Seven
Rubin
Ipulled up short and looked back, a grim smile pulling at my mouth.
Down the opposite hallway, I spotted two figures behind a heavy metal and plexiglass door. Besnik, my family’s mik, who’d received the same life sentence as me.
Beside him was Damian, my brother and kryetar.
“We’ll come to you,” Damian said as he grabbed the door.
“No!”
He froze, his face twisted in confusion.
I grabbed Simone’s wrist and practically dragged her back down the corridor to stop in front of the door separating me from my brother and Besnik.
“I can open it,” Damian said.
“You’ll open the others too.” I gestured to the opposite side of the catwalk toward A block.
Behind the plexiglass, faces pressed and slid against the glass, leaving red-black smears I would ordinarily have made someone clean by nightfall.
There were dozens of them, the ones at the back pushing the ones at the front inexorably forward.
I watched face bones crack against the glass.
Watched the lack of any reaction at all.
Traced the frame of the plexiglass where it was welded into the metal.
For the first time, I was relieved to be in prison.
“Ah, a complication,” Damian said. His eyes narrowed as he stared at Simone. “Maybe we can find a distraction.”
Simone’s expression gave away nothing, but it was a show. She’d never said it, but she disliked my brother, and the feeling was mutual. I hadn’t given a shit before and gave even less than that now.
I waved Damian off. “I have plans for Simone, but there’s another way.”
Damian’s mouth curved as he studied me the way only my brother would dare. The quirk of his brow told me he’d decided something he wisely chose not to share. Certain Damian was done for now, I said, “First, though, why are you here, vella?”
He laughed. “I missed you, too, Rubin. Anyway, things are rather…messy outside. You’re needed, so I planned to break you out.
I brought Arben and a few others to help.
Good plan too. I paid to have one of the guards put you in the back of a delivery truck.
Simple, no shooting, but that plan got fucked. ”
I glared at him. “As I told you it would when I forbade you from doing so.”
Damian smiled, looking like he had when our mother caught him sneaking cookies. “The plan was perfect. The only thing I didn’t plan for was the dead starting to walk, which, to be fair, would have fucked up your plan, too.”
“What are you talking about, Damian?” I questioned even as I cataloged all I’d seen in the last hour, which felt like an entire fucking lifetime.
“Just what I said. You’ve seen the reports about the sickness the same as I have. Guess this sickness has some unusual side effects.”
He leaned against the door, and I noticed he had dressed down today.
He reached into his pocket and pulled out a pack of cigarettes, lighting one with the same practiced move he’d used since he was twelve.
I’d never taken to the habit, but I wouldn’t have minded him sharing.
Two hundred pounds of metal made that impossible, but at least I couldn’t smell the smoke.
“Guess I should probably try to ration these, but…” He shrugged.
“What’s going on in the rest of the prison?” I said.
“Oh, the inmates and COs are either eating each other alive or stabbing each other. You know. The usual.”
I lifted the radio I’d tucked in my pants. “I haven’t heard any chatter.”
“The COs are rather busy, and who’s that asshole head guard?”
“Merrick.” Simone and I spoke in unison, and I only spared a second to watch her blush before turning back to Damian, ignoring the ease trying to sneak up on me.
It was as familiar as my hatred of her. From the first, when she’d been nothing more than a bright girl who might have been of use, there’d been an easy connection with her.
I’d actually welcomed it. I was the boss.
People either wanted me dead, wanted me not to kill them, or wanted money.
I was always on guard. But sweet, shy Simone, as scared of me as she might have been, was my one reprieve from that. She treated me like I was…human.
I didn’t realize my mistake until it was too late.
“Yeah, that’s him,” Damian said. “He told the COs radio silence. Last I heard, he was trying to get all the guards together and head for the armory.”
Of course he’d gone for the guns. So fucking predictable.
“They aren’t trying to retake control of the jail?” Simone said.
That was my next question, too, but Damian didn’t spare Simone another glance and kept focused on me.
“No one’s trying to establish any order.
I saw at least two dozen inmates fleeing with COs right beside them.
The cat’s officially away, so there’s a lot of playing right now.
Tons of killing too. So anyway, how am I gonna get to you? ”
He laughed, and I frowned at him. He was never serious. But I guess I could give him points for being consistent.
“You won’t, but I’ll get to you. The warden’s office has an override that allows one door at a time to open.”
“That’s a horrible design flaw,” Simone muttered.
I agreed but kept focused on Damian.
“And her?” Damian tipped his chin toward Simone without looking at her.
“None of your concern,” I said flatly. “In the meantime, get Arben and Lorik and any others you find and stay out of sight until I find you. Those things seem to get agitated when they see us.”
“Kujdesu per veten, krye,” Besnik said.
“Take care of yourself, too, Besnik, and keep Damian out of trouble.”
“With my life, krye.”
I nodded and then grabbed Simone and started walking again.
“You don’t have to pull me, Mr. Marku,” she said.
I stopped walking and let her go. She stumbled but regained her balance quickly.
I knew what she was doing, but I didn’t take the bait.
I needed to stay focused. We were in the common area that was the center of all blocks and she leaned against one of the metal tables that was bolted to the floor and then exhaled deeply, her eyes cast sideways.
“What are you thinking?” I said.
Her eyes widened, and she looked up at me. “I’m trying to think of a way to make what Damian said not true.”
“Why did you tell me to go for the brain?” I responded, putting my foot on one of the round stools and looking at her.
The harsh light in the common area made her dark skin dull rather than lighting its usual glow. Her forehead was damp with sweat, and there was a rip in her shirt. Her hair, which was pulled back in a meticulous braid, had come partially undone. She looked wrecked.
And insane as it was, I wanted to lick the sweat off her forehead, keep ripping that shirt until it was completely off. I wanted her. Ah, the conundrum that was Simone.
She exhaled, her breasts quivering with the effort, claiming my attention even though that was the last thing I wanted.
But she relaxed. I’d never get her to admit it, but instinct told me she had enjoyed those conversations that we had had before.
I had often asked her opinion, and when I finally managed to get her to relax enough to talk to me, insight into her thoughts had been incredible.
True, those insights I’d held so dear had been nothing but a part of the facade Simone had created to deceive me. But her liar’s mind had been useful and it would be again.
“That…man in the warden’s office. He didn’t react when you hit him. He didn’t react when his arm was broken.”
“Drugs could have reduced the pain,” I said.
“I thought about that, but it seems unlikely. I don’t know of a drug that would make his eyes look like that. And he only stopped when you hit his head. His brain.”
“You think that’s conclusive?”
“No. But there’s not a good alternate theory. And those things that were trying to claw at me when…They…” She trailed off, looked away, then looked at me again. “They didn’t seem human.”
I shrugged. “So you accept Damian’s word. The dead are walking.”
“I don’t accept Damian’s word. Only what I saw,” she said.
“Hm.”
“That’s it? That’s all you have to say?” she said.
“What else should I say? We have a working thesis. Until it’s proven wrong, we don’t have anything else to go with.”
“So what now?” She wasn’t talking about the dead. I saw it from the nervous way she licked the corner of her lips, and I knew the answer.
“Now you tell me why I shouldn’t kill you.”