Eleven
Simone
“Stay close. I wouldn’t want to mistake you for one of those things.”
“I’m sure you’d be all broken up,” I muttered at Rubin’s broad back, the only thing I allowed myself to focus on.
He turned to face me, his grip on his knife tightening. His jaw ticked a beat.
“We made a deal, Simone. My word still means something.”
He started moving just as abruptly as he’d stopped, and I followed him step for step, holding the plastic spoon and toilet paper weapon up like I could actually do something with it.
Not Rubin, though. I may have been holding the shiv like it would come to life and attack me, but Rubin held his with ease, loosely, with comfortable familiarity and certainty that he was ready for whatever.
It was the way he did everything, and reminded me of one of my most embarrassing pastimes.
Watching the man sign his name had been one of the highlights of my job. The smooth, bold, confident strokes of pen against paper. Rubin did that simple activity with such command and such containment it made me jealous—among other things.
I’d never be that confident or sure of myself, but I’d have to pretend now.
I’d stopped praying as much after Nana died, and when Aaron got arrested, I’d given it up completely. I prayed now, even though I wasn’t exactly sure what I was praying for.
Click.
I almost screamed when the sound reverberated through the dim, hollow hallway. I swallowed it back, but almost released it again when the lights flashed on.
Rubin was still calm as ever and taking advantage of the new lighting to look around. “Someone’s in the control tower. They shifted the system to manual override,” he said.
“Is that good?” I asked.
He looked at me, then shrugged. “Depends on who is in the tower.”
I said nothing, gripping my spoon even tighter, but forced my hand to relax when the plastic warped.
“The catwalk is coming up. You go across first,” he said.
Fuck no, I thought, but what I actually said was “Um…”
Shockingly, Rubin was unconvinced by my protest, and his expression dared me to argue. This was fantastic. Walk across the same spot where I’d nearly fallen to my death, or argue with the Albanian mob boss who’d all but threatened to feed me to the monsters below?
Definitely a plan C decision, but no plan C was forthcoming. I shook my head.
I could do this. I would.
Through sheer force of will, I kept my eyes open as I walked the plank. I used that same will not to give in to the hysteria that I wanted to cover with laughter. After all, I was walking the literal plank.
Why not think of pirates and sailors and spinach and the ocean and literally everything except the fact that I was ten feet over the floor with a pit of literal fucking zombies waiting to eat me?
I made it, and let my fingers slacken so much I almost dropped the spoon. I tightened my grip, and then turned to watch Rubin.
Yeah, he wasn’t having the same trouble as me, which was no surprise at all. But still, it was a marvel to have him make that look easy. But he did. And in the next moment, he was in front of me.
“Shyqyr! They turned on the fucking air conditioner,” he said.
My back was damp with sweat, but I barely noticed the heat.
He’d grown up in the Accursed Mountains and thought thirty degrees—he refused to use Fahrenheit—was like being on the surface of the sun. I’d gently suggested that perhaps a wool suit in Georgia in July was not the best idea, but he’d brushed me off.
“Still not accustomed to Hotlanta, Mr. Marku?” I tittered a nervous laugh and kept focused on him.
“I used that abominable nickname and now one of your olive trees just died.” Maybe teasing the always-serious Rubin about his precious olive groves wasn’t the best play, but lobbing terrible jokes at a humorless crime lord was a nice change of pace.
His face was frozen, as still as a corpse’s, not that that saying had any meaning anymore. I laughed louder, sounding unhinged even to my own ears. Rubin didn’t move a millimeter.
I dropped the attempt at humor and focused on the matter at hand. “I don’t know if that’s smart. If the system is running on generators, who knows how long the fuel will last.”
“Yeah,” Rubin responded, though he didn’t look back at me. His eyes instead focused ahead, searching the now-illuminated corridors for any threat.
“That’s where we were before,” I said, when we went to the little hallway that we had left what felt like a lifetime ago.
He stopped and looked into the office, took a quick look around, and then stepped back out. “Come on,” he said.
“Why?”
“I need to see what else is here.”
Obviously.
I should have known that. But nerves were getting to me, so it was okay if I wasn’t running at full strength. Together we moved into one office, mercifully empty, and then the next, which was less so.
Rubin’s face was even more grim, and I clenched my teeth as I processed the sight.
Two men, both dressed in uniforms that left no doubt that they were correctional officers.
And between them they had three attached arms. One of the guards was holding the fourth with chunks of flesh entwined with blue threads hanging from its teeth.
The absolute wrongness of the sight froze me in place.
Again, Rubin didn’t have that problem. He moved without hesitation and buried the sharpened spoon in the one-armed CO’s ear.
I would have expected the cheap plastic to splinter and break, maybe scratch skin but not do any real damage.
But Rubin slid the spoon like a key into a lock.
There was a soft squelch, and Rubin stabbed again and then again until blood and brain poured out of the dead man’s ear.
The other, who’d been clumsily moving toward Rubin, got the same treatment.
And then the room was still and silent and wrong in a way that threatened to undo me.
Rubin stepped in before that could happen. “See if there’s anything useful in here.” Then he started to leave the office.
“Should we split up?” I asked, almost regretting it when Rubin looked at me but liking the idea of being alone even less.
“Not smart, but there’s nothing behind us, so let’s be efficient,” he said.
I nodded and tried to pretend like I wasn’t on the verge of a meltdown.
Not that it was necessary to pretend with him.
He knew me well enough to know that I was panicking.
He’d only seen it one time before, and had handled it much the same way then.
I swallowed, my mouth thick with spit yet simultaneously dry.
