by Logan Byrne
“This all just got a lot more real, didn’t it?” she asked.
“You could say that,” I replied. I glanced over at Lisa, who looked back at me, the look in her eyes signaling she was ready before she took her last few bites of prison food. “Still ready?” I asked Rosie.
“Just don’t leave me behind,” she said.
“Never. We’re all getting out of here,” I said, before looking over at Zark, who paid no attention to me. “All of us.”
We were sent into the yard, the typical people going to the weights, including Zark, who didn’t even glance at us. Did he forget about the plan already, or was he just being a jerk? What if he wasn’t going to participate anymore, and we were left to do it alone? I knew I couldn’t count on him to be a part of this group. All he cared about was himself.
“We might have to do this ourselves,” Lisa said, coming over with her hands in her pockets.
“No problem. Are we ready?” Raul asked.
I touched my chest, feeling the wand stuffed under my bra, before I nodded, feeling a jolt of butterflies in my stomach. This was it, the final moments, and I couldn’t believe we were about to attempt this. I kept telling myself it was necessary, and that it would all be over soon. I’d be back in the camp, with Blake, and I’d be able to put this wretched prison behind me. It would all come together, I knew it.
Raul started walking towards the other prisoners, closing in on instigating a riot, when Zark suddenly stood up, pushing another inmate who was almost as big as he was. “Wait your turn,” he said, before looking quickly over at us. He was doing it, he was starting it. He wasn’t ignoring us; he was just biding his time and waiting until the perfect moment to strike.
Raul backed up a little, scratching the back of his head, as things became heated over at the weights. The man Zark pushed had some backup coming to his aid, and I saw some of the guards get a little antsy, moving closer. This probably wasn’t the day they were expecting to have when they came into work this morning, but it was the day we were going to give them.
“What’s your problem?” the man asked.
“You, that’s my problem,” Zark growled. Without warning, and in a flash, he punched him, knocking him down, before backing up. Chaos erupted, the two teams of men starting to throw punches, before whistles went off overhead. Guards started to run in.
“Riot!” Zark yelled, before picking up a nearby guy and tossing him across the yard. Almost as if a gunshot had gone off, the yard broke out into complete panic. People who would normally never cause any problems were throwing punches and choking anybody they could grab. Zark nodded at us, almost with a “come on” expression, and we ran.
I unzipped my suit, pulling out the wand and feeling the relief of the pressure from my chest. “You have a wand?” Raul asked as we ran towards Zark.
“You’re going to be happy I do,” I said, gripping it tightly in my hand.
“Stop right there!” a female guard said nervously as we rushed towards the open exit to the block from the yard.
“No, thanks,” Lisa said, before jumping and kicking her down. The woman fell down, knocked out. Lisa dusted off her hands and shrugged it off. “I didn’t kill her.”
“Pacificate!” I yelled repeatedly, throwing out bolts of magic to hit any guard I could find. They all froze, falling to the ground, and I felt a surge of magic flow through me.
This was the first time in weeks that I’d felt magic around me, flowing like an open river through my body, and it was invigorating. I never wanted to lose this feeling again. “The gate!” Rosie yelled, as we ran towards the exit into the main block of the prison.
“Lexa, do something,” Raul yelled, as the hulking metal door slowly came down. Sirens rang shrilly, red lights flashing, as our block started to enter a lockdown phase.
“Like what?” I yelled, as we all ran towards the door.
“Blow the damn thing up!” Zark roared, as it neared the seal at the bottom.
“Eruptico!” I yelled, the giant bolt of red bursting out of the wand and flying right towards the bottom of the door. It hit the steel, denting it, though not breaking through like we needed it to.
“Again!” Zark yelled.
I cast the spell three more times, the door becoming more and more dented, falling in on itself in that spot, before I stopped running and closed my eyes.
“What is she doing?” Lisa screamed, panicking.
I stood there, calming my mind, feeling the mark’s power as it channeled through me. I summoned the past bearers of my mark, using their combined power, before opening my eyes and staring down that door like a predator honing in on its prey.
