Adoration || Sweet Pea [2] [DISCONTINUED]

||THIRTEEN - CONFRONTATION||

Jayda's POV

I park my bike near the footbridge, and go the rest of the way on foot. I hear Sweet Pea's voice, telling Joaquin to get up.

I find the three of them by a tree. Fangs is holding Joaquin, and Joaquin has a gag around his mouth.

"Look what we found on him." Sweet Pea says, tossing me a Gargoyle mask. When he looked at me I knew he could tell that I'd been crying, but the best thing to do was talk about it later once we'd dealt with Joaquin.

"So, you jumped ship for the gargoyle gang?" I question him, then kneel down in front of them. "You've got a lot of explaining to do."

Fangs takes the gag out of Joaquin's mouth, but still keeps him against the tree.

"So, why don't we start with why you shivved Archie, instead of protecting him, like you were supposed to do?" I ask him.

"The warden said I had no other choice." Joaquin says. "You don't know what it was like in there, Jay. You do anything to survive."

"I've been to jail, yeah I wasn't a part of some strange fight club, but I was still locked up." I argue with him.

"For me, it was being the warden's pawn. A chess piece." Joaquin continues. "In some ways, he was a pawn too."

"What's that supposed to mean?" I ask him.

"I saw him with these gam cards that told him what to do." Joaquin explains. "Whoever sent them to him wanted Archie dead. From the moment he was locked up, he was already marked."

"Marked with what?" I question. I pull out a sharpie that I randomly had in my pocket, and draw the symbol that was on Archie's hip. "This symbol?"

I turn my hand around and show him. "Which the warden branded on Archie's hip? What does it mean?" I question.

"No, no." Joaquin says, shaking his head from side to side.

"Fine, if that's how you want to play." I say, and looked up at Fangs and Sweet Pea. "Pick him up. Hold him against the tree."

"No, no, no. Ah!" Joaquin shouts as they pick him up and pin him against the tree.

"Just stop." Fangs kept saying, getting quieter every time.

"Sacrifice." Joaquin answers. "It means that-- It meant that Archie had to die. Look, I'm sorry, ay. I know he was your pal--"

"Oh, Archie's alive, Joaquin." I cut him off.

"Then he won't be for much longer." Joaquin says.

"Who's giving Warden Norton his orders?" I ask him.

"No." Joaquin says, shaking his head again and looking at the ground.

"Okay." I say, and pull my knife from my pocket, flipping it open. "I don't think you understand, Joaquin. I can't let you go until you talk."

I pushed him against the tree, and Sweet Pea and Fangs took their grip off of him.

"I saw them meet. Once." Joaquin says to me, and me alone. "But you know him, Jones. The man in the black suit."

Hiram Lodge. Of course it is him.

I stepped back, letting Joaquin out of my grip. He looks at me, before running away from us. He got to the edge of the clearing, and he looked back at us, and then he started running again.

"Now that's sorted, we can go home." I say, and start walking past them, and to where I'd parked my bike less than ten minutes before.

Fangs and Sweet Pea were both walking behind me, until Sweet Pea ran up to me, making his pace with mine.