Page 3 of The Vigilante's Lover

Five minutes to prison break.

I resist the urge to pace my cell. I’m at the mercy of two friends and comrades, Sam and Colette. I have only a meager handful of contacts I still trust.

We have a painfully short window to get me out of Ridley Prison before the other Vigilantes are alerted to my escape. I gave Sam and Colette every detail of the security and routine, picked up during the past year in this hellhole.

We’re breaking out months ahead of schedule and without all the planning in place, but I feel I must. Something has happened to my closest comrade, Klaus. The letters coming from his safe house are garbled and out of code. This can only mean he has been compromised, captured, or worse.

Normally, breaking out of an ordinary prison is child’s play. I’ve done it without assistance on more than one occasion. The difference this time is my fall from grace within the Vigilante network itself.

Work with them and anything is possible. Laws don’t apply to you. Presidents and prime ministers answer your calls. You have no need to take theirs.

But cross the Vigilantes and you might as well be dead. Their reach is unsurpassed. They are part of every government, every agency, every group of mercenaries, every band of killers.

I know this well. I once was in line to become the head of it all.

Now they want me out of their way.

I pace in my cell and wait for the bell that signals the doors will open.

I run through the plan again, over and over, until I can imagine every footfall.

My mind’s eye travels the halls and corridors, past suspicious guards with narrowed eyes and hands on weapons.

It sees my fellow inmates, the nods of recognition and respect, the glowers of hate.

Lots of enemies in here. I don’t care. At least with adversaries, you know where you stand.

Unlike lovers. A lover is what got me here.

Jovana.

I shake my head. I can’t get distracted now. Revenge will come when I’m out.

The alarm signaling the start of our workday echoes through the cell block. A second later my door rumbles open. I begin a mental countdown, honed to precision through years of training. Despite my preparation, I still have to force my breathing into a steady rhythm.

Relax, Jax.

It will do no good for the prison’s mood measurement system to pick up any deviation from the norm. Even if the guards aren’t monitoring it, the Vigilantes are. I recognize their tech over the pathetic measures the civilians put in place.

I step forward and glance up at the conduct screen on the wall outside my cell. Still green.

A disembodied voice barks a command from the speakers. “Inmates out and proceed to morning assignments.”

My fellow prisoners shuffle out in a jumbled wave. Most stare straight ahead, their morning stimulants not yet kicking through their blood. These I ignore. They are of no consequence to my plan, aside from obstacles to sidestep, like one might avoid a pothole in the road.

A few cast glances at the others, though. Schemers, plotters, and the paranoid. They are the unknown element, something that could destroy all my hard work with an unexpected move.

I fall in with the flow of disenchanted humanity.

Head forward, but aware of everyone around me.

At the end of the cell block, the stream splits in two, then again at each intersection.

Now we are only a few, but inmates from other cell blocks reinforce our numbers as we walk through the central hub.

I feel the unfriendly gaze of a guard fix on me. Johnson.

“De Luca! Step over here.”

Johnson’s voice holds a touch of malice. I move to stand in front of him, my expression neutral. He sneers as he looks me over, then waves a mood wand over my body. It hums a bluish green.

He frowns, seeming to expect something more interesting. He glances at my prison badge, which lists my morning assignment on a digital display.

“Book duty again? Figures an egg like yourself would land there as much as you can.”

I say nothing. He loves to play these games, and I can little afford the time.

“No voice today, egg?” His mean eyes lock on mine. His face is unshaven in a way he probably assumes attracts women, but merely looks unkempt on his fat-cheeked jowls.

I cycle through words of calm in my head. “I have no say in my assignment,” I answer with as little emotion as possible. His mood wand flickers.

Johnson laughs, a rough and unpleasant sound. In another place and a different time, I’d have floored him. I might yet. But for now I just wait.

“Like hell you don’t,” he says. “You’re a schemer. And schemers work the system.”

A vein throbs in his neck. His pulse is quickening, and I need to diffuse this now. He is acting out of the norm. The mood detection sensor will pick up on it, and my plan will unravel if we go into lockdown. The system doesn’t care who is upset — inmate or guard. It just reacts.

“As you say, sir,” I respond, my tone flat.

“Oh, I do,” he says. “And I also say you ain’t going to the library today. I got better plans for you.”

