Page 22

I looked to my father to see what was happening, and all I found was terror in his eyes.

“You have to get out of here,” he said as he pressed his palm to the glass and bent down low to level his eyes on me.

The guard that had been looming in the background rushed at my father, and I screamed. “Daddy! Behind you!”

He turned just in time for the guard to grab for his arm, but Dad sidestepped him and hit him with a haymaker that knocked him down. When he didn’t immediately move, my father ran back over and picked up the phone.

“Listen to me!” he shouted over the noxious riot sirens. “This whole place is going to be locked down any minute, and you can’t be here when that happens.”

“What about you?” I screamed at him, terrified by what might walk through that door any second and kill him. I’d watch my father die before my very eyes and not be able to do a damn thing about it.

“I’ll be fine—”

Before he could even finish that thought, an inmate began banging on the door on his side of the visitation room, shaved head and face tats painted an eerie red from the flashing lights in the corridor beyond.

Then his eyes drifted to me, and every cell in my body begged me to run.

My father looked past me to Dawson. “Get her out of here, now!”

Dawson stepped to my side and pulled me behind him as the lurker disappeared from sight. I watched the tiny window in the door next to us that led to the prison hallway with my breath caught in my throat. I saw a guard run past the tiny transparent square, only for his body to fly back the way he’d just come. Face tats swallowed up the window, his hollow stare pinned right on me as he smiled like the killer I knew he must be.

My father pounded on the plexi, shouting violently, but I couldn't hear a thing. I just stood and watched as the latch on the metal door turned.

Dawson grabbed my hand and ran to the door at the opposite end—the one we’d entered through—and slammed his fist against it so hard I knew he had to have broken bones. But his efforts were in vain. The whole prison was consumed by chaos we couldn’t see. The only thing I knew for sure was that we were on our own.

The door across from us flew open, revealing our worst-case scenario. A felon the size of an NFL linebacker filled the doorway, cracking his knuckles as he slowly strolled toward us.

“No matter what happens, you stay behind me,” Dawson yelled over his shoulder, “and if you have a chance to run, you do it. No matter what.”

“I didn’t know this would be a formal event,” the prisoner with a neck thicker than my waist said as he approached. “Don’t worry about your girl—I’ll take real good care of her once I’m through with you.”

“We’ll see about that.”

Wasting no time, the big guy lunged for Dawson, who had limited space to maneuver in the narrow room. What he did have, however, were chairs, and he grabbed one as he dodged the tackle and slammed it down on his attacker’s head.

Unfortunately, it barely fazed the ‘roided-up gorilla.

He swung backward and clipped Dawson’s legs out from under him. The fed crashed down on top of him, which was the last place either of us wanted him to be, so I tried to buy him time by stomping my foot down on the back of that thick neck. His face bounced off the concrete floor as Dawson jumped up, ready for another pass with the chair, but the ogre was having none of it. He shot to his feet with alarming agility and pulled out a shiv. The whittled toothbrush was rudimentary at best, but the arts-and-crafts project was still as deadly as the inmate wielding it.

Ignoring Dawson completely, he looked back at me and brandished the weapon. “I’m gonna carve you open from nose to navel, little girl.”

I grabbed a chair and held it legs-out like a lion tamer while my father looked on, utterly helpless. “Who sent you?” I shouted over the din.

He smiled wickedly. “Vollero wants you gone.”

Dawson smashed the chair against his back, drawing his attention away, and I realized the only way we were getting out of there alive was if we worked together.

And step one was disarming this motherfucker.

He swung the shiv at Dawson, who batted it away with the seat of the chair. But the force carried it wide, leaving his side unprotected, and the gorilla capitalized on the opening. His arm shot back, ready to stab Dawson’s flank. The whole scene played out in slow motion before me, and my body reacted without thought. I lunged forward, my shoulder down like in a football drill, and drove it into the inmate’s back at an angle. He stumbled off course just enough that the weapon swung wide of its target.

Dawson dropped the chair and went for the arm with the weapon, catching it by the wrist. With a sharp drive of his knee to the elbow, the joint bent at the wrong angle, and the prisoner howled. The filed toothbrush fell to the floor, and I scrambled to grab it while Dawson hopped on head-tat’s back and looped his arm around his throat. He had the chokehold in deep, but that tree-trunk neck was formidable for sure, and even with a broken arm, our attacker seemed undaunted.

He stepped backward, slamming Dawson into the cinderblock wall in an attempt to knock him off. To the fed’s credit, he held on, but the bald behemoth was squeezing the life out of him in a race to see who’d pass out first. It was up to me to level the playing field, so I squared up in a fighting stance and did what any self-respecting female would do in that scenario. I wound up with everything I had and buried my foot deep into his balls.

Whatever air he had left in that massive body whooshed out of him as he lurched forward, giving Dawson the reprieve he needed. Gasping for his own breath, he sank the chokehold in even deeper and squeezed until the inmate, who easily had eighty pounds on him, wavered on his feet. His body went slack and collapsed to the floor, unconscious—or dead—I didn't really care which. Dawson stumbled forward, wheezing hard while I bent down to raid the inmate’s pockets.

