"Is this the reason you decided to approach and befriend me?" the Bandaged Murder Demon asked as he stirred the seaweed stuck to his plate with a spoon.
Jimmy's face hardened instantly. The Bandaged Murder Demon spoke in a calm and unhurried manner, "I guess you're not used to asking for help. It's usually the stowaways begging for mercy from you. You're making it too obvious."
Jimmy's expression darkened, he spoke angrily, "I am not desperate to find you..."
"Then you can leave here now." After saying that, the Bandaged Murder Demon sat silently, putting Jimmy under immense pressure.
"I do know Amanda." The Bandaged Murder Demon's final sentence crushed Jimmy's heart completely, "And I can contact her even now."
"Please! My wife and son are being hunted down!" Jimmy's hands started to tremble, he said, "I took the fall for a big shot, but he never intended to let my family live. I have to get out!"
The Bandaged Murder Demon's hands paused for a second, he looked up at him and said, "Are you planning to escape prison?"
"No, I want to retract my confession! But I have no means to get a lawyer, nor am I willing to disappear silently while waiting for a retrial. I must get out of here!"
"Who did you take the fall for?" The Bandaged Murder Demon asked.
Jimmy turned his head to the side and, with a sob in his voice, sighed, "The smuggling business is a supply-chain system, you understand? At most, I'm just one of the many dogs at the end of countless chains. Whenever someone comes to investigate, the hand holding the chain throws out a dog. By the time I woke up, I was found with two dead cops."
"They were brutally tortured, I threw up just from seeing it. But the next second, the FBI rushed in, they took photos, and I didn't get a chance to say a word. No one defended me!"
Jimmy was practically sobbing just without tears, he continued, "They damn well dug up over a hundred and seventy fucking corpses! That's Spanning across the entire route in recent years – it all fell on my shoulders! The jury didn't even question it, they sent me straight to this place!"
The Bandaged Murder Demon stares at Jimmy's trembling hands, "So, how many people did you actually kill?"
Jimmy gulped, replying, "Maybe about ten. My business wasn't that big, It's hard dealing with people who dare to use the network. My wife and I together could only handle one or two people. The year before last, we set up a trap and killed around five or six ruckus-causers, that was the most we ever dealt with."
"What do you have that you could retract?" the Bandaged Murder Demon then asked.
Jimmy pursed his lips, glaring at the Bandaged Murder Demon, "I can't reveal this secret to anybody. This is the key to my retrial. If you decide to kill me, I'll take it with me to the grave."
"Trust me, knowing it won't do you any good either." Jimmy looked earnestly at the Bandaged Murder Demon. "You won't understand the intricacies of this business, you can't provide proof, and it's not like you could use it to be exonerated. This is only useful for me."
"Then why should I help you?" The Bandaged Murder Demon chopped up the scrambled eggs with the edge of his spoon, "Are you suggesting that once you are out of prison, you will help me out?"
"I understand that if you know Amanda, you can live quite comfortably here. But don't you have someone you care about?"
"I killed my parents." The first sentence from the Bandaged Murder Demon made Jimmy's heart lurch. He then added, "I framed my teacher, corrupted my classmates, and I killed twenty-five innocents in the process of fleeing, including a seventy-year-old and a three-month-old baby."
Jimmy swallowed and said, "Okay, do you have any other requests? I can--I can try to fulfill them."
"You should focus on sorting out your own mess." The Bandaged Murder Demon used his single eye to glance at a group of people who were staring intently at him. Following his gaze, Jimmy looked over and visibly shuddered.
"Maybe, just maybe their interest in you is temporary. I can tell them that you're already disfigured. This way, they'll no longer ask me to deal with you. Consider this a gesture of my sincerity to cooperate."
The Bandaged Murder Demon simply sneered before falling silent. Throughout the rest of their breakfast, the Bandaged Murder Demon did not utter another word. Jimmy attempted to start a conversation a few times, but was always deterred by the icy look in his eyes.
After breakfast, everyone returned to their cells. As soon as Jimmy sat down, he was cornered on his bed by Big Dog and his sidekick.
"So, you're siding with the freak, right? Your attitude tells me that this is your decision, Jimmy."
Both Big Dog and his sidekick had blocked off access to the bed, forcing Jimmy to curl up in the innermost corner. He did his best to muster a conciliatory smile, "Of course not, Big Dog."
"Oh, so you're saying that you're not on anyone's side?" Big Dog chuckled chillingly, grabbed Jimmy by his collar, dragged him off the bed and threw him onto the ground.
Jimmy let out a pained cry. The prison guard knocked on the bars, and Big Dog declared aloud, "It's nothing, I'm just having a life discussion with my cellmate."
The prison guard quieted down. Jimmy, visibly trembling and clutching his arm, said, "You can't--you can't do this! We all have Electric Shackles!"
"Yeah, indeed. The shackle only restricts me from killing you, but it never said I can't beat you half to death or fuck you till you're half dead."
Like a madman, Jimmy tried to crawl back into the corner, only to be caught by Big Dog's muscular arm and dragged back. Big Dog clapped his hands together, chuckling coldly, "Did you think that you could hide in the infirmary if you were injured? I won't be breaking any of your bones."
After saying that, he signaled to his sidekick, who grabbed a pillow from the bed. Big Dog gave Jimmy a kick and then shoved the pillow onto his face. As Jimmy struggled for air, he looked at the Bandaged Murder Demon with pleading eyes.
"You're hoping for your savior to rescue you? He's having enough trouble protecting himself right now." Big Dog glanced back at the Bandaged Murder Demon, the warning in his eyes clear as day.
Yet what none of them expected was that the Bandaged Murder Demon just watched the spectacle in the room with his remaining eye, making no attempt to intervene or even comment on the situation.
It wasn't until Big Dog began to pull at Jimmy's pants that the Bandaged Murder Demon made a sound. Jimmy produced a truly pathetic scream just as the prison guard finally knocked on the bars again, causing Big Dog to release him.
He spat in Jimmy's face, "This is your fault. Bring me some good stuff tomorrow, or else you'll lose an ear. Understood?"
Jimmy, already terrified, curled up in a corner of the room for the rest of the night while the Bandaged Murder Demon slept soundly on his bed under Jimmy's intense gaze.