by Logan Byrne
I didn’t question it much longer, figuring Mirian and I would have a discussion about it once I got out of here, not if I got out of here. It was on.
8
I felt for the wand in my mattress about every hour since I found it yesterday. It felt almost like a dream, that I would be able to get my hands on one, and I dreaded the thought of random inspections coming through to check for contraband. Getting caught with a wand, a weapon, would be the end of me. Any momentum Mirian and my lawyer were getting would be long gone, and my chances of escaping with Rosie, Lisa, and Raul would be dead on arrival.
The wand was always there, never leaving its location tucked deep within the frayed cushioning of my mattress, and I made sure nobody saw me constantly feeling around for it. I still didn’t trust many people in here, and I knew that they would love an opportunity to get in the Warden’s good graces by turning in a piece of information like that. They had nothing to lose, and everything to gain.
Things felt fine when I went into lunch. I felt at ease and confident, until a guard took control of the room and announced something that would make me want to vomit.
“Now that you all are out of your cells, I am up here to inform you that during your yard time today we will be conducting random inspections of some of your cells while you are out of them and unable to hide anything,” he said.
I froze. Some of the other inmates looked suspiciously guilty, while others voiced their displeasure with the random searches. “Is everybody being searched?” one asked.
“No, they will be picked at random, but yours will be first,” the guard snapped back. The inmate looked displeased, possibly hiding something and hoping it wouldn’t be found. Sometimes it was better just to keep your mouth shut.
We were soon taken out to the yard, where I couldn’t help but keep a hawk’s focus on my cell door as Rosie and I walked our usual route along the edge of the yard. “What’s eating you?” she asked.
“Huh?” I replied, refusing to look at her.
“Why are you so crazy right now? They do these random searches sometimes, it’s no big deal. It’s not like you can exactly get contraband in here, anyway,” she said.
“I have some,” I said quietly.
“Wait, what? How? What is it?” she asked, panicked.
“You know how I was taken out of my cell yesterday?” I asked.
“Yeah, what was that about? I forgot to ask you last night,” she said.
“I was put on laundry duty, and while I was in there I found something that I hid in my cell,” I said.
“What?” she asked. “They won’t do anything if it’s food or something small like that.”
“A wand,” I whispered, close to her ear.
Her eyes went wide as I saw her gulp. “A what?” she asked.
“I know, I saw it in there, attached to some pants, and I had to take the chance. It’s our ticket out of here,” I said.
“If they catch you…” she said, shaking her head a little.
“They won’t. They haven’t even gone into my cell, so I know I’m safe,” I said.
“Look again,” she said, nudging me towards the cells.
I almost snapped my neck from turning it so quickly, seeing a guard go into my cell. I wanted to cry. I had to remain confident, though. I hid that wand well, and it wasn’t exactly out in the open or even very noticeable inside the mattress. It was between bedding foam and springs, so unless they pressed hard in the right place, they wouldn’t feel it in there. Nothing else in my cell was contraband, so maybe I was safe. I had to be.
“Where did you put it?” she asked.
“It doesn’t matter, they won’t find it. I’m sure of it,” I said.
The next minutes were by far the longest of my life. Each second that the man didn’t come back out dragged by. Other guards finished their searches, but not my guy, not him. He stayed in there, taking a vacation with his paid time off while I could feel my pits sweating through my polyester jumpsuit.
After three minutes, though, he came out, shaking his head with a no, before moving on to another cell. I sighed audibly, though softly, as Rosie did the same. “Looks like you’re safe,” she said.
“This is going to be our ticket, Rosie, I’m sure of it. With that wand, and my magic and abilities, we’ll be able to get out of here. I just want to make sure we do it right,” I said.
“Is there a way to do it wrong?” she asked.
“I don’t want anybody to get hurt, including the guards, when we get out. I’ll have a lot of power with that wand, and if we do somehow get the key card and get the dampener offline, things might get out of control. I just want to try to keep them safe,” I said.
“I mean, they aren’t exactly the best people in the world,” she said.
“No, but they’re people nonetheless, and they’re just doing their jobs. They might cause us problems sometimes, but at the end of the day what they’re doing is no different than what I did back at M.A.G.I.C. I did things that criminals didn’t like, but at the end of it I was just doing my job. They shouldn’t lose their lives because of us. That’s not what this is about,” I said.
“Well, when you say it like that, I agree. All I want is to get out of here, get my family safe, and get to the camp. We can stun them, or clonk them over the head, but nothing else. We’ll take honor with us,” she said.
•••
A few days had passed since we were able to start making our moves. I’d spent most of the time in my cell planning every detail, just as it would happen, as if I were playing out a movie in my head.
Raul was going to get the key card tomorrow during lunch—how I didn’t know, but he said he had a fool-proof plan. I hoped he was right, and that he could get it done, but that would only be step one. I was talked into getting away from the yard and going into the prison to find the vehicle bays. The others weren’t too keen on having to trudge through the snow, especially since it had snowed at least another five inches over the past few days. I couldn’t say that I blamed them, considering there was already almost a foot on the ground.