“Are you okay?” he asked between ragged breaths. “Wait…is that a fucking keyring?” I jumped up without answering, the keyring in question jangling in my hand as I rushed over to the exit. “Why don’t they have electronic cards?”

“Because this is hillbilly Ohio, Dawson—we’re basically in Shawshank right now, so shut up and let me focus before our naptime buddy over there starts to come to.” Shaking hands made for shitty sorting, and I fumbled around with the keys as I tried each one in the door.

Dawson schlepped his way over. “This wasn’t a random event, Danners,” he said as he stood beside me, trying to help. “It was a hit.” Those words did nothing to calm my trembling—nor did the realization that they were true.

The note hadn’t been for my dad.

It was for us.

I turned to find my father circling the guard, who’d woken up and was starting to stand. The urge to help him started to overwhelm me. “Dad—”

I instinctively started to run to him, even though I knew I couldn’t reach him, but Dawson’s hands clamped down on my shoulders, fingertips biting in hard. “There’s nothing we can do for him right now, and he told me to get you out of here, so that’s what I plan to do.”

“I can't leave him!”

“He’s survived this long in here,” he said as he took the keys from my unmoving hand. “You’ll have to trust in that.” He shot a look at the inmate lying still on the floor before rummaging through the ring of keys to keep trying them in the door.

I watched my father tee up on the guard again, stealing his weapon to back him into a corner. If he could keep him at bay, and no other inmates or guards broke into that room, he could weather the riot unscathed. Hopefully . I glanced down at the mountain of man on our side of the glass as he rolled onto his side, and I panicked. With brute force, I buried my foot in his back as hard as I could, knocking the wind from him again before slamming it into his head. As he struggled to breathe, I crouched down next to him—just out of reach—and stared down my would-be killer like it was a totally normal thing to do.

I’d done it enough that it was starting to feel that way.

“You said Vollero wants me dead. Why?” I asked, my voice so sharp and cold it almost startled me. His bloody smile was his only response, so I shot to my feet and kicked him again to punctuate my question. “Did he order the hit or was it the AD?”

The inmate rolled to his back, the tattoos on his neck visible as the top of his jumper pulled open, and laughed. “You’re gonna die, bitch,” he replied before his gaze drifted to Dawson, then back, “and your little cop friend, too.”

He slowly pulled himself up onto all fours, and I angled away from his arms and circled behind him. A front kick to the hip barely shook him, and he continued his attempt to stand while Dawson fumbled with the keys and my simmering rage turned to fear.

“Dawson!” I yelled as I edged toward him.

“Doesn’t matter, little girl. One way or another, he’s going to make you pay—tear you apart piece by piece. And then he’s going to show the leftovers to your father so he can spend the rest of his life in prison with that image burned into his mind, knowing he couldn’t do a damn thing to stop it.”

“Danners!” Dawson shouted at me in warning.

I grabbed the chair and drew it back like a baseball bat. “He’ll have to catch me first,” I said before I swung for the rafters. The metal legs careened into his face, and his head whipped to the side as he fell to the concrete like a lump, full-scale-knockout style. I stared down at his bloody, swelling features and waited to see if he moved. “He’s out.”

“Good. I don’t feel like having to fight that gorilla again.”

I hovered over Dawson’s shoulder as he worked his way through the keyring, my heart in my throat. There were only a few left. We were getting closer to either escape or eternal doom. We’d know which soon enough.

Shouting sounded outside the door, and a couple more guards ran past the window. Without thinking, I started pounding and screaming as though that would be helpful, but neither returned. I looked down at the final key in Dawson’s hand and prayed like my life depended on it. It slid into the keyhole, and with a flip of his wrist, the clang of the lock turning echoed through the room between siren blasts.

Dawson’s shoulders relaxed for a fraction of a second before he ripped the door open and grabbed my hand. He dragged me into the hallway, making sure to slam the door shut to keep the gorilla in his new cage, but the relief I felt was short-lived.

One glance down the hall brought our predicament quickly into focus. Guards lay unconscious on the far side of the metal bars at the end that led deep into the bowels of the prison, and those that had rendered them such were working hard to set themselves free.

“ Run !” Dawson shouted before yanking my arm so hard I heard my shoulder pop. Sprinting with impossible speed through the security area to the final door that hemmed us in, we slammed into it only to find irony staring us back in the face. “ Now they have key cards?” he groaned, staring at the scanner.

“What do we do?” I asked as the mob of threatening voices grew closer. Whether they were coming for us or freedom, I didn’t care to find out. Either way, a world of hurt was headed our way.

And we were trapped. Again.

I kicked the door and screamed at the top of my lungs, which only seemed to fuel the approaching inmates—something I could have seriously done without. When their voices grew louder still, I knew time had run out. I turned to take a fighting stance, tears stinging the backs of my eyes as I realized how sealed our fates were.