“Eruptico!” I screamed again. The tip of the wand glowed red, the light around it sucking inwards, before it erupted and flew down the block into the door. The steel exploded, large shards flying off in every direction, before the dust settled. There was a massive crater in the door.
“Hey, a way out!” I heard someone yell from behind me in the distance. The rioting prisoners roared and cheered, before running our way like a stampede of wildebeest charging us.
“Run!” Raul yelled, and we picked up steam again. We slid through the opening, where guards on the other side were waiting for us. Raul and Lisa ran forward, dodging a few wand bolts and punching and kicking their way into the wall of bodies.
Zark bellowed, tackling guards and throwing them about like balls, before the surge of other inmates came through. I’d never seen such terror and awe in my life as I did in that moment. The guards knew they were overpowered, and their chances of stopping all of the prisoners in block five from getting out were next to none.
“Now is our opportunity,” I said to the others. The rest of the block didn’t notice us escaping, as we ran towards where I thought the vehicle bays were.
“What if they have it locked down?” Zark asked.
“I think Lexa will be able to get us in,” Rosie said, sticking close to me.
“Stop!” a guard yelled, pointing her wand at me as her hand shook and tears filled her eyes.
“Rigormorio!” I yelled, her body turning into a statue. She didn’t even try and block the spell. Maybe she should look into a different career choice, I thought.
I could see the prisoners in the other blocks watching us as we ran by, their noses to the glass, as guards inside tried to keep order. “I feel bad for them,” I said.
“It’s not our fault they weren’t worse criminals,” Zark said.
“What if we help them?” I asked.
“What? Are you serious? We don’t have time to find a way to break them out,” Lisa said.
“I know a way. When I went to do laundry duty I saw a control room,” I said, all of us stopping and panting as sirens roared overhead.
“What do we have to gain from it? It sounds like we have everything to lose,” Lisa said.
“I agree with Lisa,” Raul said.
“They deserve a chance to escape, too. Besides, it will also be more prisoners for the guards to overcome. Blocks three and four are likely bad enough to try to fight their way out of here, you guys know that,” I said.
“We’ll make one run at it, but if it doesn’t work, we need to push forward. They’re on their own,” Raul said.
“Agreed?” I asked, looking around the group.
Rosie nodded, Zark too, though Lisa didn’t look thrilled. “Fine, but let’s go now,” she said.
The hallway I went down before was close by. We ran down it and saw flickering lights through the thick glass window of the door at the end. I pounded on the door, seeing the two men inside looking frightened, as they backed up and cowered.
“Raul,” I said, pointing to his key card.
“I forgot about this,” he said, pulling it out and swiping it on the door. It turned green, unlocking, before we opened it.
“Hold it,” I heard, from behind us in the hallway. We turned around, seeing one lone guard standing in the hallway, but he didn’t look like the
others. He shifted, twisting through the air, before turning into a werewolf.
“Great, the one guard who gives us a problem is one of those,” Zark said.
“What do we do?” Rosie asked.
“Lexa, you and Rosie get in there and take care of the other blocks. Us three will handle this flea-ridden mutt,” Zark said, cracking his knuckles.
Rosie and I went inside. “We aren’t going to hurt you. I’m sorry about this, but we don’t really like being here,” Rosie said, shrugging and with an awkward smile as the men cowered.
“Rosie, can you figure this out?” I asked, looking at the hundreds of buttons and controls lined the metal boxes and cabinets inside.
“I’m on it,” she said, before starting to click and tap. I looked in awe at all the cameras as the bright glow of the screens almost made me wince. They were watching everything inside the prison, even inside the showering facilities, which gave me the creeps. I glared at the men, crouching with their hands over their heads, and wondered if they’d watched me shower naked.
