Chapter 8: Cracks in the Armor

Quincy

A whole day and a night had passed. Jordan and I lived mute in our little confines.

But guys’ beef only lasts for a short time. So yeah, we finally began speaking.

And by speaking, I mean we exchanged glares, and muttered passive-aggressive insults across the cuboid like we were a couple stuck in a toxic marriage we didn't signed up for.

The air between us remained tensed, filled with everything we didn’t say hovered over our heads, waiting to drop like a busted ceiling tile.

But somehow… we survived it.

I didn’t apologize for snapping.

He didn’t apologize for stepping in.

Instead, the silence wore itself out.

He’d watch me read my boring books, while I’d look from my peripheral view at how this guy did more than a hundred push-ups without taking a break.

He started tossing me commissary snacks again. I handed him a clean towel once after showering.

We sat in our usual bunks—him below, me above—and while the quiet didn’t become comfortable, it stopped feeling like war.

Small steps.

Tonight, the cell was unusually still. No clinking of metals. No jeering. Just still, quiet, and cold at night.

Emphasis on cold.

Most guys were asleep… or pretending to be.

But my nocturnal cellmate had been restless since lights out—pacing the cell like a caged wolf, muttering under his breath.

I figured it was just him being his usual twitchy self until I heard it.

A whisper.

“C’mon, c’mon… just connect—damn it.”

The sleep I was once welcoming was gone in an instant, flipping over to a fresh new page titled Curiosity.

I peeked over the edge of the bunk, my eyes readjusting to the dim light of the cell.

Jordan sat across the bunk. His legs were crossed on the floor, back hunched, the prison’s limited-use payphone clutched to his ear. The payphone's cord might having probably been strained, due to Jordan's pull on it.

I figured he had dialed the same number multiple times as he's currently muttering curses between each failed tone like they were prayer beads.

He didn’t know I was watching.

Always the early-to-bed cellmate—that’s who he thought I was.

Else, he wouldn’t have let his stance deflate by sounding woeful on the course of a phone call.

Another pause. Another beep.

He leaned his head against the concrete wall and finally—finally—someone answered.

“Hello?”

His voice cracked, soft and strained. Strange.

“Hey… it’s me.”

I heard the change in him immediately.

His whole frame dropped, like someone had pulled the fight right out of his muscles and was ready to challenge him with it.

“…I know, I know. I said I’d call sooner.”

A pause. Silence on his end. Then a broken laugh.

“Yeah, I deserved that.”

He reached up and ran a hand down his face.

In the dim light, I saw the sadness etched into his being.

“No, listen—don’t—just fuckin’ listen, please,” he said.

That one word—please—hit like a car crash in my chest.

Jordan never begged.

He mocked. He flirted. He threatened.

But this?

This was new.

A pause.

“No, I’m not trying to sound noble. I’m just trying not to sound like trash.”

Silence again.

I couldn’t hear the other voice on the line, but Jordan flinched like each word stabbed him.

“I’m sorry, okay? I’m so fuckin’ sorry.”

The words fell out of him like weight he’d carried for years.

I didn’t breathe. I didn’t move.

This wasn’t the Jordan I knew.

This wasn’t the smirking jackass who mocked my walk and called me Princess Cellblock.

This was someone else.

Someone real.

Someone… hurting.

“I hate it. I hate myself,” he said bitterly, breaking the silence. “I fuckin’—myself. Pl… please don’t fucking…”

His pleas drowned in a quiet sob.

All I did was stare at the man who I thought was running on wires and cell batteries for survival.

No, this must be his code outrunning.

Shortly after, he let out a short, hoarse laugh and wiped his nose with the back of his hand.

“…I miss you,” he whispered.

There was a long stretch of silence after that.

The kind of silence that means the other person had hung up, or maybe just didn’t know what to say.

I can swear in my pathetic life that that was his lover.

But was he capable of love?

Jordan lowered the phone slowly. Set it on the floor like it was made of glass.

Then he just… sat there.

Breathing.

Staring at nothing.

Maybe if I stay so still, he wouldn’t know he has an audien—thud!

A book slipped from the edge of my bed and hit the floor with a loud thud.

Shit. Shit. Shit.

Jordan stiffened, slowly lowering the payphone.

He turned his head in the direction of the creaking. To me.

Wide, bloodshot eyes locked with mine in the half-dark.

I held my breath.

Not because he looked far from the smuggy bastard he used to be on any other day.

No. It’s simply because his eyes gave out emotions his body couldn’t show. Gave out words his mouth dared not speak.

Ermm, hi…

“Don’t.”

His voice was raw, barely above a whisper.

“I wasn’t going to say anything,” I murmured.

“You’re up. Why?”

