Nope, I’m free! Except…

"Mr. Cain...I shouldn’t be telling you this, but…” she said as I was walking away.

“Come on, Doc, you can’t say that and then not tell me. Finish your sentence!”

She glared at me and I winced. I’d meant that to come out teasing, flirty, just a hair pushy, but not in a bad way. Instead, it had come out commanding, controlling, pushy in a bad way. Shit.

I smiled in the awkward silence, “Please, doc, you can’t leave me hanging like that, I’ll be worried all evening!”

She softened slowly, or just got annoyed that I wasn’t leaving. “Apparently, Ms. Deepak’s attorneys have arranged for her to be detained her and temporarily, while we evaluate her competence.” +3 SP (Penelope: +67)

I nodded absentmindedly, as my mind raced through who the hell that was. A woman, obviously, was it the name of one of the other supervillains? Did Zsasz have a sister, or something? Or—oh, shit. It was Jinx’s name. “Fuck,” I said as I sat down heavily.

“This is a professional environment, Mr. Cain,” she said, chidingly.

“How long..”

“She’ll be here Wednesday, not arriving until after Ms. Riley is released, to limit the number of ‘supervillains’ in Arkham.” That wasn’t exactly what I’d been meaning to ask, but it was good information.

“How long will she be here?” I was so distracted, I barely managed to soften the question and didn’t manage to frame it as an order.

“That depends on how the review goes and whether...Dr. Sinner chooses to intervene,” she said, though there was a pause which suggested she might have said almost something else, “or she gets a private review. Her defense can bring someone in to do an independent review as well. Usually that would happen at Blackgate, but since she’s already here, I doubt they’ll transfer her back until all reviews are done.”

A shocking surge of panic shot through me, “Already—”

“Already will be here,” she corrected herself and I slowly relaxed.

“Thank you, for the warning,” I said, then belatedly realized that I really should have gotten this warning from Rapetoy and made a mental note to see her before I left and find out how the fuck she’d managed not to warn me!

I stormed over.

Well, okay, I started to storm, then I heard a few comments on what my ‘storming’ looked like from inmates, who just saw the uniform and didn’t recognize me and forced myself to walk calmly. I checked to make sure we were alone, before I asked, why she hadn’t told me.

“About what?’

“Fucking Jinx!”

“I didn’t fuck J—”

“That fucking Jinx is coming here. In two days. I told you to tell me about anything which might endanger me!” Amongst other things.

“Jinx is coming here on Wednesday? Jinx? The magical supervillainess? Why doesn’t anyone ever tell me these things?!?!”

Oh...well, that rather took the wind out of my sails, complaints-wise, at least about Rapetoy’s behavior.

“They didn’t tell you?”

“They never tell me that shit—I assume it’s temporary? I do hear about actual transfers but—”

“Yes, just to evaluate her.”

“Every fucking time,” she muttered angrily. “We have got to update these procedures, but every time I try fucking A—I get blocked.”

“Do you know why?”

She glanced around nervously, though we were in her office. She shook her head. “I think leadership just doesn’t like changes to security. Things always go wrong, and any change can be blamed, even though they’re always going wrong.”

I nodded, that made sense—but hang on, that meant…