Dawson pushed me behind him as a group of five turned the corner, slowing and smiling as though we were the perfect final act in their coup.

“Remember what I taught you,” Dawson said under his breath as his stance widened and his hands lifted. “And don’t let them see your fear.”

I swallowed back my desperation and tucked my skirt up into my compression shorts to get the fabric out of my way before I raised my guard and prepared for a fight to the death. Whether they’d also been sent to kill us or we were just a bonus in their escape attempt didn’t matter. Whatever was about to go down was about to go down regardless.

The one in front with the shaved head and swastika tat on his forearm smiled as he tapped what looked like a jagged metal chair leg in his hand. “I know who you are,” he said, staring at me with wild, crazy eyes. “We’re about to make some bank taking you out.”

I opened my mouth to attempt a witty comeback—possibly my last—but a loud beep sounded behind me just before a gust of wind blew my hair forward and something clamped down on my jacket. I flew backward, hands scrambling for Dawson; I caught his shoulder, and he stumbled back against me. I fell to the floor with him on top of me just as the security door we’d been backed up against slammed shut again. The inmates crashed against it, the metal shuddering with a sickening sound with the press of their weight, and I crab-walked backward to put distance between me and the psycho skinhead raging on the other side of the small window with wire mesh running through it.

“Are y’all okay?” a man asked, and I looked up quickly to find a stout, older guard—pale and breathing hard—staring back.

“Yes, oh my God, yes. Thank you!” I nearly screamed as I scrambled to my feet and ran over to hug him. The poor guy’s eyes went wide as I pulled his face toward me and planted one on his cheek. “You just saved our lives.”

He eyed me for a moment before recognition dawned. “My God, I know you. You’re—”

“Yes, I am, and I’ll be sure to let Gramps know you saved my life.” I glanced at his nametag quickly. “Officer Stafford.”

He smiled faintly, then looked at the rabid inmates trying to escape. “Y’all need to get out of here right now.”

“My dad—”

“I’ll call your grandpa and let him know when this is all over. Now, the staties are gonna be here soon, and this whole place is gonna turn into a standoff, so you need to get yourselves home. Now.”

“Thank you,” Dawson said, pulling me away from the corrections officer who’d saved our asses.

Without another word, he hurried us through the prison and out of the building to the parking lot where his car sat innocuously. We hopped in, and for a brief moment, every psychological thriller I’d ever watched with unfortunate car incidents ran through my head.

“Wait!” I shouted, opening the door to look for something conveniently labeled ‘bomb’ underneath the car. Once satisfied we were in the clear, I climbed across the console and ducked my head past Dawson’s lap to look under the steering column.

“Danners, what in the hell are you doing?”

“Checking for bombs.”

“Are you suddenly familiar with bomb sweeps?”

“Nope, but I’mma do it anyway because I did not just survive that deadly circus to get blown up in the calm after the storm.”

Dawson’s hazel eyes cut me a hard sideward glance. “Why bother bombing the car of someone you just bribed a whole prison to kill?” He had me on that one. “If you’d be so kind as to sit your ass down and put a seatbelt on, I’d like to get the fuck out of here. Now .”

Slightly embarrassed, I ungracefully pulled my head out from under the steering wheel and scurried back into my seat. As soon as my safety belt clicked into place, he turned the car on and slammed it into reverse. Tires squealing, he maneuvered his way out of the lot and cranked the wheel, Fast and Furious -style, until the car swung around and he threw it into drive. Before I knew it, we were on the highway, driving like the speed limit was merely a suggestion.

As we whipped past cars and trees, my adrenaline wore off, and all I could think about was my father. Thank God Gramps hadn’t been there too, or Dawson would have had to knock me unconscious to get me to leave.

“I’m not going to tell you that your dad is going to be okay, Danners,” Dawson said as if he had read my mind. “I want to, but I can’t. Not even if that’s what you want to hear.”

“They were after us,” I said softly. “It’s like it was a game—like some fucked-up hitman scavenger hunt.”

“And to the victor would go the spoils,” Dawson muttered to himself. “That’s exactly what it was. A game.”

Suddenly, I missed my adrenaline surge.

“Vollero must be working with the AD. They didn’t expect us to get out of there alive, so we might have a little time to regroup, but not long. The AD’s contacts will know we survived soon enough, so we need to get you to the safe house ASAP. When we get to your place, I want you to collect these things.” He rattled off a list so long I actually had to type it into my phone so I’d remember. By the time he finished, my head was reeling. “I need to make some calls while we’re there, so I need you to get this done as quickly as possible.”

“Okay, but what about Gramps? Is he in danger?”

The wheel groaned as he squeezed it and dared a glance at me from the corner of his eye. “It’s like you said before: anyone close to you is potentially in danger, Danners.”

I let those words drown me as Dawson sped toward Jasperville and our uncertain future. Questions swirled around my mind in a black abyss where no answers lay. The only thing I knew—the only concrete fact in a sea of suspicions—was this: I was officially going into hiding.

And we weren’t any closer to bringing the AD down.