Chapter 9
STONE
Reaching the most eastern edge of the prison, I come to a stop and try to get a feel for anything that’s happening below the ceiling, but while we’re still hovering over C-block, the majority of the prisoners are either dead or rioting in the canteen.
Beneath us is nothing but the old, empty solitary cells from the eighties.
This section of the prison hasn’t been used since the last renovations, so there’s no reason for anyone to be over here.
In theory, we should be good to wait here until nightfall before finally getting out of here. Then the real fun will start.
“What are we doing?” Aria asks.
I glance back at her, seeing a raw nervousness in her eyes, and as I really take her in, I notice just how big a toll today has taken on her.
There’s dried blood across her skin, claw marks from where men have grabbed at her body.
Her white shirt is now almost brown, torn across the front, and the thin straps are barely holding on.
Her pants are the same, torn at the knees with fresh blood seeping through the fabric.
We’ve only been crawling through the ceiling for maybe forty or fifty minutes at most, but it’s not an easy feat.
The surface is rough, and it certainly wasn’t created for women in business clothes to be crawling across for long periods of time.
“You’re bleeding,” I murmur, pointing toward her scraped knees.
“Observant,” she says with a nod, the sarcasm thick in her tone.
“Are you pointing that out because I’m clearly too clueless to have come to that conclusion on my own, or did you suddenly grow a conscience?
Because the man who has done nothing but drone on and on about how he’s going to kill a woman for the past two hours shouldn’t give a shit that her knees are scraped up.
I mean, if you’re going to put on this tough-guy act, then the least you can do is be consistent with it.
I can help you with your character profile if you’re trying to be something that you’re not. ”
No other woman on this godforsaken earth has ever gotten under my skin the way that she has.
“Don’t fool yourself, Menace. Just because I haven’t attempted to take your life yet, doesn’t mean that I won’t. I have dreamed about that moment for seven fucking years, and I’m not about to give up on that dream now.”
She shakes her head, sitting up and leaning against the wall, her elbows braced against her bloodied knees as she stares at the dark wall in front of her, refusing to respond, but I don’t blame her. Hearing someone talk so casually about your impending murder isn’t exactly riveting conversation.
The minutes tick by, and the longer the silence grows between us, the heavier it seems to get. “I’m fucking sick of this shit, Menace. It’s just you and me now. Start talking.”
Aria scoffs and glances at me, her brows pinched in the center.
“You realize you’ve got the wrong girl, right?
” she says, looking up at me with a heaviness in her broken stare.
“I don’t know what to tell you, Stone, but you’ve got your wires crossed somewhere.
Whatever you think is going on here is some kind of messed-up coincidence, and I don’t want anything to do with it.
I’ve never met you before. Never seen or spoken to you before today.
The first time I saw you was seven years ago, along with the rest of the world, on a shitty TV screen.
I just . . . I can’t work out what the fuck I have apparently done to you that is so fucking offensive that it’s going to cost me my life. ”
“Stop with the bullshit, Aria. Why are you really here?”
“Holy fucking shit.” She drags her hands down her face, her mascara smudged beneath her eyes.
“I don’t know what more I can say. My name is Aria Ashford.
I’m twenty-four years old. I live in a shitty apartment complex, with an even shittier AC.
I’ve been working at Pulse Media for four years, and I hate most of my colleagues.
But despite the attitude that I use as a shield, I like to think that I’m actually a really nice person.
I feed my neighbor’s cat when she goes on vacation. ”
“Why the fuck are you telling me this?”
“So you can finally open your eyes and realize that I’m not who you think I am,” she pleads, but there’s no mistake here.
I know this woman better than I know myself.
I know the smell of her skin. I know the sound of her laugh.
I know the way her feet sound as she’s running across the rain-soaked pavement.
Every scar on her body. Every broken heart.
I was there for it all. And the fact that she has the nerve to sit here beside me and pretend that she’s not the woman I know her to be isn’t just a fucking insult, it’s a goddamn slap to the face.
“I—”
A branch snaps under the weight of somebody’s foot on the opposite side of the wall, and I spring forward, my hand clamping over Aria’s mouth as she goes to continue with her bullshit alias. “Don’t make a fucking sound,” I warn her, my tone a low warning.
Her eyes are wide as I feel her breath against my hand, and as she holds my stare and nods, I watch a single tear roll down her delicate cheek before crashing against my fingers.
Trusting her to keep her mouth shut, I slowly release my hand from over her mouth, and she silently leans back against the wall, turning to face away from me as though just the sight of me beside her is shattering her heart into a million fractured pieces.
Wouldn’t be the first time. I didn’t like making a habit of it then, and it still feels wrong even all these years later.
The only difference is that she no longer deserves my sympathy.
As the minutes drag on, I intently listen to every noise around us—the raging alarm, the inmates, the guards, the heavy clanging of the doors echoing through the prison.
“Do you know what you’re doing?” Aria asks after the silence has dragged on too long.
I nod. “I’ve been tracking the guards’ movements for years,” I finally tell her.
