Hell Breaks Loose (Devil's Rock #2)(4)

Two




Deep shadows blanketed the hospital room. A dim glow radiated from the panel above his hospital bed, saving the space from complete blackness. Not that Reid minded the dark. He was accustomed to it. There weren’t any nightlights in a prison cell. And his stints in the hole had shown him just how dark darkness could be.

Someone outside the room laughed as they passed his door. The footsteps faded. Otherwise the hospital was quiet, with that humming quality of a building that never shut off. Like him. He was wired tight. Tension knotted his shoulders as he reclined in the bed. He never shut down. Never turned off. He couldn’t afford to. Not until he was a pile of ashes in a box. Then, he’d rest. Hopefully that wasn’t happening any time soon.

Doctors, nurses, and other personnel worked the six floors of Sweet Hill Memorial with seemingly little thought to the felon in Room 321. Exactly the way he wanted it. He’d been here eight days. Eight days since he was taken from Devil’s Rock Penitentiary in an ambulance. In that time, he’d been an exemplary patient. He withstood all the poking and prodding without complaint. He slept and ate his fill. You could say whatever you wanted about hospital food, but compared to prison food it was five-star cuisine.

He’d used this time to store up energy and plot his next move. He had only one chance and he couldn’t f*ck it up.

He’d be sent back soon. He wasn’t hooked up to any beeping machines anymore. His wounds had pretty much healed, leaving only the black lines of stitches and fresh, itching scabs. No threat of infection or continued bleeding. His arm sling could come off in a few days. According to the doctor, he was lucky to be alive. Half an inch to the left and the shiv would have hit his heart.

Reid had said nothing when the doctor told him that, looking at him so expectantly. As though he might express relief or gratitude. He might be alive and breathing, but he had died a long time ago. He was nothing but a walking ghost now.

A ghost with nothing to lose.

Still, starting that fight had been a gamble. He winced, recalling how quickly everything had escalated and turned into a full-on riot. He’d only meant to get himself injured. Instead, inmates had died. Guards were injured. He’d seen North go down in a shower of blood. He felt like shit about that. He’d promised Knox he would look out for the kid. After a few inquiries, he’d learned that North was in a room somewhere else in the hospital. Thankfully, he would recover, but that face of his wouldn’t be so pretty anymore.

And that sucked. More guilt. More sins to heap at his feet. But it was done. He, better than anyone, knew you couldn’t change the past. He just had to make sure it counted for something. That it wasn’t for nothing. Then he could go back to rotting away for the rest of his life.

Reid took a deep, mostly pain-free breath as a nurse entered his room for a final bed check of the night. He was the last to be told anything concerning himself, but he knew what was coming. Even if he hadn’t spied the paperwork on the doctor’s clipboard authorizing his release, he knew. His time here was done. It was now or never. He had to act tonight.

“Are you comfortable? Can I get you anything? Another pillow?” Nadine asked as she adjusted the one beneath his head, bringing her chest close to his face. It was a game she liked to play. Tease the hard-up convict. Lingering touches on his body that didn’t feel quite so clinical. It’d been a long time for him, but he knew when a woman was into him.

The guard who’d accompanied her into the room snorted. Reid leveled his gaze on Vasquez. The man clearly found her compassion toward a scumbag like him unnecessary. Unsurprising.

Reid looked back at the nurse. “I’m fine.” He smiled at her. It felt a little rusty. He hadn’t done a lot of smiling in the last eleven years, but it seemed to work. She smiled back.

He picked up the remote control with his arm that wasn’t in a sling. “I might watch some television.” The more noise coming from his room, the better.

He punched the on button and the TV flickered to CNN, the channel Landers, the day guard, preferred. It was a good thing Landers wasn’t here tonight. He hung out in the room with Reid a lot so that he could watch TV. Vasquez, on the other hand, only entered the room to accompany the hospital staff. The rest of the time he stood watch outside the door.

“Don’t stay up too late,” Nadine advised. “You need your rest.”

He nodded, training his gaze on the TV as if he cared about what was happening in the rest of the world.

Footage of a vaguely familiar female dressed in a boring gray suit rolled across the screen.

“. . . an inside White House source reports that the First Daughter has been missing for over twenty-four hours, ever since Wednesday afternoon following a luncheon with the Ladies Literacy League in Fort Worth, Texas, where she delivered a speech on the . . .”

Nadine tsked. “Can you believe it? Someone abducted the President’s daughter. What’s the world coming to?”

He shook his head as if this was indeed something he gave a f*ck about.

“She probably took off for a weekend to Padre Island,” Vasquez grumbled. “Meanwhile, every law enforcement agency in the state is on full alert, wasting time and taxpayers’ money searching for her.”

The timing couldn’t have been better as far as Reid was concerned. Deep satisfaction pumped through his veins, mingling with the swelling adrenaline. That meant they would care less about one escaped convict.