by Tarah Benner
Lark opened her mouth and closed it again. It felt as though they were all missing the point.
“They’ll be all right,” said Soren. “They’re tough, and they’re smart.”
Lark dragged in a shaky breath and let it out slowly. Deep down she knew he was right, but she couldn’t stand the thought of running now, right when things were at their worst.
“Look,” said Soren. “Obviously you guys can do whatever you think is best, but I have to keep moving. The Baileys might need us, but Micah needs me more.”
That statement drove it home for Lark. She realized that no matter what happened, there was no convincing Soren to stay. He’d escaped prison with the sole objective of finding his brother, and nothing and no one was going to get in his way.
“He’s all the family I have left,” Soren continued. “And the longer we wait . . .”
He trailed off, but Lark caught his meaning. The longer they waited, the slimmer the chance that he would ever find his brother.
This time Lark glanced at Simjay. She knew he was thinking the same thing she was. The odds that Micah was still in Kingsville after everything that had happened were small, and their best chance at surviving was to stay right where they were and fight with the Baileys.
But Soren was determined to keep moving, and they couldn’t turn their backs on him. It had been Soren who’d gotten them out of San Judas — Soren who’d come up with a plan that had kept them out of the police’s clutches for nearly seventy-two hours. Lark couldn’t abandon him, and she could tell that Simjay felt the same way. They were in this together — for better or worse.
“All right,” said Lark, nodding slowly and glancing over toward the garden. “Let’s tell them at dinner.”
thirteen
Bernie
Within a few hours, Bernie was in excruciating pain. As the meds left her system, her mind seemed to sharpen, but the burn radiating from her upper thigh grew more and more pronounced. It consumed her entire body and weakened her from the inside out. She thought she might implode if she were forced to lie there any longer, and the prospect of escape was the only thing that kept her going.
She was also acutely aware of the fact that she had to go to the bathroom. Soon a nurse would come in with the guard to walk her to the toilet. The guard always stayed outside while the nurse helped her with her gown, but at some point they would have to uncuff her from the bed and lead her across the room. That was her chance.
Bernie knew it was a long shot. The guard was armed, and her leg still wouldn’t support her weight. She had no idea what part of the building she was being held in or what other security measures the prison might have taken to ensure that she and Portia had no chance to escape.
Still, she had to try. Every day she waited increased the chances that they would send her off to some supermax facility or roll her into a cell. She couldn’t wait until she felt better; she had to do it now while they still thought she was weak and medicated.
Minutes stretched into hours without anyone coming to check on her. The pain in her leg was so intense at times that she worried she might pass out before she had a chance to put her plan into motion.
Finally somebody fumbled with the handle, and the door swung open. Her heart sank. The evening shift change must have come and gone.
The petite blonde had been replaced by a portly ginger man who had to be at least six feet tall and two hundred and fifty pounds. His scrubs had the rumpled look of a set he’d pulled out of his car, and his face was pockmarked and very pale.
He glanced at Bernie lying on the bed, and his mouth cracked into an off-putting smirk.
“Weh-hell,” he said, eyeing Bernie and snatching up the clipboard at the end of her bed. “Bernadette Mitchell . . . Pleased to meetcha.”
Bernie ignored his off-putting attempt at friendliness and let out a soft, pitiful moan.
“I know, I know.”
The man’s voice had a predatory bite to it that set her nerves on edge. He reached out to stroke her hair with one chunky hairy hand, and Bernie recoiled automatically.
“We’ll fix ya right up.”
Bernie wanted to gag, but she forced herself to lie still as the man ran his fingers through a lock of her hair.
Her insides were squirming, but all Bernie could think about was the blood stain under her pillow and the discarded IV catheter lying beside her bed. She had to keep the nurse distracted long enough for him to uncuff her so she could make her next move.
“It hurts,” she whined, allowing a few stray tears to leak out of the corners of her eyes.
