Flip the Coin [BL]-Chapter 198. Sign

Henry’s POV

I delivered another kick to the man on the floor before crouching down and grabbing his throat when I heard the guard.

"Devin. Visitor."

Standing up, I walked to the prison bars and let myself get cuffed. I was brought outside, through the corridors, into the same room where I had visited Kenny.

I swallowed the sharp pain that sliced through my insides whenever I was so vividly reminded of Kenny’s absence and took a seat.

Ethan, on the other side, took the speaker, and I did as well.

"The parole hearing will be in a week. Are you sure that you don’t want to go?" He asked.

I looked at the little desk on which the window between us sat.

"You know why I have to stay here. Why do you even ask such a question?"

He leaned back and nodded.

"Is there any news?"

"No." I spat, forcing the word out of my mouth, leaving me with a dreadful aftertaste.

He swallowed as if he had even a bit of justification to feel hurt by this news, which he hadn’t. Nobody had, besides Kenny’s grandma, maybe his friends, but mostly myself.

The dog that had been forsaken by his master...

No, I can’t get furious as long as I don’t know if he is alright. But the fury is so much more pleasant than the agony.

"They sent the rest of your group to a ’center’."

"Center?" The word rang some bells, not only because of the DA-Center in the last world but also because of Kenny’s vision.

"Yes. It had been established for the four hundred survivors. Psychological counseling, together with tests and questioning. They want you to go there." Ethan said.

I tapped the little table with my finger repeatedly. Will that be the center he will be in?

Will he ever get the chance to be in there?

I ignored the question and instead asked,

"Henrietta?"

Ethan shook his head.

"The military has her and her parents; we have no chance to even know about her whereabouts."

My hand slammed the table before I could react, breaking through it. I turned around and saw the guards furrowing their brows but not coming to me, ignoring the incident.

"Find out everything you can. We need her to bring him back from that world." Thinking about him being on this dead planet all alone was so painful that my body emitted a bit of shadowy energy.

I pressed my eyes shut, trying to get a grip.

"Even if he wins against the giant, we need her to get him out of there, or he will just die in a world we know nothing about."

After Mrs. Howard and I had tormented Henrietta next to my horrified parents, we finally got the truth out of her.

"I opened a portal to a place the farthest away from everything else. To a dead planet that still had oxygen."

"He wanted it like this, to fight the giant alone."

"I can’t open a portal to that place again. NEVER AGAIN, not even with the blood of his counterpart."

"Kenny’s—this sole Kenny’s blood is special."

"I did what he asked me to; I kept my promise."

Mrs. Howard had gone berserk, nearly killing Henrietta, while I had broken down completely.

Yet, the police, the military, and overall everyone’s eyes in our world had been on the first batch of surviving people from the south district, who had miraculously come back after being thought dead and had set up personnel around the city.

So after we brought out the rest of The Four Hundred, the second batch, they were soon discovered, and reinforcements came. The military even went so far as to storm the portal, taking us with them, including a very damaged Dr. Carell and a few of the laboratory guards. And after we were brought back to our world, the portal had closed by itself.

"I know." Ethan nodded.

"I’ll come again tomorrow."

We nodded at each other, and the guard came to handcuff me again.

"We will send Mr. Hendricks the bill about the costs again..." He mumbled while looking at the damaged table.

"Please do that." I smiled.

"I need to make a call."

The guard brought me to the payphones. He uncuffed me and stepped away. The phone beside mine was occupied, which was the reason I was here.

There was no need to really make a phone call, but I did it anyway with a few coins before taking a lot more money out of my orange jumpsuit.

After it rang once, Jordan immediately took the call.

"Yes? Henry? Any news?"

"No. But I’ll try a new approach." I gave the money to the guy having a call beside me, getting two little packages with white powder back.

I let them disappear in my pocket, hearing Danny screaming in the background of the call.

"He should just torment him slowly!"

"No, he is also Kenny." Omar intercepted.

"But!!!! But still!!" Danny again.

It soon went silent, Jordan seemingly going away from them.

"How does the military training go?" I asked him.

"Same old, same old. We got gun training again, our favorite one; Kenny would love it."

I chuckled.

"Yeah."

"My sarge again told me that he wants you to be part of his recruits."

"Mhm. Tell him I’m busy." We stopped talking, and I was cuffed and brought back to my cell, where I was uncuffed once more.

The man on the floor hadn’t moved and I crouched to his side, waving one of the packets with the white powder in front of his eyes.

His gaze followed greedily.

"Is... is that??"

"I don’t know if it’s as good as the stuff in your world, but from the perspective of a former drug consumer, I can say it’s the good shit."

I grabbed his hand.

"Now look into the future; tell me that he is alive and that I will see him again. Tell me the exact moment we’ll meet; tell me how he is doing; everything you can see. And if you bullshit me again, I will hurt you more. Additionally, I will get myself nice and high with this," I waved the drugs again before his eyes, "while you can stay on the floor, watching me having a good time."

He tightened his grip on my hand, and I saw his eyes turn red.

I already punched into him the fact that I needed him to always leave his eyes open while using his ability, because only in those moments did I feel as if I were catching a glimpse of my Kenny.

I watched the beautiful red color and the similar features before he came back, his nose bleeding, and he even sneezed, his disgusting blood flying all over me.

I backed up, let go of him, and opened my jumpsuit to sit on the chair by the little desk we had in our cell.

On this desk lay my drawings featuring Kenny, his tattoos, and the woman with the many hands covering her. Though I really can’t draw as well as him.

I didn’t need Kenny’s counterpart to tell me; I already knew the result.

"I didn’t see anything. Just fog, like always."

I nodded and put the two packs of white powder on the table.

So enticing.

I emptied a package and put my finger into the powder, playing with it.

The good old addiction clawed at me, whispering for me to just take it and forget.

But I didn’t want to forget. I wanted to feel everything Kenny let me feel, no matter what it was.

Kenny’s counterpart followed my motion with his gaze before he stared at my upper body, suddenly falling into a laughing fit.

"YOU GAY FUCKER!" He screamed, and I flinched, thinking for a moment that it was my Kenny who yelled, with words and a tone that matched him so much.

"You broke my nose and ribs when you found out I wanted to exchange a blowjob for some shit, but it’s okay for you to go wild?!"

I looked at him with my eyes narrowed, asking myself if he needed more pain to behave himself before following his finger pointing at me.

I looked down and saw scars of bite marks all over my chest, on my stomach, and on my ribs, as if something had tried to eat me up.

I jumped up from the chair and went to the mirror embedded in the wall above the faucet.

Comparing the bite mark on the right side of my neck to the rest, even finding the same bite mark on the other side of my neck, I felt higher than the powder could ever have let me feel.

Bite marks are like fingerprints.

That was my sign—Kenny left me with a sign that he was still alive.

I broke into laughter, even ignoring as Kenny’s counterpart threw himself on the table to take the white powder.

He was alive, and he was finally, somehow, using me.