I had my wand, and I knew it worked. I couldn’t test it out, but it was almost as if I could feel the magic emanating from the core. I knew the guards’ wands would work here; they were different, like they had chips inside them so that only their wands could be used. That meant the dampener would have no effect on me, and I would be able to blast off as many spells as I wanted.
The only downside was that I was the only mage on our team, and there weren’t any shifters, either. I guessed the dampener would make them sort of obsolete, but doing all the heavy lifting was going to be quite the Herculean task. I knew that Lisa could hold her own if she got close enough to any guard, and Raul’s free-running ability would mean he could climb and evade capture, but what about Rosie?
Rosie was one of the sweetest girls I’d ever met, and that was the problem. She couldn’t hurt a guard, punch one, or even trip one, for that matter. They could be trying to kill her and she’d still want to make them brownies or help them. She claimed she would just run, not looking back, and stick by me, but I knew I was going to have to be like a big sister and keep a close eye on her the entire time.
My backup plan for getting to the vehicle bays, should none of this work, was to just blast our way out of here. Ideally we would need to be on the east side of the prison, to close the gap on the distance we’d have to go overall, and I thought we’d be able to do it. The prison riot we were going to start in the yard, if it got rowdy enough, and I thought it would, should be enough to keep the guards occupied. They couldn’t all go after us and stop the prisoners from rioting.
I thought it was a pretty good plan, the best I could feasibly come up with considering what I had going for me, and I believed it would work…hopefully. The four of us kept our distance from each other, but we met up during recreational time to go over our plan at the last minute. We were doing all of this tomorrow, and we wouldn’t have much more
of a chance to speak and go over our plans before it all went down.
“You’re sure you can get it?” Lisa asked, looking at Raul.
“Man, you ladies have no faith in me, do you? I’ll get the card, I promise,” he said.
“And what about you? Do you have anything to help us get beyond the gates?” Lisa asked.
“I have something, yes. Don’t worry about my part of the plan, it will be accounted for,” I said.
“How are we going to start the riot?” Rosie asked.
“That’s your master plan? A riot?” Raul asked.
“Hey, it’s a good idea. We need a diversion to get out of here, and what better way than to cause a mass riot?” I asked.
“I can help with that,” a voice behind us said. My eyes opened wide before I turned around. I knew the deep voice belonged to Zark, who this time was all alone.
“I’m sorry?” I asked, playing coy.
“You’re planning to break out of here, and I can help with that. I want in,” he said.
“Why should we let you in? You’re mean to us,” Raul said.
“I’m not sure,” I said.
“Hey, if you’d like, I could just go tell the guards about your plans. I’m sure they’d love to hear about your planned attempt,” he said, crossing his arms and smiling.
“You wouldn’t,” Raul said.
“Watch me,” he said, before starting to walk away.
“Wait,” I said, stopping him dead in his tracks.
“Lexa, you can’t,” Rosie said, a scared tone in her voice.
“What other choice do we have? If we don’t let him join, he’s going to rat on us. I have a proposition for you,” I said, looking him in the eyes.
“Which is?” he asked.
“We’ll let you help, but only you, and you have to pull your weight. You need to start the riot tomorrow, when we’re in the yard like we are now, and after we all get out, we go our separate ways. You can go live your life doing whatever it is you want, and we never have to cross paths again. Deal?” I asked.
He put his fingers to his chin, scratching it, while looking up at the frosted glass holding us in the yard. “Interesting deal,” he said.
“Take it or leave it, but we don’t have time for games. We only have so much time in here today,” I said.
“I’ll take it. I’ll get the riot started tomorrow, and we all leave together, deal? I won’t hesitate to stop you from going if you try to leave me behind,” he said. “I have a family out there I’d like to see, too. See you tomorrow.” Zark walked off, leaving the others standing there staring at me, none of them seeming too happy with what I’d just done.
“And what would you rather I’d done? Let him go tell the guards and ruin any chance we have at getting out?” I asked softly.
“I guess you’re right. He didn’t leave us much of an option, did he?” Raul asked.
“It is what it is. He’ll definitely be able to get the riot going tomorrow, and then once we’re all out of here we never have to worry about him again. What’s the plan after we get the vehicle?” Lisa asked.
“Get out of the dampener’s field, unless we find it along the way to the vehicle bay, and then if I can I’ll teleport us out. If not, I’ll send a beacon to the resistance and they’ll extract us,” I said.
“I can’t believe I’m going to be a part of the resistance,” Lisa said, looking a little excited, which was more emotion than I’d seen from her thus far.
“They’re a good bunch. I know it isn’t ideal instead of just going home, but you’re going to be wanted fugitives after tomorrow, and going home won’t be safe yet,” I said.
“Will it ever be?” Lisa asked.
“Yeah,” I said, smiling. “It will be.”
