The Jackal (Black Dagger Brotherhood: Prison Camp #1)(37)

Okay, so there was another useless set of words that just didn’t frickin’ work: “Knuckle” and “sandwich.”

Whatever. Her eyes—both of them—were closed, and she was aware of losing track of time’s passing so she must have been getting a little sleep. Talk about interruptions, though. Her awareness, her senses, her prickling, adrenaline-fueled paranoia, was a Geiger counter going off constantly.

There were a lot of false positives.

Sounds, real or imagined. Smells, real. Shifts in temperature or draft, real but ultimately indicative of nothing.

Every time she was roused, her eyes shot over to Jack.

On the far side of the pool, he was in the same position she was, his body at a right angle to the wall’s verticality, his thick and heavy legs out in front of him, his broad shoulders taking up a hell of a lot of space.

As her lids popped open for the hundred and seventy-fifth time, she wasn’t sure what exactly had gotten her attention, but like tracing the vapor trails of ubiquitous vernacular sayings in her head, the “huh-what?” had turned into kind of a game. Fun, fun.

When there was nothing alarming—prisoners, guards—coming at her, and Jack wasn’t reacting to anything, she closed her lids again.

But there was no slipping back into one-eyed sleep this time.

She uncrossed and recrossed her legs. Did the same with her arms. Cracked her neck.

Glancing around, she wanted to know exactly what had disturbed her, as if the answer would bring some kind of peace. Or at least unplug the adrenaline hose that was hooked up to her heart muscle.

The only thing that came back at her was the way Jack had answered her question.

What did you do?

We don’t ask those questions down here.

After he’d spoken the words, he had headed over to where he was now to sit down. For a while thereafter, he’d reported on things relevant to their situation: Guard schedules. How much more time they had to wait. How he was going to check at given intervals to keep track of where they were with the shifts.

She hadn’t followed much of it. And she’d had the sense that neither had he.

And now they were here, pretending to snooze. Or at least she was. He looked like he was actually asleep, although he had to be used to the catnap routine by now.

Jesus. A hundred years down here. She still couldn’t comprehend it.

Unzipping the front pocket on her windbreaker, she took out her phone and turned it on. As the unit booted up, she braced herself for learning that only ten minutes had passed. And also if it was ten hours later and now they had to go.

When the time came up, it had been six hours since she’d checked last, and she was surprised that she had no real reaction at the news flash. Then again, it didn’t come with a call to action, did it. There was no jumping up and going to that place with the names. The Wall.

Turning the phone back off, she had never once, in fifty years, considered the idea that her sister was dead. Not once. She still refused to believe it was possible. In her mind, she saw herself going up to a flat plane of engraved names, checking down the list, and finding absolutely no Janelles. And when that happened? She knew what was up next.

Jack was going to press her to leave. She was going to stay. And they were going to have a blowup and a half.

In the meantime, all she could do was wait.

As she zipped her phone back in and reshuffled her body in its upright position—like the tray table on an airplane—she was too antsy to pretend to sleep. And her butt was so numb, she was pretty convinced it had turned into an inanimate object.

Confronting the reality that she couldn’t go anywhere and she had nothing to distract her except the collection of stupid cat tricks and mental pushups in her head, she was reminded of the year after Janelle had been taken away. All those sleepless days had been just like this, the special torture tincture of exhaustion and buzzy, twitchy awareness battling it out under her skull, under her skin.

Was this what it was like for those serving out their sentences? She couldn’t imagine suffering through—

The sound was sharp and unexpected, and as she tried to place whatever it was, her brain told her that this was not the first time she had heard it. In fact, the odd vocalization had woken her up.

Putting her hand down, her palm locked on the gun she’d set on the rock at her hip, and she flicked the safety off. Absently, she decided it was going to be ironic if she ended up shooting another guard with the nine she’d gotten off the first one she’d killed—and then her brain segued past that to another question: Had the sunlight claimed that dead male she’d dragged out between the graves? By now, there had to have been more than enough sunshine to do the ashing—

The sound repeated for a third time.

Frowning, she looked across the pool. Jack’s face was all furrowed, his brows down, his lips pulled back in a snarl of aggression . . . or maybe it was pain. Hard to tell. And he was making noises in his throat that, when they reached a certain volume, were enough to travel over to her in spite of the falling water.

Grunts. Growls. His Adam’s apple working up and down the front column of his throat.

In his lap, his hands were twitching. Then curling into fists. And his feet at the ends of his legs were flexing and releasing as if he were rushing forward. Or rushing back?

“Jack?” she said.

His head jerked on his spine, but quickly resettled into its position. After which his mouth moved as if he were mumbling, and then he seemed to be reclaimed by whatever his subconscious was playing out.