Time flew faster in the almost quiet atmosphere of the prison, and Jax had already spent one week in here.
During these few days, Jax had done everything he could to avoid the rougish man and his minions.
From the whisperings he heard from other inmates' small talks, he came to learn one or two trivial things about that man, one such thing was his name: Hank. And, Jax found it unbelievable whenever the inmates would skip talking about the details of his offenses, as if it was a taboo topic. It was strange indeed.
It wasn't like this Hank could hear them talking about him. And it was also not possible for him to have his men watch over every single prisoner locked in here and tattle tale every single thing back to him, right?
Keeping that aside, Jax was back to thinking of ways to contact Peter Steve, the public defender who worked on his case, in hopes whether he could reopen the case.
After all, it went without saying that he didn't want to spend his entire life in this match box of a prison cell of his. Yet, regardless of how much hard he tried, all the guards would always decline his attempts to contact the aforementioned public defender.
Seven days gone by just like that, without him doing anything. However, Jax wouldn't give up just so soon. He would do everything to get his life back on the right track.
While he was busy contemplating on how to make the guard understand his predicament, someone bumped into him which almost made him trip onto the ground.
Jax quickly steadied himself by latching his hand onto whatever that was within it's reach, and that happened to be a co inmate's hand. Jax was about to thank the person whose hand he used just now, but his words stuffed back into his throat when he actually noticed who it was.
This was that same thin man who got bashed mercilessly a week ago by that Hank's men. Jax's eyes immediately scanned his surroundings as if searching for something.
He didn't know why he didn't want to be seen alongside with this man, but his instincts told him that this man would bring trouble for him.
Sure enough, even before he could completely rotate his head from left to right, his eyes landed on a pair of weirdly smiling lips. The owner of the lips smiled like a kid who was given some candies before walking toward them in leisurely steps.
Speaking about sh*t luck! Why did everything tend to go in opposite to what he always wanted?
Didn't he successfully avoided this man like one would avoid some plague? Yet, here he was, feeling like being targeted by a hunter who was on killing spree.
Jax quickly blurted out a thanks and immediately tried to flee from the scene, but before he could do so, five people came in all directions and circled him along with the thin man, soon another five followed suit surrounding all the seven.
"You have been avoiding me for a week. Don't you wanna play with me anymore?" the man named Hank, spoke in his eerie tone when he was only a few steps away from this small group.
Jax thought, the rougish man was talking to him when he heard the first sentence and his heart almost jumped in his chest thinking about the odds that the former could actually tell that he was avoiding him. But then after hearing his second sentence, he relaxed again as it was clear that the latter meant the words for the thin man.
He lifted his eyes and looked at the thin man, who immediately tried to hide behind him as if he by doing so, would make the rougish man stop whatever he wanted to do.
Jax didn't know how to react at his actions, but before he could think about what he should do to leave this unavoidable squabble, Hank beat him to it and spoke.
"What now? You didn't even want to talk to me? Why are you hiding from me in the first place?" the man talked as if he was complaining about his best friend's childish tantrums.
Jax lifted his eyes, only to find that the spot they were standing had turned into some kind of focal point of a giant circle, with them in the centre and the rest of the inmates forming into its perimeter.
He looked behind him and saw that the thin man was shaking his head nonstop. However, it wasn't clear what he was trying to convey. And then he cowered behind him even more.
"Jax, I see that we meet again," the rougish man had a surprised expression on his weird smiling face as if he just noticed Jax. "How do you feel about staying in here so far?" he added, like they just came to this prison on a vacation.
Contrary to his enthusiasm, Jax put on a straight face when he answered him curtly, "Fine."
Hank tilted his head as the corner of his lips quirked up into a smirk. "I see... You have made yourself at home, it seems." And then he nodded his head at the man, who was hiding behind Jax. "Why don't you play along with us since Garry looks a little bit clingy with you. Come. We can know each other too."
Jax literally saw the words 'trouble' flashing before his eyes when he heard Hank's invitation, yet there was no way he could turn him down.
His eyes then searched for the guards, but like the usual, they turned blind eye to everything that was happening here.
"You don't want to play with us?" Hank raised his brows.
Coming to this point, Jax concluded one thing, if he couldn't avoid them, then the only option left for him was to play along. "Sure, what game?"
"It's a really, really simple game," Hank announced, excitedly. But his eyes gleamed with cruelty at the same time, betraying his original thoughts.
What was he thinking when he accepted his invitation? Jax realized that avoiding Hank for the whole week, was the best thing he had ever done in his life.