Into the Fire(92)

That’s when he noticed the other inmates trickling out.

No, no, no, he thought. Not now.

He stepped out of the stream, his body still slick with soapy water, staggered over to the benches, and hurriedly dressed. He’d managed to get into his boxers and pants when the lights went out.

Three elongated shadows fell through the wide doorway, stretching across the tile. When the men stepped into view, they were perfectly backlit, black outlines that looked like holes cut into the air itself. Casper’s friends coming to settle the debt.

They advanced on Evan.

Evan didn’t wait.

He charged.

Drawing first blood was the only chance he had.

The three men were counting on the intimidation factor and the element of surprise. All the set decoration—killed lights and long shadows in the proverbial shower—didn’t buy them what they’d hoped.

The darkness meant he wouldn’t see them coming.

But it also meant they couldn’t see him coming.

The floor was slick with water, which would help.

In a three-man assault, the guy in the middle was usually the alpha, so Evan singled him out first, jabbing two fingers into the jugular notch at the base of his throat. The soft flesh in the U-shaped dent beneath the Adam’s apple had plenty of give. The man fell away, hands wrapped around his thick neck, gagging and screeching for air.

The ringing in Evan’s ears rose to a high-pitched whine, but he ignored it, ignored the nausea and the pain and the way the men’s outlines were indistinct, like ghosts bleeding into the air. If he held it together, he could get it mostly right, and mostly right might just be good enough.

The other two came at Evan simultaneously, unsteady on the wet tile, but they were clearly spooked at having lost the drop. Slipping between them, Evan chambered his leg and pistoned his heel into the outside back of the smaller man’s thigh, aiming four inches above the knee to target the spot where the peroneal nerve branches off from the sciatic. The pressure-point pain was profound and immobilizing and set off a sympathetic reflex in the other leg. The man tumbled to the floor, doubled over in an improvised fetal position so he could clutch his throbbing limb. His lips gaped, and even in the dim light Evan could make out the glisten of drool.

Evan faced the last man. He still couldn’t see him clearly, but the guy was enormous, his shoulders rising and falling. Panicked breathing. His mouth was spread, a gold incisor glinting in the dim light.

The man from the rec area, then.

Not one of Bedrosov’s lieutenants. That made the situation less complicated but still plenty dangerous.

Evan’s two strikes had cost him. His muscles were spent, his head screaming. The tile rolled like a boat beneath his feet, threatening to dump him over.

Evan and the big man circled each other.

The others flopped on the tile, fighting for air, making animal noises.

Evan’s view got swimmy and wouldn’t come back. He could barely discern his opponent; he looked like a collection of ripples that made up a man.

There was no way Evan could fight him. Not right now.

He had to bluff his way out.

It took everything he had to produce the words without slurring. “If I’d kicked him four inches lower, I would’ve struck the knee joint. That would have produced permanent damage—cartilage tearing, tendons stripped from the bone, maybe a shattered patella. That’s what I’ll do to you. Unless.”

They kept circling, sizing each other up. Evan’s bare feet made slapping noises against the tile.

“Unless what?” the big man finally said.

“I don’t want to hurt anyone too badly,” Evan said. “And I don’t think any of you want to get hurt too badly.”

“Like you hurt Casper?”

“Yeah,” Evan said. “Like that.”

They shuffled around and around, the men’s gasps and moans echoing in the darkness. Evan stopped, and the man matched him. The room, however, kept moving.

Evan summoned his toughest voice. “We good?” It sounded husky rather than weak, a stroke of luck.

The man hesitated. Then gave a nod. “We’re good.”

“Why don’t you help your friends out,” Evan said.

The man shouldered his cohorts and stumbled away. Evan stood in the darkness until the sounds of their labored retreat faded.

Then he sat on the bench, gripped it at either side, and did his best to figure out how to breathe again.





48



I Saw What You Did





After prepping the cell, Evan rested on his bunk, visualizing his brain as healthy and unimpaired. He thought about all his symptoms—the nausea and light-headedness, the headaches and blurred vision, the light streaks and dizziness, the ringing in his ears and trouble with his balance—and he willed each one slowly away.

If he guarded his head at all costs, he just might make it through intact.

When the time was near, Evan hopped down and eased onto the catwalk to check the clock—8:57 P.M.

Three minutes to go time.

He went back into his cell.

“Monkey Mouth,” he said. “You should go to the dayroom.”

Monkey Mouth paused his oblivious yammering. “Why?”

“It’ll be safer there.”

Monkey Mouth scurried off the bunk and hustled out.