ONE MORE RIDE

by Sophia Gray

  Well, fine. Let them come. He'd fight them to his last breath, and at least it would all be over soon.

  As the door opened, Hank thought his mind must be playing tricks on him again. Beth was standing there, framed in the pale light from the corridor like some kind of angel. She was carrying a brown paper bag, and the smells coming from it made his stomach do backflips.

  “Is it really you?” he croaked through parched lips.

  “It's me,” Beth answered, crouching down next to him and opening the bag. She withdrew a styrofoam clamshell and opened it, revealing a greasy pile of fried eggs and sausage patties. Then she handed it to him, along with a plastic fork. “Here, eat up. I know how they 'feed' the inmates down here.”

  Hank desperately wanted to hold Beth and kiss her, but the needs of his body rudely jostled these impulses out of the way. He grabbed the fork and dug into the food, wolfing it down.

  “Try to go slow,” she said softly. “You'll make yourself sick.”

  “How did you get in here?” Hank asked between bites. “If Butler finds out—”

  “He won't. I took care of it. Besides, I've got something on Butler. Maybe even something big enough to help us get out of here.”

  Hank finished the food, wiping his mouth on his forearm and looking at her. First Beth shows up with food, then she talks about a plan for both of them to leave Bluebonnet?

  He leaned forward, touching her shoulder with his index finger.

  “What are you doing?” she asked.

  “Gotta make sure you're really you. Being down here...it does stuff to your thoughts sometimes. You see, hear, even smell things that aren't there.”

  Beth took Hank's face in her hands gently and kissed him. The taste of her lips was sweeter than the food had been. They were real, but somehow, they also seemed better than real, like a fairy tale spell conjured from pure sunlight. The walls around him seemed to withdraw, letting in fresh air, big skies, freedom...everything from the outside he'd almost stopped believing in.

  “I told you, I'm real,” Beth said. “And yes, I think I've got half a plan to break you out of here so we can be together, far away from this hellhole. But first, there's something I need to tell you.”

  Hank braced himself. He knew this would end up being some cruel trap of the mind, with hope as the bait. As soon as he reached for it, it would spring shut on him, snapping his sanity in half. The lovely mirage of her would fade, replaced by thin air—or worse, Butler.

  “I'm pregnant. And it's yours.”

  Hank stared at her with his mouth open, trying to process these words. They were literally the last thing he'd expected to hear, and now they echoed in the space between them.

  “Knowing that, do you...think we could still have a future together?” she asked quietly.

  Suddenly, a cyclone of images whirled through Hank's mind, making him dizzy. He thought of waking up next to Beth every day for the rest of his life, in a real bed, with the rays from the morning sun streaming in through the window. He thought about the joy of holding a baby in his arms again, comforting it when it cried, playing with it as it laughed. He thought about everything he'd wanted for Jason—the best, safest, happiest life a child could possibly have—and he thought about being able to make those plans again. To see them through this time.

  Another chance to love a kid again, completely and unconditionally. Another chance at a wife and a happy family. The future that had been stolen from him, returned to him again.

  In that moment, he realized that he'd never wanted anything more in his life.

  “Yes,” he said. “Of course we can.”

  Beth smiled gratefully, tears shimmering at the corners of her eyes. She embraced him, showering his face with kisses until he almost couldn't breathe.

  “Easy, easy,” he laughed. “I haven't bathed in days. Now, what's this 'half a plan' you've got?”

  “It involves something I heard one of the other guards say. There's a theory that the riot that happened here fifteen years ago was organized as a cover for a couple of inmates to escape. After all, if I tried to get you out of here under normal conditions, about a hundred different people would notice. But if everyone were too busy trying to put down a riot...”

  “We could slip out in the confusion.” Hank nodded. “It's a solid plan. But how do we kick off a riot?”

  Beth told him what she'd learned about Butler. “Do you think we could use it somehow?”

  Hank considered it carefully. “Yeah. Maybe. I think I've got an idea. But first, we'll need one more thing to pull it off.”

  Chapter 33

  Beth

  Before her shift started, Beth snuck into the men's locker room carefully, making sure no one else was in there. She crept over to Butler's locker and pulled a paper clip from her pocket, straightening it out and fashioning it into a crude lock-picking device.

  Sure, Butler had broken into her locker to plant the drugs. But he hadn't expected anyone to do the same to him, and his own locker was protected by a cheap padlock that was almost pathetically easy to open.

  And with her misspent youth as an honorary member of the Carnage Warriors, Beth had picked her share of locks.

  She opened the door, looking for the spare uniform that every guard kept in their lockers. Prisoners could sometimes throw food—or more objectionable substances—at the corrections officers, and it was important for them to be able to change into fresh uniforms so they could finish their shifts. Butler's uniform was meticulously folded at the bottom of his locker, along with a spare name tag.

