Jolene began to drift off to sleep after spending her entire day reading in the library. She had spent hours trying to study her new 'creature', finding absolutely nothing of value. She was still utterly confused by the new 'thing' that seemed to fight with her and inhabit her. It was invisible to seemingly everybody but her, and most of all, it could beat the shit out of anybody. She wondered if anybody specific could see it, though. A voice violently shot through her prison cell.
"Hey, inmate, get up! You have a visitor!"
Jolene was startled by the voice and quickly turned over and looked out the cell door. She saw the guard and was met with happiness and confusion simultaneously. She was so happy that she would have a visitor. The only thing she had seen for 2 years is a sea of concrete and the same faces.
"Really? It's nighttime, can this wait until morning?" Jolene asked the guard.
"C'mon, get up," he bluntly replied. "We have a place to be, and I'm not gonna sit here waiting."
Jolene rolled out of bed and sluggishly walked over to the cell door. She stuck her hands outside between the bars, and the guard put handcuffs on her.
Gwen rolled over to look at Jolene and said, "Hey, what's going on?" "I'm just going to see a visitor," Jolene said. He opened the door and quickly gripped Jolene's wrist. She was yanked forward as the eyes of a few awake prisoners started to stare at her.
The cell block was a truly dreadful place. The only color other than gray came from the prisoners' belongings and clothing. She looked into the cells to see prisoners staring back at her.
Murderers, thieves, rapists, and smugglers alike were all united here in a community.
The block felt full and somehow empty simultaneously at night. An eerie quiet filled the prison while their eyes shined in the little moonlight let into the area. The prison guards' shining eyes glared at Jolene as she was escorted. Jolene never was able to ignore the sound of their boots hitting the ground as they stared into her cell. The jangling of keys and handcuffs went on throughout the entire night, and for more than a week, she couldn't sleep at all. Eventually, it just became background noise.
The guard wasn't there to be friendly or gentle. Every time Jolene fell a little bit behind, she was violently yanked forward. She grunted and gave him a dirty look, and the guard quickly reciprocated. She sighed and stared at the bland walls and floor as she walked. The two moved past the stairway, nearing the meeting rooms. Jolene nervously sighed. She remembered that she had someone to meet.
But who could be visiting her? Was it Arthur? Did Thoko come to bail her out? Someone else?
All she knew was that there was a strange aura coming from one of the meeting rooms. This only furthered her curiosity, though she thought it would most likely be Arthur. The aura made her think otherwise, though.
Jolene and the guard stopped right outside of the six meeting rooms that lined the wall. "Stand on that mark," the guard said, as he pointed to a white sticker on the ground.
Jolene complied and moved over to the mark.
"Now, there are some rules to the meeting rooms, Jolene," he said. "First off, you have 30 minutes maximum. You're not allowed to kiss or get naked, because that could give you the ability to exchange objects. No foreign languages at all, as you could be hiding stuff from us behind a language barrier. The conversation will be recorded, and we can cut the meeting short if we want. Wait at the mark until the door opens." Jolene stood there silently waiting, and impatiently staring at the door. Then, the prison guard finally opened the door.
The guard walked up the stairs into the room, and Jolene quickly followed behind him. A man in a sailor suit sat there, turned away from her. The man was quite fit, as shown by the muscles that coated his whole body. He seemed to be quite tall, but Jolene couldn't tell while he was sitting. He had jet black hair and a Dixie cup sailor cap. The mysterious man had a strong and menacing figure. Jolene lifted the front part of her oversized, floppy hat upward to see better. The man started to turn around and look at Jolene. She finally was going to get a look at his face and hopefully learn his identity.
The man lifted up the brim of his sailor hat, which had a star directly on the center. Jolene wondered if it meant anything significant, and attentively listened to what he would say.
"Your name," the man eventually said. "It's Jolene Joestar...am I correct?" Jolene immediately noticed a stone formation around one of his eyes. His irises were split down the middle, one half being blue, and the other being purple. He had a gap between his two front teeth. This man was so peculiar, and he fascinated her greatly. Intrigued by the multiple irises and stone formation, Jolene ended up staring at them. Jolene kept staring at him, causing the stranger to awkwardly shift in his seat. "Well, who the hell are ya?" Jolene asked the man.