This wasn’t a moment to shrug my shoulders at his question, so I went on to say flatly, “This is a prison. No one sleeps with both their eyes closed.”

For a moment, he hesitated, eyes glued to the payphone as though it had just appeared in his hand.

I sat up straight, heart pounding.

Reasons for the near cardiac arrest? I do not know.

I figured if he had already been caught snooping in his private business, I should totally immerse myself in his pressing issues… if he would let me.

A sad Jordan is really rare to see.

I slid off the bunk and sat across from him. My knees bumped his. He didn’t look up.

I waited a few seconds. Then:

“Who was that?”

He shook his head.

“Don’t ask questions you don’t want answers to.”

I nodded slowly.

“Okay. Then tell me what you want to tell me.”

He chuckled, a humorless sound.

“You think you’re clever, don’t you?”

“Sometimes.”

Another silence. Then—

“My sister.”

I blinked.

“The person on the phone?”

He nodded.

“She practically raised me. Mom was high most of the time. Dad left when I was five.

Elle—she’s only three years older, but she was always more… grown. Stronger.”

He looked down at his hands.

“She was the one who made sure I went to school. That I didn’t end up dead in a dumpster.

She’s got a daughter. Two years old.

I haven’t seen her.

She wouldn’t let me see her. Or speak to her.”

His voice broke at the end. Just slightly.

“That’s… why? Why wouldn’t she let you see your niece?”

He looked up at me with wet, bloodshot eyes.

Tears. Holy…

“My sister thinks of me as unworthy.

Just like the rest of the world, she sees me as a wolf.

She said I’ll ruin her further—even extend it to her child.”

I didn’t know what to say to that.

So I didn’t say anything.

I just sat there, watching him as his walls came down brick by brick.

No sarcasm. No bravado. Just Jordan.

Raw. Real. Unmasked.

Because I had never seen Jordan like that before.

Not just that, it’s hard to find soothing words coming from a wealthy, detached family.

And somehow, it made my own chest ache.

He finally looked at me—just a flick of the eyes. Not startled. Not even surprised.

He knew I’d heard.

Of course he did.

The bastard noticed everything.

“Enjoy the show?” he muttered, heading for his bunk without waiting for an answer.

I glanced at the opposite wall not too far from us, then back at him.

“That wasn’t a show.”

“No? Felt like one. I should’ve sold popcorn.”

He lay down on the cold floor and turned to the wall, back facing me. That was his version of a closed door.

"Are you gonna lie on this cold floor?"

"As it please me." came Jordan's response.

I crossed my arms on my knees, trying to ignore the strange twist in my gut.

“So why do you call, knowing fully well she might hang up on you?”

He turned then, just enough for me to see one eye over his shoulder.

It was red-rimmed—not from tears exactly, but from all the things he’d buried before they could fall.

“Because it’s the only thing that keeps me sane here.”

I nodded slowly.

“She thinks you’re like your father?”

His jaw tightened.

He straightened up, sitting on his ass so he could face me.

“He was a piece of shit. Hit us. Hurt us. Left us with scars nobody could see—but everyone pretended weren’t there.

I swore I’d never be like him.

But from the time I was sent in and out of here… she started looking at me the same way she used to look at him.

Like I was already gone.”

The words hung in the air like fog—thick, gray, choking.

I stood to my feet and strode to the bunk, sitting my numb ass down on the lower bunk across from him.

Not close enough to touch, but not far either.

“You’re not like him,” I said.

“You don’t know that.”

“I know enough.”

He scoffed.

“You don’t know half.”

“Give me time.”

We stared at each other in the dim light.

Two men from different worlds trying to find meaning in each other’s shadows.

He leaned against the wall, eyes watching me in scrutiny.

“Have you ever thought about who you were before this place?”

I hesitated.

“Every day.”

“And?”

“And it feels like a ghost I can’t stop chasing.”

Jordan nodded, like he knew that exact feeling.

“My sister used to say I was her hero.

Before I started running packages for the wrong people.

Before the deals. Before the cops.

She still calls me Jay. Like I’m still the big brother who snuck her ice cream at midnight and did her math homework.”

I swallowed the lump forming in my throat.

“I’ve never seen you like that before,” I said, barely above a whisper.

He met my gaze.

“Yeah, well… don’t get used to it.”

But the moment had already changed something.

Not just in him.

In me.

Jordan Vex isn’t a total pain in my ass.

Beyond the excessive need to piss off everyone in his path… he had a sense of accountability and acceptance, knowing he hurt people.

And he cared.

He cared more than he wanted to admit.

And somehow, that made him more dangerous to me than any inmate in this prison.

Because he wasn’t just a fighter.

He wasn’t just a shield.

He was real.

And I wasn’t ready for that.

Not even close.