, but I heard his voice faint in my ear as darkness surrounded me. “Gage is alive… He's coming for you soon… don’t give up.”

I woke suddenly as Casey picked me up. He moved quickly as he carried me out of my cement cell. My head felt heavy, weighted to his shoulder as I drifted in a haze.

“Where are we going?”

Casey gave an order to a guard. “Open the door. She is being moved to C-block.”

I heard keys jingle and then the loud clanging noise of the steel bars open and then slam shut again, reverberating off the concrete walls. He walked down another long hallway and went through two other doors.

“I’m moving you to the common area. There are other prisoners but you will have your own cell. Morrison is on his way here…” Casey started to say, when I panicked. My heart suddenly raced and instant tears surfaced at the thought of him near me. He sat me on the ground in a recessed doorway. He gripped the back of my head and covered my mouth.

“Jade! Calm down and listen to me!” He said anxiously. With purposeful slow breaths, I forced myself to relax and he removed his hand. “It is just Morrison coming back and only for a short time. I am hoping he is too busy worrying about Kane to think much about you.”

I managed to nod as he picked me up.

“Casey… Is Gage okay? He’s not…”

“Gage is fine… he’s ready to maim a certain someone and beside himself most of the time… but he’s okay.”

“He’s not dead?” I begged for it to be true. The fear and torment of Gage's death lifted immensely as my grief melted away, which left me desperate to see his face and beautiful blue eyes.

“No! He’s not… Did Damian say…?”

“Yeah…”

“He’s very much alive, Jade… Shh...Guards ahead.”

As we walked past them an overwhelming surge of gratitude rushed into my heart as tears flooded my eyes. My body shook and my chest constricted as I tried to hold back uncontrolled sobs. I gripped his shirt as I buried my face in his shoulder to hide them.

“Thank you,” I whispered.

He offered no response and wasn’t sure if he heard me. In spite of the heaviness of my head, I tilted it back to look at him. As he looked down at me with a half-hearted smile, I saw years of harbored guilt and pain deep in his eyes. I wondered if his quietness was his way of modestly accepting thanks that he didn’t think he deserved. His weak smile faded as he pulled his eyes from mine and came to an open door.

He walked into a noisy area. My head throbbed as the sounds grew and I heard every little sound all at once magnified in the cavernous room. My mind whirled, overwhelmed and overstimulated, and unsure how to cope. I shuttered as he carried me into a barred cell and sat me on a mattress on the floor.

“Thank you again, Casey,” I said, as I glanced up at him, his eyes revealed an understanding. Something he kept hidden under his rough appearance. He knew, the hostile environment among Damian, Morrison and his father, more than I would probably ever know.

“I should thank you…”

Puzzlement surfaced in my eyes but exhaustion overpowered me and I couldn't pursue the question. He reached across me and unfolded a grey woolen blanket then wrapped it around my shoulders. The blanket felt heavy like a sheet of weighted sandpaper, but I welcomed the warmth and didn’t ask him to remove it.

Whispers from the cells sounded like muffled echoes in my head so I tried to think of nothing. Empty darkness, like the cement room I just came from. The cause and the cure for all my problems, that cold, musty tomb. “Casey, it’s so loud in here.”  I covered my ears as I fell back into the stale, smelly mattress.

He pulled the syringe from his shirt pocket and gave me a second injection for the day. I would only get one more later tonight, and it would have to last for at least twelve hours before I could get another one.

“Only enough to help you fall back asleep,” he said. I felt a pinch and everything slowly went black.

***

An overwhelming brightness woke me as ribbon-like sunlight filtered through the barred windows. I sat up and looked around. The small cell, a bricked, eight-foot room, partially enclosed but opened two feet towards the front with steel bars and you could see inside the cells next to you.  Across the front, the same bars slid closed and latched shut.

A guard came by and brought me a tray of food and water. I took two bites and pushed it aside.

“Aren’t you going to eat?” I turned to see a man, maybe in his forties. His dark brown hair with silver weaved through the sides, in desperate need of a haircut, puffed at the sides and curled around his ears.

“No, do you want it?”

“They don’t like it if you don’t eat your food,” he said, as he looked over his glasses that sat lower on his nose and peered at me through the bars that separated our cells.

“I can’t, will you eat it?”

With just enough room, I slid the tray under the bars in between our cells then returned to my mattress and curled my arms around my knees. For the next two days, the guard brought food. I ate as much as I could and the man in the cell next to me finished it off. As I went to pass my tray again, the man refused.

“Eat the food. You need to eat so you don’t get too weak,” he said apprehensive. His eyes, a rich brown, looked over me cautiously with concern.

“I can’t eat it all,” I said, with a heavy sigh, “it makes me sick.”

The guard walked up to us. “What’s going on?”  I didn’t answer. He drug his stick along the bars like running your fingers quickly up piano keys, but the sound was warped and lacked all harmony. “I asked you, what’s going on? Is he bothering you for food?”