  Beth deftly removed the name tag from the uniform, then closed and re-locked the locker. Hank had been right—if this plan was going to work, securing the name tag was the most important part.

  She briefly felt light-headed at the thought of Hank. He did want to be with her after all, and he wanted to raise their child together. The prospect of their future together made her deliriously happy...

  ...but no. She had to focus on the task at hand, or else there'd be no future for either of them.

  During her lunch break, Beth slipped down to the contraband locker, where shivs and other confiscated items were kept. No one guarded this area, since prisoners weren't allowed in this part of Bluebonnet and none of the guards cared about a bunch of junk cobbled together by inmates to kill other inmates. She opened the locker and selected an unused Lullaby that had been taken from a Sinner the previous week. She was careful to wear latex gloves when she touched the handle, and tucked it away in the pocket of her uniform. She had to walk a bit stiffly to make sure the sharpened metal didn't dig into her, but she doubted anyone would notice.

  When it was time for the inmates to go out to the prison yard for fresh air and exercise, Beth found Foley Cartwright and pulled him aside. She tried to make sure no one noticed.

  Just looking at Cartwright made Beth's stomach turn. The Sinners were still forcing him to wear makeup, and his hair was being held up by colorful plastic flower barrettes, like a little girl's. Worst of all, his eyes were flat and dead, like a crab's eyes.

  “I know you've had a rough time since you got here,” Beth whispered. “I thought you might like a chance to get some revenge on the Sinners. Interested?”

  Cartwright stared at her for a long moment, then nodded slowly.

  Beth handed him the Lullaby. “On Wednesday at three p.m., you'll be assigned to work laundry duty with Roberto Torres, the leader of the Sinners. The guard on duty in the laundry room is Officer Fitch. He's an incredibly lazy asshole who spends half his time dozing and the other half jerking off in the bathroom. When no one's looking, I need you to use this to kill Roberto, then stash his body so no one finds it until he doesn't show up for count and they have to go looking for him. Remember, go for his throat or his heart. Anything lower than that, he could survive and it's all been a waste of time. Then, when he's dead, you put this in his hand before you hide the body.”

  She gave Cartwright the stolen name tag.

 
; “I don't understand,” he murmured. “What is this? What's your plan?”

  “My plan is to give you a chance to put down the animal who's been torturing you, without buying yourself a longer sentence or payback from the Sinners. You want it, or not?”

  “Sure,” Cartwright nodded. “Sure, I can do that.”

  “Good. Just remember, it has to be on Wednesday between three and four o'clock. You kill him at any other time, or you use this shiv for any other reason, and I'll make it my personal mission to ensure that you never make parole. Got it?”

  “Uh-huh. Thanks.”

  Cartwright hid the shiv and name tag, then waddled off slowly, leaving Beth to wonder if his broken mind would make him deviate from the plan and ruin the whole thing.

  But when Wednesday came and Roberto Torres didn't show up for count before lights-out, Beth looked over at Cartwright and saw him give her an almost imperceptible nod.

  The alarms blared and Bluebonnet was locked down as Beth joined the other guards in their search for Roberto. Finally, word came in from the laundry room that he'd been found stuffed into an industrial dryer. There was a washcloth stuffed into his mouth, his throat had been slashed from ear to ear, and his genitals had been severed and placed neatly into his pocket.

  And Captain Butler's name tag was in his hand, as though it had been ripped off during a struggle.

  Warden Quayle was summoned to the scene of the grisly murder, and Butler was called in at once, still wearing his civilian clothes. Beth stood with the other guards, watching as Quayle pointed to the name tag clutched in the dead man's fingers.

  “Captain Butler, what is the meaning of this?”

  Butler stared at the name tag in disbelief. “I don't know how that got there, sir. Obviously, I had nothing to do with this. I was off-duty today.”

  “Really? Then surely, we can clear all of this up as soon as you provide a solid alibi for where you were during the period of three to four o'clock this afternoon.”

  Butler's eyes grew wide, and his face grew flushed as he stammered. “I was...I mean, I...I...”

  You can't, Beth thought with a flash of righteous triumph. Your alibi is that you were balls-deep in a schoolgirl, you fucking pig. Just like you are every Wednesday once school lets out.

  “I see,” Quayle replied tightly. “I'm afraid I'll have to suspend you from duty until all of this has been worked out. We'll take you into custody until the proper authorities arrive. Officer Lindhurst will assume your responsibilities in the interim. But between you and me, Butler, this is one disciplinary hearing I highly doubt you'll emerge from unscathed. A fiasco like this can cost a man his career, and even put him behind bars.”

  Butler was dragged away by a few of the other guards, still spluttering and protesting.

  Beth smiled inwardly.

  Phase One of their plan was complete.