“Oh, I know, angel,” he crooned, his eyes crinkling into a smile. It was as though he enjoyed seeing her in pain.
“Meds,” Bernie choked.
“Not yet,” he scoffed, running his finger down her cheek.
Bernie’s aversion was so strong that she yanked her head back, and the nurse’s creepy smile faltered.
“Now, now . . . You have to be a good girl.”
“Please,” Bernie croaked, putting on what she hoped was a look of desperation rather than disgust. “Just give me something for the pain.”
The nurse paused for a moment, as if he were savoring his moment of power over her. “Now, angel, you should know that nothing in this life is free.”
“What are you talking about?”
“You want something to take the pain away?”
Bernie nodded.
“Well, you’ve gotta work for it.”
It took Bernie several seconds to realize what he was suggesting. The idea was so shocking and repulsive that she could hardly believe her ears, but he hadn’t called in the guard, and he was already fumbling with a tiny silver key on a retractable keychain.
Bernie’s heart sped up as he moved to the left side of her bed and began fiddling with her handcuffs. Feigning a stretch, she slid her free hand under her pillow, closed her hand around the makeshift weapon, and waited for her chance.
He unlocked the cuff that was secured around the bed frame, but instead of pulling her into a seated position and inching her closer to the edge of the bed, he held the cuff open for her right wrist.
“What will you do for me?” he whispered.
Bernie didn’t hesitate. In one wild swoop, she withdrew her weapon and plunged the metal rod into the side of his throat where his neck met his shoulder. It wasn’t sharp enough to pierce the skin, but the nurse let out a howl of anguish.
He fumbled drunkenly for Bernie’s arm, but he wasn’t quick enough. Bernie drew back the metal rod and plunged it into his jugular notch. This time, the metal tip broke the flesh, but he managed to grab hold of the piece of metal and jerk it out of her grip.
He tossed it onto the ground behind him, and Bernie grabbed hold of his head. With an animalistic cry, she plunged her thumbs into his eye sockets and pushed until he howled.
The nurse crumpled beside her bed, and Bernie lunged toward the other side.
A burst of adrenaline shot through her veins, sending blood surging to all of her extremities. She threw her right leg over the side of the bed and dragged her injured leg behind her.
She stood up on her good leg, but she’d moved too quickly. She swayed on the spot and had to throw out her injured leg to catch herself.
The added weight sent a surge of agony up the entire left side of her body, and she toppled to the ground. She cried out in pain, but she knew she had to keep going. The nurse was still writhing on the ground, so Bernie shifted onto her good knee and pulled herself toward the door.
She still didn’t know how she was going to take out the guard, but there was no turning back. Halfway to the door, Bernie heard a commotion behind her, and two hundred and fifty pounds of flesh slammed down onto her spine.
The force of the impact knocked her chin to the ground, and little starbursts flickered behind her eyelids as she struggled to right herself. The nurse was crushing her under his weight, but Bernie dug her elbows in and army crawled toward the door.
>
As soon as her shoulders cleared the nurse’s body, he grabbed her by the hair and yanked her back down. Bernie threw back an elbow as hard as she could, and a muffled cry told her she’d struck gold. The nurse released his grip for only a second, but it was enough time for Bernie to free the rest of her upper body.
Gasping for air, she pulled herself toward the door, but the nurse clobbered her in the back of the head and jerked her violently to the side. Darkness pressed in all around her, and she fought the urge to pass out. The pain in her leg was so intense that she would have gladly detached it.
Then she saw something she hadn’t noticed before: a long beige telephone cord dangling from the wall. Stretching her arm out as far as it would reach, Bernie grabbed hold of the cord and yanked it toward her. She ripped the handset off the wall, and the nurse threw his weight down onto her spine.
He was climbing up her body, restricting her movement with every inch he gained. Bernie flailed around until she was facing him and drove her knee up into his groin. A yelp of pain told her she’d made contact, and she focused on freeing her upper body.