“No. I offered it. He wouldn’t take it.”

My heart quickened. Keys jingled in his hands as he searched for the right one. The metal bars clanged as the cell door opened and the gangly snake of a man stepped inside as he tapped his stick against the palm of his hand. Another guard walked over. “Leave her alone, Jasper.”

“I think she needs a little encouragement to eat, Denny,” the one named Jasper said. “Maybe she’d rather play instead.”

Jasper crept closer to my face. His absence of personal hygiene disgusted me with his hair, a grungy brown from the lack of washing.  His hollow and ashen face with crater like marks looked revolting with a protruding chin full of crooked and unclean teeth. I tried to avoid his eyes but a large jagged scar from his forehead through his right eyebrow down across his cheek demanded my attention. To look couldn’t be avoided.

Jasper grabbed my cheeks between his thumb and fingers, his face inches from mine. His sour breath nauseated me and I tried to turn my face.

“What, you don’t want to play,” Jasper asked mockingly. I shook my head and squeezed my eyes closed.

“You know what Casey said. She’s not to be touched!”

“I don’t care what Casey said! He isn’t here.”

Jasper stretched at the neck of my shirt. My eyes shot open and shifted between him and my chest as he reminded me of the tattoo that scarred me. Panic welled inside me as his sinister black eyes gave me a knowing glare. How did he know?

“I said leave her alone!”

In a scrambled blur, he grabbed him and pulled him away from me as I slid back and pressed myself against the wall. Jasper fought back but he slammed him against the cell wall. Pressure in my chest built as I held my breath. Jasper conceded. The razor sharp glower of his eyes focused on me as he walked slowly out of my cell followed by Denny.

“Better watch out,” Jasper threatened.

I swallowed hard to keep the tears at bay. My insides buzzed with fear but I refused to let it take me whole. My head drifted back against cement as I stared blankly at the ceiling. I exhaled. The sound of my breath loud in my head. My eyes drifted closed as my heart slowed to a normal beat. I wanted to be as far away from this place as possible.

***

“Hey Miss,” the man next to me whispered. The earlier events with Jasper left me in a numbing fog.  I stayed curled on the mattress as I tried to ignore the man. “Come over here for a minute.”  I took a deep breath and sighed as I slid across the floor to the bars where he sat.

“You are awfully young to be in here.  How old are you?”

“Sixteen.”

“How long have you been here?”

“Not sure,” I said, with a shrug.

“You wouldn’t be Jade Kennington, would you?”

I eyed him cautiously as I wondered how he knew me. “Yeah… Why?”

“I wondered when I saw you. I told you, Olivia,” he paused, as he looked past me to a woman in the cell on my other side and then returned his focus to me.  “He keeps the important ones you know. The ones who he can use to get something he wants. There was a rumor going through he had you and brought you here. I guess it was true.”

“There’s nothing important about me.”

“You may not think so, but your brother is. Our only hope right now is Mike Thornton and your brother, and the ones standing with them. Guess that makes
you
a target.”

“Who are you that he keeps you in here?”

“I’m Charles Rogerson,” he said, as he offered his hand. I hesitated as I took it and gave him a brief handshake. He was a slender man, handsome for his age, with rich eyes. His hands were slender and soft, and I pegged him for some kind of office manager. “I’ve worked for the oil plant for twenty years and ran it for ten of those years, a very scarce and important commodity. Morrison wants the plant shut down, which it is, but he has to keep me around in case he needs that resource.” My assumptions on his career status before the virus, slightly off, I was surprised. Sure, he probably worked in an office, just not the one I imagined him in with his tailored suits, GQ haircut and manicured nails, a man who looked completely out of place in a jail.

His brown eyes shifted as he glanced behind me and nodded as he drew my attention back from my thoughts. “This is Olivia Barber, the Mayor of Little Creek.”

I glanced behind me to see a familiar woman leaned up against the bars, looking extremely bored. I’d seen her before, from a distance of course and she didn’t look quite the way I remembered. She lacked her business attire and neatly fashioned hairstyle as well. Neither of them belonged in here.

“Oh,” I said, with a hint of surprise, “who else does he have?”

“Family members, or those who are big in the community who survived the virus, city officials, members of the police force, people who would make things difficult for Morrison, but people he can’t just throw away yet.”

“How do you know me?”  I asked Charles.

“Your brothers are Kane and Trey Kennington.  I heard about what happened with Damian.”

“How?”

“When your jail cell is next to the Mayor you hear a lot.”

Olivia broke in. “Even being locked up, being the Mayor, you know a little about what’s going on still. Every bit of information that makes it in here always makes it to me.”

“And everyone knows… You killed Quinn Jackson,” Charles smiled. I didn’t smile back.

“I didn’t kill him. He fell and died. It was an accident.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Charles quickly replied. “People don’t care how he died, they’re just glad he’s dead. He was a ruthless man, right up there with Morrison.”