Author’s Note: This is the second installment in the Neverland Series, and the first in the Fame Universe. Click here to catch up on the Neverland arc before you begin.
Fee hated coming to this place.
As she pressed the intercom button to the drive-in gate for staff at the Volary Jail, she steeled herself against the thought of what she was walking into. Donning her credentials to her doctor’s coat, she took a look at herself in the rearview mirror as she prepared herself to go inside. Honey brown eyes. Long brown hair. Thick eyelashes. And small, full lips.
She was not unpleasant to look at, and normally that was to her advantage. But walking in here, it always made her a target or a topic of conversation. She decided as much as she disdained the idea, she may have to take up Iggy’s approach to recruitment, and become less rigid about gender presentation.
Fee sighed as the car rolled through the gate and down the gravel drive. It seemed like the boss took special delight in assigning her cases here.
After she parked, she got out of her car and walked up the narrow sidewalk to the prison. The three floors of the youth wing were painted white, as if to say, we are innocent in age, if not in deed - spare us, let us see the sky again. Fee shook off the thought, and walked through the front door. Looming, impressive, stifling, and oppressive. The Volary Jail was not a place of mercy.
The morning shift in the medical ward passed by with little issue. She accepted the comments as they came, more so from the corrections officers than the inmates. Fee had been to Volary Jail before, and most of the men wearing stripes avoided her, as if they understood that she was the predator. But there was a small population that pushed past that feeling,; the one tickling the hair at the nape of their neck. They kept chucking blood into the water, hoping to get her close enough to catch. Not realizing they would be an addition to the chum.
She appreciated the ones with the smarts to avoid her. It made life so much easier.
When the lunch hour rolled around, Fee decided it was time to take her walk. She had felt the building humming all day, waiting for her to find him. As she walked along the dark and narrow hallways, she could almost feel them start to vibrate, the dust falling like golden glitter in the air. She paused to breathe it all in, the magic, the dust, and found herself walking to the kitchens.
When she got there, she heard a low baritone humming when she walked in the door, just out of sight. The song was some little ditty he’d written, Fee was sure, of little consequence to her. She saw what she was looking for on the table, a blue spiral that he’d paid $12 for on commissary. She could hear him in the freezers, humming along to himself, thinking he was alone.
The CO that had let her in had barely noticed her walking by.
She shut the door behind her, pausing to tap once on each corner, glittering gold dust falling from her fingertips as she did. When she turned around to face the table again, the man she was looking for, Warren Tyler, was still humming the song.
But now, he was standing protectively over his notebook, staring her down. She hadn’t heard him leave the freezer.
“Hello Warren,” she said. Voice thick, honied.
“State your business,” the inmate said, eyeing her up and down. “You look like bad news, and I know a fucking Tink when I see one.”
She felt the anger flare hot under her skin, but forced it down as she smiled at him. If you make it out of this room, she thought, you’re going to pay for that.
“What’s the matter?” she purred, channeling her rage at the slight into her performance. “You don’t have time for a fan?”
She batted her lashes, let her hand trail along the counter, just avoiding the blood left from the meat he’d been preparing, not yet cleaned.
She felt his eyes on her, heavy as fingertips on her wrist.
“I don’t know what you are, besides bad news, lady.” Warren replied, “And I can’t have that in here.” he paused, watching as she kept inching forward as he spoke.
Then, quietly, almost to himself: “This is a good job, I can’t mess it up.”
Fee was standing directly in front of him now, eyes wide and feigning vulnerability as she looked up into his eyes. A lovely shade of green. How marketable.
“Show me what’s in the notebook.” She said, her voice a low threat.
Warren’s hands seemed to move on their own, now. Reaching down to flip it open and start thumbing through pages, his face showing fear and then horror as his body continued to follow her command, flipping each page one at a time, his body shaking as he attempted to throw off her control. He finally turned his gaze away from the book and looked up at her, her eyes meeting his with an amused but bored expression.
“Let me go!” he said, fighting the panic in his voice. “Please, stop.”