The nurse’s eyes were red and swollen, and blood was streaming from the wound in his neck. He was breathing hard with the effort of restraining her, but Bernie knew she was losing the fight.
With an enormous burst of effort, she twisted to the side and slid her right shoulder free. She jabbed her elbow into the side of his face, and he let out a muffled grunt of pain.
The nurse’s grip faltered, and Bernie dragged herself forward a few more inches and lunged for the telephone cord. The man still had her by the hips, but she pulled the phone toward her and looped the cord around his neck.
At first he didn’t seem aware of what was happening. His hands were fumbling to regain control of her body, and his fishlike eyes were blinking furiously with the effort.
But then Bernie twisted the cord around itself and tugged, and his situation went from bad to desperate. He released his grip and began to claw at her hands, but it was too late. With one almighty jerk, Bernie tightened the choke and waited for him to pass out.
The nurse bucked and flailed on the ground like a calf being lassoed, throwing his weight around and crushing Bernie’s injured leg. Pain as she’d never known ripped through her body, but she just closed her eyes and held on for dear life.
Strangling the nurse took much longer than Bernie expected. She gritted her teeth so hard that she thought they might shatter. Her hands had gone completely numb, but she could feel his every move on top of her. Blood was pounding in her ears, but still Bernie didn’t let go.
Finally the nurse stopped struggling. Bernie clung on for several more seconds, just in case he had some fight left in him.
She opened her eyes. The man’s face had turned an alarming shade of purple. The phone cord had cut deep grooves into his neck, and he’d left little half-moon scrapes on Bernie’s hands where he’d tried to loosen her grip.
Panting and wheezing, Bernie pulled her injured leg free and scooted backward on her butt. Her hands were trembling so badly that she couldn’t detach the handcuff from her wrist, so she took his key ring and grabbed the access card from his belt for good measure.
Sliding over the cold tile floor, she used the bed to pull herself into an upright position. Hopping and swaying on one leg, she managed to reach the far wall by the door. Her battered body was screaming at her to run, but she knew there was still an armed guard just outside the door.
Thinking fast, Bernie yanked the phone back by the cord, causing the nurse’s head to flop uselessly to the side. She replaced the handset and picked it up again, and a loud steady dial tone reached her ears.
In another life, Bernie had been obsessed with the throwback channel, which played corny old TV shows from the early 2000s through the 2020s. They were mostly cheesy dramedies that had petered out for years before the networks had killed them, but she’d loved to watch whenever she was sick or blowing off class.
She vaguely recalled an episode of Grey’s Anatomy she’d seen half a dozen times, and it gave her an idea that was just crazy enough to work. She took a deep breath and pressed the intercom button.
“Code black, code black,” she said in her most urgent doctor-like voice. “All personnel report to the ground floor. I repeat: All personnel report to the ground floor.”
She hung up the phone as if she’d just made a prank call and dragged in a shaky breath. On the show, “code black” meant that there was a bomb threat, but she didn’t know what code black meant to San Judas. For all she knew, she could have just told all the guards that there was an escaped felon on the loose.
She counted to twenty and listened at the door, but she couldn’t hear anything. She tried to put a little weight on her injured leg, but the pain was so intense that she wanted to scream. Hopping back to the side of her bed, she grabbed hold of the IV stand and dragged it along for support.
Bernie held her breath and opened the door a crack. She could hear rapid footfalls and voices in the distance, but there wasn’t a guard or a nurse in sight. Letting out a slow exhale, she opened the door a few more inches and hobbled down the hall toward the glowing red exit sign.
Suddenly the voices seemed to grow louder, and her heart dropped to her knees. She was standing in the middle of the hallway wearing a hospital gown. She still had a pair of handcuffs dangling from her arm, and there was a dead nurse in her room.
Panicking, she tried the first door on her left, but it didn’t budge. She jostled the metal handle uselessly before remembering the dead nurse’s keycard. Hands shaking, she jammed the card into the reader, but the little light blinked red.