  Chapter 34

  Beth

  Over the next few days, Beth watched patiently as the entire prison descended into a seemingly endless cycle of blood and payback.

  The word among the inmates was that Bull had finally crossed the line. It was one thing for the Knights to carve up a Sinner or two, but executing their top guy was a step too far—especially when all evidence pointed to the fact that the captain of the COs had done it for them.

  The air in Bluebonnet seemed to crackle with the constant promise of violence, like electricity.

  Lindhurst wasn't a strong enough leader to keep the guards calm and disciplined, and they started lashing out at the Sinners preemptively, trying to show them who was boss before things got out of hand.

  The new leader of the Sinners was a hothead who saw these assaults as proof that Butler had whacked Roberto, so he encouraged them to respond in kind, preparing attacks on guards whenever the correct conditions presented themselves.

  And Bull kept insisting that he hadn't ordered Butler to kill Roberto, that he wanted to broker some truce—but no one trusted him, and he ordered the White Knights to start stockpiling weapons in preparation for the worst. He was even too busy to order Beth around.

  Four Sinners were beaten almost to death by COs in separate incidents.

  A Knight had his eyes and tongue gouged out, and died from blood loss.

  A guard was cornered and stabbed to death by a trio of Sinners.

  A Sinner who worked the cafeteria died of third-degree burns when a vat of boiling oil was tossed at him.

  And on. And on. And on.

  Until one day, a fight broke out in cell block D and spilled over into the neighboring blocks on both sides. By the time the guards mobilized to try to take control of the rapidly-escalating situation, half the prison was locked down, and uncontrolled carnage tore through the other half like a hurricane. Quayle was cowering in his office with the governor on the phone, and every available corrections officer was called to blocks B through G to try to put down the riot.

  No one was looking at Ad-Seg, one of the few areas of the prison where the inmates were still locked up tight in their cells.

  Perfect.

  While all of the guards were distracted, Beth hurried down to the hole and hit a few buttons on the keyboard, unlocking Hank's cell. She jogged down the corridor and swung his door open.

  “It's happening,” she said. “Let's go.”

  Hank nodded and jumped to his feet, running after her.

  Beth had mapped the ideal route for their escape. With the riot exploding in the main cell blocks, no one would be anywhere near the gym, or the locker rooms that were off the adjoining corridor. From there, it was just a few short steps to the side entrance the guards used. Then they'd get to her car, use her key card to leave through the officers' parking area, and leave this miserable place behind them forever. Bib had prepared their new identities, which were tucked under the spare tire in the trunk of the car.

  They reached the gym, and Beth almost fainted with relief. The sounds of the riot could be heard from a distance, even over the screeching alarms.

  Just a few more steps, Beth thought. Freedom is so close...

  But when they entered the short hallway that led to the locker rooms, they found Bull, War Skins, and 88 waiting for them. Each of them held a pair of shivs.

  “I knew it,” Bull sneered. “I knew you two were behind this shit. I should've had you both killed at the first sign of trouble. But no, I had to show compassion, like some kind of fucking idiot.”

  Fuck, Beth thought. I should have brought a weapon for Hank, in case we ran into trouble. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

  She slid her baton from her belt. “One warning. That's all you get. Let us pass, or by God I'll beat the brains out of your skulls.”

  “I just watched Ram get stabbed to death by about a dozen Sinners,” Bull snarled. “He was my best friend in this shithole, and he died so you and your lover boy could run off together and play 'Happily Ever After.' Well, guess what? I'm going to carve my name into your hearts while they're still fucking beating. I'm going to make sure you never leave this place.”

  The three Knights lunged at them, the blades of their shivs glinting in the red emergency lights. Beth swung her baton and cracked it against the side of War Skins' head, knocking him out immediately. As she did, she saw Hank jump on Bull, knocking the shiv out of his left hand and grappling furiously for the one on the right.

  88 swung one blade at Beth's face, slashing her left cheek even as the other blade swooped down toward her midsection. She used her baton to parry it, and succeeded in smacking 88's hand hard enough to make him drop it. But he was fast, and his remaining shiv darted toward her torso again. She side-stepped it clumsily, but it came close enough to nick one of the buttons off her uniform.

  You can't stab me there, she thought. You can stab me anywhere else, but motherfucker, you are not taking this baby away from me.

  The knife came in for the kill again and Beth caught the blade with her left forearm on purpose. She barely registered the pain as she twisted her arm to on
e side, wrenching the weapon from 88's fingers. But as she raised her baton to strike, 88's fist extended with blinding speed, hitting her squarely in the face.

  Beth felt her nose crunch under the force of the blow, and her head snapped back as stars danced in front of her eyes. She was caught off-balance, and it was just the opening 88 needed to snatch the baton from her hand. Before she'd even had time to process the punch to the face, she felt the hard polished wood of the baton connect with the top of her scalp.