Pale Carnations -ch. 4 Update 4- -mutt Jeff- ... Apr 2026

The door closed behind me, and the hallway smelled of bleach and roses. Somewhere deeper in the club, a piano struck up a lazy, familiar tune. And beneath it, just barely, I could hear the sound of someone crying—not loud, not desperate. Just the quiet, practiced sob of someone who’d already folded.

“That’s Mister Jeff to you, boy,” he growled, not looking up. He was shuffling a deck of cards with hands that were all knuckle and gristle—the hands of a man who’d broken bones for sport and then nursed the same bones back wrong. “Or ‘Sir.’ Your old man always remembered ‘Sir.’” Pale Carnations -Ch. 4 Update 4- -Mutt Jeff- ...

I reached out, slow, and drew from the middle. The Queen of Hearts. Her painted smile was the same as the girl’s in the photograph. The same hollow fold. The door closed behind me, and the hallway

He tilted his head, and a grin cracked his face like dry earth. “You here to threaten me, or to ask me how I train ‘em for that round?” Just the quiet, practiced sob of someone who’d

I left the card on the table.