No, no, no, no, no, she thought. She tried the card again but withdrew it too quickly, and the light blinked red again.
This was it, she thought. This was her karmic retribution for murdering a pervert in cold blood. But the third time she tried the card, the little light turned green.
She pushed her way into the room, almost falling over in her haste to get inside. She slammed the door shut behind her and closed her eyes to regain her breath.
Her injured leg was throbbing as if it had its own heartbeat. It was swollen and useless, and she had the crazy impulse to try to saw the damn thing off. She also had the undeniable urge to pee.
“Screw it,” she whispered, squatting down inside the door and pulling her gown up to her waist. She breathed a sigh of relief as she let herself go, not caring what sort of expensive machinery she might be peeing on.
Then she heard footsteps outside the door. They grew louder and louder until they were nearly on top of her. She didn’t know what she would do if they tried to invade her hiding place. But miraculously nobody tried to open the door, and the lack of screams and sirens told her they hadn’t discovered the dead nurse’s body.
As the footsteps faded into the distance, she let out the breath she’d been holding and fumbled for a light switch. A single strip of florescent bulbs kicked on, and her heart immediately lightened. She was standing in a medical supply room.
To her left, metal shelves were stacked with fresh pairs of scrubs. Four or five sets of crutches were propped against the wall, still in their plastic packaging. Pallets of Jell-O and pudding cups teetered in the corner, and bins of gauze, ointment, and bandages stood on a shelf at eye level. Things were finally going her way.
Bernie glanced at the ceiling and mumbled a sincere thank you to the fashion gods before grabbing a pair of scrubs off the shelf to change out of her hideous gown. She pocketed the ring of keys she’d stolen from the nurse, liberated a set of crutches, and filled a plastic laundry bag with as much hospital food and gauze as she could carry.
Checking to make sure the coast was clear, she let herself out of the closet and staggered toward the exit sign. She wound around a maze of hallways, each more mysterious than the next. Heavy steel doors flanked her on both sides, but the little numbered plaques told her nothing about the purpose of the rooms she passed.
/> Finally, she rounded a corner to a hallway that ended in a long flight of stairs. A feeling of dread settled in her gut, but all self-pitying thoughts were wiped from her mind when she passed a dark corridor on her right.
Bernie froze. A series of motion-activated lights flickered on above her, illuminating a single gurney shoved up against the wall. Someone was huddled under a thin white sheet, a mat of dark hair fanning out over her pillow.
“Portia?” Bernie murmured.
The girl stirred and rolled onto her back. With her hand cuffed to the bed, she couldn’t turn to face Bernie, but it was definitely Portia. Only she didn’t look like Portia exactly. Maybe it was because Bernie had been in a drugged-out daze the last time they’d spoken, or maybe she’d just taken a turn for the worse.
Portia’s skin looked pale and papery, and she had deep, dark circles under her eyes. One of her arms was sticking out from under a blanket, and Bernie saw that it was plastered with bandages.
“What the hell happened to you?” Bernie asked.
Portia glanced over her head in Bernie’s direction, but her expression didn’t change. At first Bernie wasn’t sure if Portia had seen her, but then she remembered that she was dressed like a nurse.
“What do you want?” Portia snarled.
Bernie swung herself toward her, very conscious of the fact that her window to escape was shrinking by the second.
“Hey!” she hissed. “It’s me.”
Portia raised her head a couple of inches, and her eyes grew wide. “Holy shit!” she whispered. “How did you —”
“There’s no time.”
“You have to take me with you,” said Portia.
Bernie hesitated. There was something off about Portia’s voice — something that filled her with a startling degree of sympathy.
“Please,” said Portia, sounding slightly tearful.
Bernie didn’t know what to say. She didn’t have a choice.
“Fine,” she huffed, staggering toward Portia on her crutches. “Get up.”