My eyes drop to the wand in his hand. It flickers briefly into yellow. This isn’t part of Johnson’s game, though, so he flips it off and shoves it in his belt. The overhead monitors are much less sensitive.

“All right,” I say, as if it doesn’t matter to me either way. “But I believe McGruder provided the work assignments for today. He may feel differently.”

Fat McGruder is the captain for my cell block. Evoking his name has the intended effect. Johnson exhales in anger through his nose. For a moment I think he’s going to grow a spine for once and go against his commander, but then he looks away.

“Get out of here, egg. Before I find an excuse to give you some physical reprimand.”

“As you say, sir.” The confrontation over, I don’t make much effort to hide my amusement, but Johnson doesn’t seem to notice. Yes, I’ll definitely come back to exact a bit of vengeance on this one.

I’m sixty seconds behind schedule. I quicken my pace to make up half that by the time I walk into the library, the least-patrolled room of the prison.

I had to pull a lot of internal strings to get this duty.

Traded a small fortune in cigarettes and low-tech weaponry.

I took care to never arm anyone with something I couldn’t defend against in my sleep. Didn’t matter. They were grateful.

I scan my badge at the library entrance and head back into the stacks.

Rows of musty books line the gray metal shelves. They only reach up to my chest, a way to keep inmates in view. The guard glances my direction, a simple acknowledgment of my position, then turns back to his work.

“You’re late,” a deep voice whispers in my ear.

“I know,” I say without turning. Sam is actually five rows away, but angled such that his voice projector can reach only me.

“Little Women,” he says. “Third shelf.”

I reach for the book and rub my thumb along the spine. I can feel the small form of the dart thrower underneath the material.

“Careful where you point that thing,” Sam whispers.

I give him the barest nod, then walk back to the guard.

Out of the corner of my eye I see Sam, dressed in the simple navy coveralls of a custodian, reposition himself.

A click in my ear tells me he’s rerouted the cameras in the room.

I hold the book out to the guard, spine up.

He looks at me, a question on his lips, and I press on the cover.

The man gives a small grunt of annoyance and reaches up to his neck.

His eyes widen in surprise as his fingers brush the small bit of metal embedded in his skin.

I can see the alarm in his expression, but it fades as the drug kicks in and he slumps to the side.

I grab him before he can hit the floor and ease him down under the desk.

My fingers fly over his uniform. By the time Sam has joined me, I have the guard’s shirt off.

Sam already has his own coveralls unfastened, revealing a thin bag.

I finish undressing the guard as Sam opens the bag and allows its contents to blossom forth.

A pale gray suit. I shuck my prison orange, and Sam peels off his coveralls.

“You never cease to amaze, Sam.” I finger the tailored suit. The fine cloth feels like heaven.

“Thank Colette for that one.” He grabs the guard’s uniform and dresses quickly.

“I’ll be sure to give her my best when I see her.” I pull the suit on with practiced efficiency. The fit is impeccable, and I almost feel normal again. Almost.

“That should be in about five minutes, except someone decided to chitchat with a guard,” Sam grumbles.

“I’ve cut things closer than this in the past. We’ll be fine.”

Sam stuffs the custodian coveralls into the bag as I drop my prison suit on top of the unconscious guard.

Now for the unpleasant part. Sam instructs me to tilt my head. My neck flashes with pain as he extracts the tracking chip all inmates have implanted under their skin.

“You still bleed like the rest of us,” Sam says and hands me a first-aid patch.

The cool analgesic calms the wound and stems the flow of blood. I straighten my collar to hide it.

Sam tucks the tracking chip into the guard’s sock and pulls the incriminating dart from his neck. We then carry his body into the stacks.

“You ready for the walk?” Sam asks. “The paperwork isn’t going to match up, so the exit might be tricky.”

“We’ll be all right,” I say. “New man on duty at the gate.” This was one reason I chose today for the break.

Together we walk to the library door, which pops open with the badge on Sam’s stolen uniform. Beyond lies empty hallway.

“I couldn’t cut off the mood system. It’s Vigilante,” Sam says.

I nod in acknowledgment. We head down the hall, attracting attention with every step.

There aren’t a lot of sharp suits in prison.

Above us, each conduct screen scans us for pulse rate, body temperature, and respiration.

We’re heading toward the exit with the identification of a person who isn’t supposed to even arrive for another three months.

This is where things might get hairy.