The Unwilling(112)

A clean slate.

Reece closed his eyes, and tried to see the future. It was cloudy, and cloudy was frustrating. So he went to his secret place, and watched the girl. She’d crawled under the bed, and pulled the blanket with her. Reece couldn’t see much. He chewed his lip until it bled. The taste of it surprised him.

He didn’t like that she was under the bed; he couldn’t see. How long would she stay there, and how would she be when she came out, ruined or resigned or something else?

Maybe she did not have to die.

Or maybe she did …



* * *



For me, it was all about Chance. I’d dragged him into the cage as the man who’d beaten him so badly stood by and watched, his chest heaving as sweat ran down his neck. He’d said nothing at all, just locked the cage, and left.

Son of a bitch.

Motherfucker.

I still didn’t know if Chance was all right. He was on his side, arms folded to cushion the ribs, his eyes closed. He didn’t speak, but his face was better than I’d thought. Blood, yeah, but none of the cuts were deep. I used my shirt to clean him up.

“Gibs.” It was a whisper.

“Yeah, man. I’m here.”

“That kind of sucked.” His eyes stayed closed. His lips twitched.

“Dude, are you smiling?”

“I don’t know. My face hurts too much to be sure.”

“Why are you smiling?”

“I couldn’t find a tool kit.”

That made no sense. I thought again, Concussion. Or shock.

Then he opened his hand, and showed me what looked like a pair of scissors, curved at the tips, some kind of surgical clamp.

Chance’s voice was very soft. “It’s called a hemostat.”

He seemed so certain and calm I thought maybe I was the one in shock. “How in the world do you know that?”

Another smile, very faint. “I saw it in a magazine once. Medics in Vietnam…”

“Chance, Jesus…”

“Much better than your fingers.”





43


Jason waited for someone to take him to X, but no one came to his cell or even into the hall. The world was stillness, dark thoughts, and dead silence. Like most inmates unfortunate enough to be awake in the middle of this particular night, Jason was thinking of the execution. He knew enough to visualize the way it would go down. At eight o’clock, three corrections officers would remove X from his cell, walk him the length of death row, and down a short hall to the execution chamber, where thick, leather straps at the wrists and ankles would secure him to the chair as the final two straps crisscrossed his chest, shoulders to hips. One officer would shave his head as close to the skin as possible, as a second prepared the sponge and bucket of salt water, placing those items beside the chair. The third officer, the most senior, would adjust the headpiece to assure a proper fit and maximum conductivity. Every preliminary step was designed to further that end: the salt water and sponge, the bare skin and the cranial cap lined with copper mesh. Those steps wouldn’t take long, maybe twenty minutes.

After that, X would have to wait.

At nine o’clock exactly, blinds would be raised at two different windows, one to the outside world, letting in the new day’s light, and one to the observation room so that those present might witness the death. The warden, by then, would be in the execution chamber, and would offer X a chance for final words. Jason had no idea what X might say, only that he would be there to hear those words, and that to X, his presence would matter in powerful, complicated ways that Jason would as soon not consider. As for the other witnesses—the politicians and the families of the victims—Jason suspected that X would die as he had lived, contemptuous to the end.

After last words, the sponge would be soaked in salt water, placed on X’s bare scalp, and secured there by the cranial cap. Water would stream down his face and into his eyes; it would darken his clothing at the collar. A power cable would be attached to the headpiece, as would a dark shroud designed to conceal his face in what Jason considered the final mercy of allowing a condemned man’s last expressions of pain, fear, and despair to be his alone.

Jason had imagined the moment countless times: silence in the gathered crowd, black cloth stirring as X measured out his final breaths. When the moment arrived, 1,750 volts would pour into X’s body, lifting it, and then dropping it. Fifteen seconds later, a second jolt would be delivered, followed by a mandatory five-minute wait and a declaration of time of death.

Assuming everything goes well.



* * *



When they came for Jason, they did so in the dark. Half-blinded by a flashlight, Jason still recognized Captain Ripley. The others he thought were Jordan and Kudravetz. The core of X’s detail. Old-school. They pulled Jason to his feet, and every inch of the journey hurt.

“Get dressed.”

They gave him civilian clothes, and Jason did as he was told. They took him into the hall. Cuffs only. No chains.

“This way.”

Ripley set a fast pace, and they met no one as they moved down deserted hallways, and passed through checkpoints that would normally be guarded. That set off alarm bells, but when Jason slowed his pace, they yanked him hard by the arms. Outside, the sky was clear and dark.

Not dawn.