“There are blind spots in their surveillance and timing. At exactly four past eleven tonight, there will be a minute-and-a-half window where we will be able to make a break for it. We’ll have to cut across the yard, climb over two separate barbed-wire fences, and then through a clearing before finding cover in the woods. ”
She gapes at me. “There’s no fucking way. You couldn’t do that alone in that little time, let alone dragging me along with you. That’s ridiculous.”
“It’s possible. I’ve been training for it.”
“Yeah, possible for you, maybe. Me? No chance in hell.”
“When failing means having a sniper put a bullet through the back of your head, you’ll find a way to get your ass over those fucking fences and into the woods.”
She scoffs. “What does it matter anyway? I might as well just let the snipers take me out. It beats going through all this bullshit only to have you slice me up into tiny little pieces after torturing me for hours on end. Maybe the snipers won’t take a kill shot and get me in the leg instead.
At least that way I can sue and make bank.
Not to mention the workers’ compensation claim I can make against Pulse Media would set me up for life.
All I have to do is make it out of here alive, and I’m good.
Your lawyer reached out to me, so I think I could take him down, too.
Either way, it’s in my best interest to live through this. ”
I shake my head. “Since when do you care about the money?”
“I don’t. But rolling in cash seems like a better option than rolling in a goddamn grave,” she tells me.
“Besides, you know your plan sucks, right? I studied the blueprints of this prison all week, preparing for this waste-of-time interview, and there are so many better options. Ones that even include not having to wait around until the middle of the night to get going. You could have already been in those fucking woods if you just told me your stupid plan long before you had me crawling through the ceiling.”
This fucking woman. I swear, my patience is quickly wearing thin.
My hands ball into fists, and I try to calm down, having way too many hours ahead of myself stuck in this crawlspace with her. “I’ve been working on this plan for two years. I have it down to the fucking second. I know what I’m doing.”
“Then by all means, risk getting your head blown off by the snipers. Doesn’t mean anything to me.
I’ll still end up with a good story to write,” she muses.
“Though you realize it’s only two in the afternoon, right?
What am I supposed to do about bathroom breaks?
Also, getting kinda hangry. Have you got any snackeroos in those pockets of yours? ”
Fuck. It’s only two in the afternoon. Waiting here until eleven is going to kill me, especially when she’s running her damn mouth about bathroom breaks and fucking snackeroos. That much time with her under my skin will no doubt break me.
“Nine fucking hours,” I muse.
“Mm-hmm. What are the chances the guards gain control of C-block before then and realize you’re missing? There’s no chance of escape then. You’ll be screwed, not to mention, you’ll go down for the twenty-plus murders you committed today.”
I drag my hands down my face. There’s nothing I hate more than being proven wrong, especially by Aria fucking Ashford, not that Aria is even her real name, but hell, if that’s what she wants to go by now to put distance between us, then so be it.
I’ll play along. But for the record, I’ve only killed about seventeen men today.
Give or take, but definitely not more than twenty.
The point is, she’s right. With modern technology and a heavy SWAT team, it won’t be long before the canteen is hit with gas bombs or something, and the guards will reclaim control of the prison.
When they do, my ass will be the first they notice missing.
And considering Aria’s body isn’t among the conference-room wreckage, they’ll put the pieces together pretty quickly and send out a search party.
My face will be splashed across the front of every news outlet with the word WARNING in capital letters.
I won’t stand a fucking chance to put distance between me and the prison before someone spots me.
If today were any other day, my plan would have gone off without a hitch, but it’s not, and if I don’t find another way, then I might as well let her go and head back to my cell. All of this would have been for nothing.
But if there’s another way . . .
Letting out a breath, I meet Aria’s heavy stare. “You really studied the blueprints?”
“Yes. And they were a pain in the ass to get my hands on, by the way.”
“What did you find?”
“Two different options. The first, which is definitely more appealing but riskier, is the old underground tunnels they used in the eighties. The guards apparently used them to get from one block to the other. The only problem is, the only documented entrance is in A-block, and that seems like it’s more trouble than it’s worth. ”
“Option two?”
“Option two,” she says with a sigh, scrunching her face up. “The old sewer line.”
My brow arches. Since when is there an old sewer line that runs beneath the prison?
“It was the main sewer they used before the big renovation back in the early 2000s,” Aria continues, seeing the curiosity in my stare.
“The main bathroom used to be directly where the kitchen is now, behind the canteen. The blueprints showed some kind of hatch from the kitchen down into the sewer line, but that’s about as much information as I have. ”
A hatch? There are a few different options of where it could be, but the bigger issue is trying to get into the kitchen undetected while attempting to slip out, because the only way into the kitchen is through the canteen, and there’s no way I’m waltzing Aria through there.
Don’t get me wrong, I can fend off assholes any time of the day, but against those numbers, not even I could help her then.
“Sewer lines are risky. We could be walking through there for hours before finding a way out, and even if we somehow make it to the end, there’s a good chance it’s been locked up.”
She shrugs her shoulders. “Your call. I’m just presenting you with the options.”
“Okay,” I finally say, my heart kicking into gear for the first time in seven long years at the mere thought of getting out of this place.
We’ll be on the run, but I don’t care. There’s shit I need to do, and with my Polaroids in my pocket, there’s nothing keeping me here a second longer. “Let’s fucking go.”