I tossed and turned in my bed that night, trying not to think too much about our breakout the next day. I never had this problem with raids through M.A.G.I.C., but I wondered if that was because there wasn’t that much on the line, or at least it didn’t feel like there was. I’d never feared I would die, or that things would go horribly wrong if a raid didn’t go exactly to plan.
This was different, though. If we—if I—failed at this, there were no second chances. There wasn’t any coming into the office the next morning and trying again, or getting a new case to work on. There was a high likelihood of death, or at the very least getting solitary for the next year, but there were no repeats. This was it—this was my one shot at greatness and to go down in the history books as the only person to ever successfully escape this prison in modern history.
The biggest win, though, was the thought of Kiren bursting a blood vessel when he found out. I imagined him in that office, sitting there peacefully as he smiled and plotted his reign of world domination, before some poor lackey would have to come in and break the news of my escape. He would be furious, throwing things off his desk and screaming as his hair became disheveled and the poor guy bringing the news feared for his life. He would march down here, choking the Warden and wanting some kind of retribution, but nothing would come. I would be long gone, safely hidden in the resistance camp, and Kiren would never find me. Escaping would be the biggest middle finger to him, and I relished in the thought of it eating at his soul for the rest of time.
Sitting in the resistance camp would bring along its own problems, though, and the loss of being an auditor. I guess I already did lose my job when I was arrested, and I still hadn’t gotten over it. I knew I’d get it back, once Kiren was toppled and out of power, but I couldn’t help but feel sad about the people I wouldn’t be able to help until then.
I thought of those women from the club, and the vampire babies, and how I couldn’t help any of them now. Mirian said they had no real leads on the case, and I knew that I would’ve found out more. There were so many people that needed to be helped, and I couldn’t give any of them a hand.
I never thought I would love this job the way that I did now. When Mirian first took me to the resistance camp, I was unsure what to make of it all. How could I, Lexa Blackmoon, a common thief and pilt, be a witch? Not only that, but a decently powerful one? Then I found out about the mark and everything it held deep inside me, and I couldn’t help but be a little bit in awe.
I’d paid so many dues just to be an auditor, to have what I possessed, and to think of it being stripped from me was almost too much to bear. I’d get it back, though, and it would happen before I knew it. Kiren was going down, no matter what I had to do.
After forty-five minutes of lying there, running too many thoughts and scenarios through my head, I calmed my mind, thinking of Blake’s face and the feel of his warmth against me. I wanted to hold him, to kiss him, and I hoped that he’d been thinking about me as much as I’d been thinking about him lately.
I knew they could get him, and all of my friends, to the camp somehow so I could see them. I could hear Britta laughing, a little snort coming out, as Blake held my hand and Charlie jumped around making stupid jokes that made nobody laugh but himself. I thought I’d laugh this time, though, and not just in the way that made me a good friend.
With a smile on my face and warmth in my heart and soul, I drifted away, feeling the concerns about tomorrow and my future drift away as love prevailed yet again. I was going to make history. I was going to be the first woman to break out of Filtonshire.
9
Picking up my last tray of food during lunch the next day felt a little surreal. I hadn’t been here very long, at least in comparison to some of the other prisoners, but it already had felt much too long.
The meal was a little different today, a treat—hard bread, some beans, and a few slightly burnt rubbery sausages that appeared to be just a little out of date, perhaps a lot out of date. It was fuel, though, and the kind of fuel we would need to sneak out of here.
Raul didn’t look nervous when I glanced at him sitting at his table. He looked back at me, nodding very gently, to not bring any attention to us. I quickly ate my meal, wanting to make s
ure I got it all in, as I felt the jagged edges of the bread scrape against my throat. I winced, taking a sip of water, before coughing a little.
“Doing all right?” Rosie asked.
“Yeah, I think so. They don’t make this stuff easy to get down,” I said.
“Not too much longer,” she said, smiling.
About three-quarters of the way through lunch, Raul got up, walking with his tray towards the garbage. He walked in long strides as the woman he was targeting came around the corner of the room right towards him. I watched her as she didn’t even give him a second glance. Like the other guards in the room, she looked bored and slightly dazed. He set his tray atop the garbage, his eyes wandering to her walking past, before he turned around, bumping into somebody standing behind him.
“Watch it, kid,” the guy said, shoving Raul aggressively.
Raul stumbled back, though it looked like he did it on purpose, before he slammed into the female guard and they both fell to the ground. “Hey!” another guard yelled, grabbing the man who’d shoved Raul and tackling him to the ground.
“I’m so sorry. That man pushed me, and I couldn’t catch myself,” Raul said, getting up off the guard.
“It’s okay, but watch where you’re going next time,” she said, dusting herself off and continuing her patrol. They handcuffed and carted off the man who’d shoved Raul while he went back to his table and sat down. I raised my eyebrow at him a little, before he flashed a corner of the card, the light reflecting off the glossy surface.
He’d done it, he’d actually gotten the card. That must’ve been his plan all along, but he really did wait until the last minute. Imagine if that guy hadn’t been there to shove him.