“Just go down!” Zark yelled, from the hallway. I peered out, my wand ready in my hand, as I saw the group of them attempt to hold back the werewolf guard. He was experienced, his body growing a little as he started to get the enraged features Blake had that night he saved me. He was going primal, and I wasn’t sure how much longer I should let it go on before getting involved.
“Lexa,” Rosie said, before I focused my attention on her. “Help!”
I glanced over and saw one of the men restraining Rosie with his arm around her throat. “I don’t want to do this, but what you guys are doing isn’t right!” he said, trembling.
“Jeff, let it go. Just let them go!” the other guard yelled.
“No, I won’t do it! I’ll go down before they leave!” he said defiantly.
I walked over, holding the stump end of the wand out, and smacked him on the head with it. He fell back against the wall, fainting, before sliding down. I rolled my eyes, telling Rosie to hurry. Her fingers moved so fast on the keyboard a fire almost erupted.
Outside, Lisa slammed against the wall, her eyes jolting open, as Zark held back the guard as long as he could. “Rosie!” I yelled.
“Done! The gates to the other blocks are opening now, and I’ve forced open the bay gates and the doors in the prison. We can go anywhere,” she said, before running over to me at the door.
“Hey, loser!” I yelled, down the hall at the werewolf. “If you want me, come get me.”
He tossed Zark aside before galloping down the hallway towards us.
“Lexa,” Rosie said, with fear in her voice.
“Rigormorio!” I yelled, the bolt hitting him straight in the chest as he jumped ten feet away from me. He seized up before slamming back down to Earth like a bag of rocks and sliding across the polished floor. “Guess you aren’t as big as you thought.”
“You could’ve stopped him the entire time?” Zark asked, grabbing his arm and shaking out the cobwebs.
“You pull your weight, remember?” I asked, smiling.
“This way if we’re getting out,” Rosie said, running down the hall. “I saw a map, and I think this is where we need to go.”
“You think?” Lisa asked.
“Hey, I had a few seconds while a crazy werewolf tried to kill you and another wimpy guard tried to kill me, so give me a break,” Rosie said.
“There! I see it!” I yelled, seeing a wide-open space through one of the doors Rosie opened. We ran through, some guards abandoning the space when they saw us. I looked across the massive bay and saw the Warden standing on the other side. He looked at me, our eyes locking in a deep stare, before he got onto his ship and the doors closed behind him.
“Shoot it down!” Lisa yelled. “He deserves it!”
“We’re letting him go. We need to focus on us,” I said.
“Well, then we better hurry. This one!” Raul yelled, running towards a covered all-terrain vehicle with tracks instead of wheels, like the vehicles the guards were boarding. He and Lisa charged in, Zark a few seconds behind them. The vehicle rocked, then went still, and I heard screams inside.
They tossed the unconscious bodies out, Zark nodding, before Rosie and I stepped in. “How do you drive something like this? I’ve never driven mortal vehicles,” Lisa said.
“Everybody strap yourselves in. I don’t know how bumpy this is going to be,” I said, before sitting in the driver’s seat while the others sat in theirs. I turned a key, the interior lighting up, before grabbing the wheel and twisting it a little. I’d seen enough cars in the mortal realm, and this wasn’t much different than theirs. I looked down, seeing two pedals, and put my foot on one.
We jolted forward a little, moving closer to the edge of the open steel door as snow flew outside while the winds raged around as if the mountains were angry at what we’d done. “You might want to go, you know, before those guards wake up,” Zark said.
“Hold on, everybody,” I said, gripping the wheel tight and slamming on the pedal again. We shot forward, flying out of the open gate, our windows starting to ice up as the rampaging winter weather kicked us around without relenting.
“Rosie, figure out how to fix that,” I said.
“On it,” she said, looking around at the buttons on the center console. She pressed a few, before heaters turned on, blowing on the windshield and removing the creeping fog. The vehicle handled the rocky terrain, though it wobbled as I frantically tried to keep us steady and straight.
“How far are we going?” Lisa yelled.
“As far as it takes! I need to get out of range of the dampener,” I said.
