Freedom

Part 12: Let Go

By the time that morning arrived, Danica's time perception had been wittled like tree bark. While others had slept, or perhaps stayed in comatose, Danica had stayed up, pacing her room, taking her pills by the hour—than minutes—She could never use like a normal person. Her mind went from all or nothing. Twenty-eight hours, Danica thought. And counting.

Most people can go three days without sleep before their brains begin to fizzle, or their moods rapidly turn into an  irritable blur. Danica's record was fourteen days; but addiction is not like a new slate when you pick up the dirty habit. When you pick it up again, you leave off just as reckless as when you started. And with Danica, her mind had sparked within the first 24 hours of her meth use.
With heavy use came an inconsolable desire to keep moving; to sit still was torment, like jumping out of her skin with no other way to escape. But the benefits had outweighed the negative... as long as the steady flow kept coming to her from Sionis.

Danica had racing thoughts. Things that could make sense—she didn't know if they did or if they were in her head.

She had smoked three packs of cigarettes, one after another. Locked in her room, Danica knew that she would go mad. Her habit was more of a social one, not something one should do on her own. But Jerome said she could break free, care less, love life more, become like him—if she would just let go.

Danica chuckled to herself, thinking of dear, old dad. Oh, he'd be so proud.
Then the door opened with two guards standing in the threshold.

Jerome sat in the front room, balancing a knife on his knuckles. When he saw the guards, he waved his hand and the knife disappeared. He watched them bring out Danica—she was smiling brightly, clicking her teeth. She sounded like a raccoon or a dolphin. Danica trotted toward the table and seated herself directly on Jerome's lap.

"Well," he greeted her, "hello."

"Did you come into my room last night?" her voice was easy, laid-back, not so fried as her mind was.

"No."
"Hmm," she groaned, "I know."

"Were you expecting me?"
"Well, yes."
An inmate approached Danica. A newbie. Jerome observed Danica's demeanor; she was still grinning as the new meat approached her.

"Hello," the inmate greeted her.
Danica rose to her feet.

"Why, hello, dear?" Danica greeted that man like he was her friend. Then—
That inmate was cowering on the floor as Danica slammed her feet into the face, body, legs, face—she beat him without provocation. Jerome watched in amusement, and then bust out in raucous laughter as the inmate tried to make her stop. Although the situation was hilarious to Jerome, what the guards saw was Danica, ripped with rage as she fucking brutalized the man at her feet. The inmates watched her with received interest, including Sionis, observing his product at work.

Three guards bum-rushed Danica, pushing her against a wall, screaming something that made no sense. Danica cackled at the men hugged against her.

"Ooh, they're jealous!" Her last word was a horrific screech.
Jerome, still seated, watched the guards wrestle with Danica. She gave them a run for their money. It probably had nothing to do with strength, but for what he could observe, her pills gave her a hard reserve of persistence, disregarding pain, feeling like she was indeed invincible, but she was also a loose fucking cannon.
Jerome made a face, Well, yes, now I believe it that she whacked her daddy, he surmised.
The guards kept her against the wall until she calmed down. The inmate at Jerome's feet had lost consciousness. Fuck him.
The guards let her off with a warning, I know, right—and resumed to their office. Danica sat down beside Jerome and pushed her hair back.

"So," she said calmly, "how did you sleep?"

Jerome chuckled, "Very well, thanks for asking."

She glanced down at the bloody pulp at her feet.

"Goddamn," she mused carelessly, "what happened to him?"

Jerome burst into laughter. Danica grinned, staring at her victim with satisfaction.