"Woah, calm down there," the man said. "I know things are extremely confusing, but let me just explain," he said.
Jolene looked at him, waiting for an answer.
"My name is Josuke Higashikata, and I'm someone who you're related to... distantly, of course. I have something I must discuss..." the man tried to say before being interrupted.
"Hold on there, being distantly related to me doesn't explain why you're here to meet me. I've never even seen you a day in my life, and you could be lying about being related. I still have no explanation for you knowing my name." The prison guard sat in the corner of the room watching this conversation while eating a bag of potato chips. "Though, I can tell that you're Japanese. Your name, your accent, the way you look, it's all pretty obvious. I don't think I'm related to you," Jolene replied. "We have the same star birthmark, that's how I know we're related," Josuke told her as he turned and revealed the purple star-shaped birthmark on the back of his shoulder. "You have the same, don't you?" Josuke asked. After some trepidation, Jolene admitted to it: She did have the same birthmark. She decided to at least listen to his reason for coming. "Before you ask me about the name, I know it from the headlines on your prison sentence," Josuke said.
"You were prosecuted for stolen company data, correct? Well, the company I work for is being harassed by a legal office that connects to your prosecution. I've been trying to investigate this incident, but I've had no luck. Then I saw the headline of your prosecution online. I was caught off guard by the length of your prison sentence compared to the severity of your crime, and the connection of last names. I looked through the list of legal offices prosecuting you and saw a connection between my company's harassment," Josuke explained to her.
"Well, that sounds interesting, Mr. Josuke. I'm not too sure about going with you, plus I'm in prison," Jolene told him.
"That brings me to my next point, I've posted your bail and you're being released tomorrow morning. Your court hearing will be 30 days after that, but I guess you're not coming, so I'll cancel it," Josuke told Jolene. Her eyes lit up as she heard the news about her bail. "Damn, fine, I'll go," Jolene hurriedly said before her opportunity was lost. "But, I do have one question in particular," Josuke said. "Do you perhaps have... a 'unique' ability?" Josuke asked Jolene as she glared at her. Jolene started to wonder if Josuke heard about the incident with Novo. What if he has one, too? Jolene looked up at Josuke and hesitated to tell him, but said, "Yes, I do, and I'm clueless on how this thing works."
"Later, Jolene." Josuke said. He looked a bit nervous as he looked towards her. "So, uhm, do you know anybody in the area who has a place we can stay during that month's time? I'd rather not run this kind of operation from a hotel room," he asked. "Yeah, I know someone. He lives down in Miami. His name is Thoko, and he's a pretty reliable dude that I've known since my childhood." Jolene told Josuke. Josuke sighed in relief as he nodded towards the guard. The guard grunted and put away his potato chips as he gripped Jolene by the wrists and pushed her forward to the door.
"Easy, easy, goddamnit," Jolene said to the guard. He sighed and shoved her out of the meeting room, then proceeded to shut the door.
Jolene and the guard moved back to her cell past the stairs. Jolene was ecstatic about her bail, so much so that she nearly forgot about how exhausted she was from the day's events. As Jolene moved back to her cell, she couldn't get her mind off of her bail tomorrow. "So, I guess you've got one hell of a day ahead of you, Joestar," the guard said to her.
"I guess I do," she responded as she was shoved in her cell. "You're just gonna end up back here. You have no case. You were caught red-handed, and you'll never be able to convince them that you're innocent," the guard told her.
Jolene had never thought about her court hearing. When Josuke had mentioned her court hearing, she was completely distracted by the news of her getting bailed out. She wanted to get out and stay out, even if she needed to break the law. That was exactly what she wanted to do, but she wasn't sure if she could.
The guard removed her handcuffs and locked the cell door. Jolene went to lie down in her cell bed, too tired to deal with the situation at hand. She laid down on the stiff and uncomfortable bed and started to drift off to sleep.