“I thought that wand worked. Why can’t we go from here?” she asked.
“The dampener still blocks that sort of magic, and besides, even if it didn’t, I’m not sure I’m powerful enough to get us all out of here,” I said.
“After that display back in the prison, I’d say you’re powerful enough,” Zark said, chuckling.
I looked back in the side mirror, seeing the prison from the outside for the first time outside my vision. Rocky mountain terrain met manmade steel and the two intertwined together to form what had to have been the worst location ever created by anybody mortal or magical. Even though I hated the place, there was something sort of majestic about it, I thought as I stared at it, the impenetrable and inescapable prison that became too complacent in its title.
“Lexa!” Rosie screamed, and I snapped my head around and looked forward.
The right side of our vehicle smashed into a rock sticking out of the ground, breaking off our track, and we flipped through the air. My eyes shut, I gripped the wheel as tightly as I could, the yells and screams of my friends filling the cab of the vehicle in slow motion.
I opened my eyes just enough to see plastic and metal debris flying inside, my hair whipping in my face, before we landed upside down, sliding across the icy field. The vehicle stopped, a dull loud sound filling my ears, and I looked down.
“Nobody move,” I said. We were teetering on the edge of a cliff. We must’ve been a hundred feet up, maybe a hundred fifty, and the vehicle didn’t feel all too steady.
“What do we do?” Lisa asked.
“I can stop our momentum if we fall, but only with my wand, and I’m not sure I can do the entire vehicle. We need to get out,” I said.
“Okay, everybody start by slowly undoing your seat belts and try to shift your weight towards the back of the vehicle. Zark, you first,” Lisa said.
Zark unfastened his belt, before hopping towards the back of the vehicle and using his massive body as a counterweight against us. “Okay, Raul next,” he said, extending his hand to help him over.
Raul successfully did it, grabbing onto his hand, before being pulled towards the back. “We can do this, I know we can,” Zark said. “Just take it one at a time. Lisa, you’re up.”
Lisa looked nervous, in a state I’d never seen her before, as her fingers shook and slipped on the fastener.
“I can’t do it,” she said, panicked.
“You can do it, I know you can,” I said, hanging upside down. “Just take a deep breath, and you’ll get it.”
She took a deep breath, wiping the tips of her clammy fingers on her jumpsuit, before pushing in the fastener. Without holding onto the belt to try to steady herself, she fell down, slamming her back into the roof, and it was too late.
“Rosie, belt off!” I screamed, before the vehicle tipped over the edge. Our bodies floated, suspended, as the vehicle twisted and tumbled through the air. “Eruptico!” I yelled, just as the roof came back around in range of my wand.
Zark covered his eyes, the bolt flying just past him, before the roof blew off and the vehicle expelled us. Falling, the winter air ripping around my body and giving me a quick rash from the exposure, I tried to muster up the words to stop us from falling. I couldn’t.
It was too much. It was well below freezing, and I found it difficult to breathe with that much air flowing through my nose and into my lungs.
“Le—“ I tried to say, as I swung around my wand.
I looked over at Rosie, who was passed out, her arms and legs waving in the free fall, before seeing Raul with his eyes barely open, a look of acceptance in his eyes and face, as if he knew he were going to die. I looked back down, the ground coming ever closer with each passing second, before I flipped myself around, my back towards it, my wand pointed upwards.
“Levio Maximus!” I screamed, swirling the wand around. A string of spell flew out of the wand, grasping us all, slowing our free fall down just enough before we plowed into the snow below.
I wasn’t sure how long I was out, but I’d passed out. Either the fall sucked too much oxygen out of me or the crash into the snow too much force for my body and mind to handle. I slowly opened my eyes, moaning a little as I looked down to see snow already covering my body like a frozen corpse lost to mother nature.
I heard voices in the distance, yelling about people up ahead, but I couldn’t manage to get up. They were coming, the guards, or auditors to come arrest us after being notified of our breakout attempt, and I couldn’t even fight them.