“It’s best not to fight it,” she answered, barely acknowledging him as she looked over his shoulder at the turning pages. “The lactic acid buildup will be a bitch tomorrow.”
The pages continued to turn and turn, and she took it all in. Sketches, building dioramas, poetry, music on hand drawn music sheets. Pages and pages and pages of stream of consciousness, a bible verse written in almost every margin. She remembered the sweet sound of his hum when she’d walked in the room.
There was no doubt. He was an Omni.
And she was about to be so BACK at the office. They’d all be eating good off this catch for years.
“You’re going to be sorry you did this.” he spat at her, his hands still miming turning pages though they’d long since run out. “You’re going to wish you’d never -”
“Enough.” She said, waiving her hands at the interruption. Now his lips were moving, but no sound escaped. His face contorted and the vein in his forehead stuck out with a lurid, silent scream. “My turn to talk.”
Fee gestured for him to sit in a stool; his contorted face beginning to purple. Against his wishes, Warren’s body followed her command. Silent and movable as a doll.
“I’m here to make a deal, Warren.” She smiled now, maintaining the car salesman smile in the face of his broiling rage. “Because I know something about you you don’t admit, would never admit - especially here.”
She leaned in closer, her mouth almost touching his ears.
“You don’t worship the God you claim - you wanna be famous.”
His eyes flashed with longing.
Gotcha.
His face had gone almost back to normal as the minutes passed without a word from anyone. The silence was his escape from the awkwardness of the situation. When he tried to speak again, his voice came out hoarse.
“There aren’t any deals to be made, ma’am.” He said.
She appreciated the newfound sense of respect, but she didn’t like this answer. But before she could reply, he continued: “I’m already spoken for.”
She smiled at him then, and pointed toward the small window near the ceiling, noon light pouring in. “I think he will find it very hard to speak for you now.”
“Will I?”A voice came from near the kitchen door.
They both turned to look, and Peter was standing by the door she’d sealed shut just moments before. Without a word, he pressed a single finger against it, and it popped open with ease. “
Warren, get lost.”
Warren simply nodded his head, grabbed his notebook, and ran out without a look back.
Shit.
They stared at each other for a beat, and finally she broke the silence. “What do you want for him?”
Peter smiled at her, the face of magnanimity. But his eyes glittered like a crocodile.
“Who will you trade me for him? Who is he worth?”
The request, though not unreasonable, would be impossible to fulfill. “What do you mean?”
“Oh, come on. I know that you’ve got some lame horse in the pen that isn’t carrying his weight. Just make sure they come to jail instead of getting put out to pasture, and then you can have Warren. That’s my trade.”
She felt conflicted for a moment. But ultimately, this made sense.
She started throwing out names. Nothings, nobodies. People and problems she could live without. A director, an actor, a yoga instructor, another songwriter, a debutant. Everyone she could think to spare.
He methodically broke down and denied all of them.
Eventually he stopped her, his smile a cruel drip of blood from a canine. “No. But it’s good to know that centuries haven’t changed you, Fee. Still willing to sell out anyone or anything to get your own way.”
He turned to leave, and just as he was walking out the door, he turned to look at her again. “It’s a shame he didn’t send one of the others. I might have been willing to negotiate with one of them.”
The menacing smile was dancing on his face, slowly unfurling into rage. “Hopefully, this loss is enough that he learns his lesson to never send you around me again.”
As he left, Fee stood in the now empty kitchen, no longer humming with promise. She withdrew her phone from her pocket, and sent a text. “The resident at the Volary Jail is in confirmed possession of an Omni. Requesting reassignment as subject is hostile and risk of loss is great.”
When she got back to the car, she checked the phone again and saw the reply: a thumbs up reaction. Great.
She looked up at the jail a final time, and saw Peter looking at her from one of the top floor windows. When he saw her looking, he turned and walked away.
“I don’t know how long you’re going to blame me for, Peter.” She said as she started her car and drove down the drive.
“But it’s not my fault you didn’t read the fine print.”
Author’s Note: Listen to the companion playlist for this story above, or click here to listen on Spotify.