I couldn’t let myself watch Rubin leave, too worried that I would beg him not to.
So instead I whirled around and started to look.
I found two emergency kits with flares, antibacterial cream, and thermal blankets. A sweet stash of canned coffee, some Band-Aids, and an unopened pack of blue ink pens. It took less than ninety seconds. And when Rubin came back, he was wiping his bloody hand with the leg of his pants.
“You got an upgrade,” I said, gesturing toward the Bowie knife he now held. He had a walkie-talkie tucked in his back pocket.
“We’ll see what else we can find. You might get one too,” he said. He went into the office and looked around. “What’d you find?”
I showed him my stash, and he nodded at the two dead men. “What was on them?”
I had been going out of my way to ignore them. I hadn’t looked, and Rubin knew it.
Not even a second passed before he sprung into action, kicking one of the bodies to its side and rummaging through its pockets. He grabbed a set of keys, another knife, a baton.
“Want some gum?” he asked.
I could feel the disgust on my face, and I shook my head.
“All right, let’s go back to the warden’s office,” he said.
“Why?”
“It’s got a bathroom, better location, and equidistant between both of our ways out of here. But first, one last stop,” he said.
I nodded and followed behind him, the shiv still in my grip. I followed Rubin down a hall and saw three more bodies and then an exit.
“Is that the way out?”
“We’ll see.”
We approached the door. This one had glass and a heavy plexiglass opening along a long hall that led to the other unit.
“But I bet it’s locked, I—” I cut off when I saw a figure through the glass.
It was a group. More of those things, I thought at first, but then I realized they were moving stealthily.
“Damian and the others?” I risked whispering.
He shook his head. “No.”
I studied the group and realized that they were also wearing uniforms. And there was a woman with them. I thought I recognized her, but could barely catch a glimpse. The group appeared to be in a hurry, and at the shambling steps behind them, I figured out why.
“Yeah, definitely not a way out,” Rubin muttered.
We waited until all of the figures had left the hallway, glad that we hadn’t been spotted, and then went back to the warden’s office. I looked at the body on the ground.
“Is that bothering you?” Rubin said.
“Would it matter if it was?” I responded, unable to tear my eyes away from the mangled figure.
“No, it wouldn’t. You have to get used to this stuff now,” he said. But in the next breath, he grabbed the flag that had been on the post and spread it on the ground, kicked the corpse onto it, and then dragged it out into the hallway.
When he came back, I couldn’t resist asking. “Why did you take it out? I thought you didn’t mind it.”
“I don’t mind it. That doesn’t mean I want to see it.”
He looked at me for a long moment, and I thought he might say something, but instead he went to the bathroom. I heard water running, and I decided to take that as a good sign.
When he came out, he was shirtless, which I tried to pretend not to notice. And his hands were clean.
I looked away from him and out the window.
I shouldn’t have.
Because I didn’t see the city I’d grown up in.
I saw fire.
Death.
The end of the world.
Something caught my eye and I focused on what I realized were two people running.
I didn’t know the man, but I recognized the woman with hints of purple and blue in her braids.
I’d seen her before when I’d testified against Rubin.
She’d been sitting in the gallery, but unlike the others, who’d gawked at me, she’d been quietly reading, giving the circus no attention.
I’d found out Rubin had tried to hire her, and she’d turned him down.
Good for her.
I hoped she made it.
“This is really happening.”
I hadn’t realized I spoke until I heard Rubin. “Yes, it is.”
Then there was a sound in the distance, a scream or a shot, I wasn’t quite sure.
I started to move toward it, then thought better of it and stepped back.
Then froze altogether, the weight of everything hitting me at once.
Rubin looked at me, a question in his eyes.
I looked back at him, wanting to be silent, but unable to keep the words to myself.
I looked at the spot where the corpse had been, looked back at Rubin.
“I’m gonna die here,” I said.
Rubin glared at me, his face twisted in disgust. Then he walked toward me and grabbed my arms. He looked so angry I would have stepped back if it had been physically possible. But I couldn’t. I just had to stand there.
Rubin’s hands gripping my upper arms, the rage on his face was enough to bring me to the verge of tears.
“You’ll die here if I say you do. Not until then.”
“You don’t know that,” I said.
His grip tightened ever so slightly.
“That’s where you’re wrong. You owe me. And if you think death will get you out of my debt, you are mistaken. You owe me. You are mine. No matter where you go, I will find you. I will follow you everywhere, even to hell to get what’s mine.”
He held my gaze, his dark eyes piercing, like he could see things I’d even tried to hide from myself.
My skin felt too tight, the heavy weight of Rubin’s gaze as he moved closer and closer holding me in place.
My racing heart drowned out every other sound, and all I could focus on was him, close enough that I could see the flecks of gray on his stubbled cheek.
He was only a few inches taller than me, but impossibly powerful, all encompassing.
This had to be what the eye of a hurricane felt like, calm amidst unfathomable destruction. That thought scattered as Rubin moved even closer. I breathed in deep as he moved closer still, so close I was sure he was going to kiss me.
His lips were a breath away, his rage even closer. And I wasn’t sure what I wanted more, to run or to lean in.
That was a lie.
I wanted to lean in, wanted just once before the end to feel Rubin’s lips on mine, to taste him.
Fear, embarrassment, reality froze me. But Rubin wasn’t frozen.
He moved a nanometer closer and held there for only a long breath, his dark eyes so close I could separate his pupil from his iris, though they were almost the same color.
Then he lifted one corner of his mouth in a cruel sneer and turned away.