"Good night," Gwen whispered to Jolene.
"I have something to tell you, Gwen," Jolene told Gwen. "I'm getting bailed out tomorrow morning, and I..." she said before being interrupted by Gwen.
"That's great! I'm so happy for you, Jolene! You're gonna crush the court!" Gwen screamed at Jolene in excitement.
"Shut the hell up, I'm trying to sleep!" echoed from another cell in the prison block. Gwen sighed as Jolene continued to speak to her.
"I don't think I'm going to 'crush the court', which is the reason I might jump bail." Gwen had a look of shock on her face as she asked as quietly as she could, "You're doing what?" "I don't wanna talk about it, Gwen, I just want to sleep." Jolene said to her.
"You can talk to me, Jolene," Gwen muttered.
"Long story short, I've been hired to investigate my prosecutors. I might have to jump bail, and so...I might not be able to visit you ever again," Jolene told Gwen.
"Jolene...I don't want you to go," Gwen shakily replied.
"I'll miss you, Gwen, but I must go," Jolene told Gwen to console her.
"Okay," Gwen said before turning over and heading off to sleep. Jolene closed her eyes and drifted away.
Jolene awoke to a very familiar voice. The clatter of a baton against iron filled her ears as she sprung upwards. She sighed when she saw the same guard, and nearly went back to bed. She decided to stand up and turn around to find Gwen laying down and staring blankly at the wall.
"You okay, Gwen?" Jolene asked her.
Gwen looked towards her and spoke with tears in her eyes and a shaky voice, "I'll miss you. Have a good time outside." Jolene started to tear up but was interrupted by the guard.
"Hurry up, I'm not gonna stand here all day," he said.
Jolene walked over to the cell door and held her hands out. She was met with the same cold, usually too tight handcuffs.
Jolene was escorted down the stairs and out to a cafeteria flooding with starving prisoners getting their breakfast. The group of eyes began to look over to Jolene and the guard. "Hey, can I at least get some food?" Jolene asked the guard.
"Get food from the outside," the guard told her as he dragged her away.
A mixture of voices came from the cafeteria.
"Where's she going?" someone asked.
"They're going near the exit, maybe she's being released?" someone else said.
Jolene felt a bit nervous as she was dragged past the stairs to the exit to the parking lot. The door opened. A fresh breeze blew into Jolene's face.
The handcuffs were taken off of Jolene's wrists and she was pushed forward into the parking lot. Jolene stood there for a second, admiring the fresh air, cooling breeze, and the city far in the distance. Her stuff was handed to her, and Jolene piled it in her arms.
A plain truck pulled up to a parking space right next to her. The windows were tinted and the driver door opened up. A leg slipped out of the car. A man stood up and hung his arm over the top of the door. It was Josuke Higashikata.
"I got a rental so we wouldn't stand out, and then I got the windows tinted so nobody could see our faces," Josuke told her.
Jolene waited for the guard to go back into the prison before she talked to Josuke. "Well, I guess you prepared to jump bail," Jolene said to Josuke.
"Hold on, what?!" Josuke yelled.
"I'm not going to court just to put myself back in this shithole," Jolene told him.
"Fair enough," Josuke said.
Jolene walked over to the driver side of the truck and sat down inside.
"Well, let's go," Jolene said.
The air conditioning blew in her face. Josuke moved around to the passenger side of the car and sat. Jolene put the pile of stuff in the back seat. She backed the car out of the parking space into the lot, put the truck into drive and drove out of the parking lot over onto the bridge to the mainland. The city stood on the horizon, covered in skyscrapers that touched the clouds. The Florida morning sun reflected off of the marine blue water and the glass panes covering the towers. The city across the water was bustling with cars and people.
In a Miami home, Thoko was playing video games on his couch, completely oblivious to what was happening. He was a skillful player, and someone watched through his window. The mysterious figure adjusted a beige open-crown hat and stood in the shadows. A strange creature started to appear and float behind them.
"This is gonna be a hell of a lot of fun," they said.