The Killing Floor Blues (Daniel Faust #5)(63)

“You said they’ll want to see me fight again, right? And the more bets that get placed, the bigger a commission Lancaster rakes in. So I’m worth money to him, win or lose.”

“That’s right.”

I tapped the side of my head. “Not if I can’t fight. You said I’ve got a concussion. Tell him it could be worse than it looks, and if you’re not careful, it could kill me before the next event.”

Valentino rubbed his chin. “That…could work, actually. All right, and then what?”

“Then nothing. The rest is on my shoulders.”

*

Back in my cell, alone with my thoughts, I tossed and turned under the stark fluorescent light. The tiny plastic square never turned off, not even after midnight, glowing under its wire cage and flooding the room. It buzzed endlessly, a low-grade hum that set my teeth on edge.

The escort to the infirmary would take me right past the access hatchway. My one and only shot at getting out of here. All I needed was a plan to go with it. The maintenance tunnels could take me anywhere but out; no matter where I came up, I’d still have to deal with the exact same problems as my first escape attempt. Even if I could steal some civilian clothes, jack a car, and get out of the prison, they’d be onto me long before I reached Aberdeen. Once the alarm went up and the highway patrol sealed off I-80, I’d be sunk.

I lost track of the hours. Then a slot at the bottom of my door rattled open, and a plastic tray slid through. Breakfast was a cardboard carton of warm milk and half a bowl of greasy, cold oatmeal. I thought back to the prison cafeteria, asking the line cook how the inmates in Hive B got fed. Lockdown means all the meals get delivered to their cells, he’d told me. We cook ’em up and send them all over on rolling carts for the guards to pass out.

As I slowly stirred the oatmeal with a plastic spoon, a wave of nausea washed over me. Not from the food either, considering how my vision blurred in time with the queasiness. I tried to remember anything I could about concussions—specifically, how fast they could kill you—but I drew a blank. I needed real medical treatment, and fast.

I kept staring at the plastic tray. The food service was the only line of direct communication between Hive B and the rest of the prison…but only in one direction. Still, there had to be a way I could use that.

As my cell door rattled and swung open, the answer hit me.

I wasn’t going to break out today.

I was going to break in.





34.




I stood up slow, eyeing the guard on the threshold. Red rims lined his baggy eyes, and he walked with a lethargic shuffle in his step. Somebody’s a little hungover from last night’s festivities, I thought. Perfect.

“Infirmary,” he said. “The doc needs to check you out.”

I knew the routine by now. I presented my wrists and waited patiently while he fumbled with the shackles. My eyes were on his belt. Pepper spray, pistol, key ring. I walked just ahead of him, a little slower than I needed to.

Once we passed the checkpoint gate, my fingers dipped into my pocket. They closed over the marble-sized lump of alchemist’s clay that Emerson had smuggled in for me. One of Bentley’s specialties. I scooped it up and rolled it into my palm, pinning the clay in place with my thumb.

“Let me ask you something.”

“Shut up,” the guard said. “Keep walking.”

“I’m just wondering how you live with yourself, being an accessory to all this.”

We rounded a corner. Just ahead, my eyes followed the pipes running at chest height along the wall, where they bent at a sharp angle and disappeared into the floor. The corrugated metal hatch stood alongside the pipes, about four feet across.

“You scumbags are getting exactly what you deserve.” The guard punctuated his words with a shove, sending me stumbling. “Why shouldn’t we make a little money and have some fun while we’re at it?”

“I am so glad you said that,” I told him.

I kindled the clay with a tiny spark of power, the energy lancing from my palm and turning the marble into a smoldering furnace.

“Huh?” he said. “Why?”

I took a deep breath, held it, and hurled the marble to the ground. The clay burst and billowed, gushing a cloud of vomit-green smoke, faster and thicker than the spray from a fire extinguisher. The guard got a big lungful, choking and sputtering behind me as I knelt down and pulled on the hatch ring.

The trapdoor lifted, easy and smooth. Behind me, the guard was a convulsing shadow in the fog. My eyes burned like I’d rubbed them with fresh-cut onions, but I could see well enough to do what came next.

I drove both fists into his gut, grabbed him by the neck, then threw him down through the trapdoor. Head first.

He landed on his stomach, hitting the concrete seven feet down. I jumped in after him, stomping down hard on his spine with both feet, and dropped to one knee. Then I slipped my shackled wrists over his head, the short, stout length of chain between them biting against his neck, and heaved back as hard as I could.

“I’m glad you said that,” I hissed in his ear, “because I feel bad about the last guy I had to kill. You? I won’t.”

His feet hammered the ground, his eyes bulging. I heard the faintest crackling sound from his neck. He let out one last, rattling wheeze. Then nothing at all.