Brighter Than the Sun

by Darynda Jones

  I smile and the guy resigns himself to fighting me. But what he wants is the guard. That particular guard, and I wonder why.

  He rushes me, dropping the guard in the process. O’Connell crumbles to the ground while the other two join their comrade. It takes me longer to incapacitate them than I thought it would. The adrenaline keeps them moving despite broken bones and possible skull fractures. I slam one’s head into the rail of the catwalk. He’ll live. The other I toss over it. His future is more iffy.

  Now that I’ve gotten them out of the way, I dodge the leader’s shiv, grab him around the throat, look into his eyes, and search for why he hates the guard so much. It’s not a pleasant process when I scour the minds of the living. I don’t do it often.

  Since he has O’Connell on the brain anyway, I find the memory easily. He’s being strip-searched, and the guard eyes him with blatant disgust. Not that I can blame him, but he tells the testy inmate that he smells like fish.

  O’Connell was standing back, observing. He laughed when the guard spoke. But what Shiv failed to see was that O’Connell was not laughing at him. He was laughing at the other guard. The idiot that none of the guards liked. He was fired months ago, but Shiv never forgot the insults that were thrown at him. Some guys can hold a grudge.

  Shiv’s going to hell for his malicious treatment of the elderly in his neighborhood. Clearly he never got the whole do-unto-others thing. I figure I’ll be doing the world a favor by sending him on his way a few years early.

  As he pushes forward, I use his own momentum to snap his neck and send him over the catwalk as well.

  I grab O’Connell and head for the control room. No one else comes after me. They know better. Even as I’m shouldering a guard, an enemy player in the game, they leave me alone.

  When we get to the control room, there is a group trying to get through the glass barrier. They see me coming and part, their faces a mixture of fury and shock.

  One of them itches to take me out. I can feel it. He doesn’t want to give up the game yet, but most of the men have been put in lockdown already. Those who are still roaming have absolutely zero chance of getting out. Not that they all want out. Some just want revenge. They go after other inmates who have “wronged them,” according to their demented, drug-scarred minds.

  “Open the door,” I say to the guards in the booth.

  They glance at each other, trying to decide what to do.

  “He needs medical attention.” O’Connell slumps lower and lower at my side.

  Holding him up is not a problem. Holding him up while fighting off the men who have gathered might be.

  I turn to them. They all know what I’m capable of. Or they think they do. I lower the guard to the floor, then give them my full attention. I’ve decided to see this as an opportunity to make my name even more influential. Even more powerful.

  Most of the inmates in Level 5 are in for murder and other violent crimes. Nobody will miss them. I take a deep breath as they close the circle around me, gaining courage from the numbers they have.

  The world around me goes silent. Alarms stop blaring. Inmates stop yelling. Doors stop banging.

  There are eleven. Two are almost as tall as I am. I start with the men on my left and work my way around, deciding in the span between a single heartbeat who lives and who dies. Their crimes are numerous and plentiful.

  The trick is to keep them from rushing me long enough to incapacitate the majority. And like all tricks, sometimes there is a technical glitch. I throw a quick jab at the first one, hard enough to shatter every bone in his face and fracture the third and fourth vertebrae of his spine. I step in and elbow the next one, causing pretty much the same amount of damage. The third inmate wins a broken kneecap and dislocated shoulder. The fourth loses several teeth, the contents of his stomach, and a fair amount of blood. I do all that before the mob takes a single step. Trying to thin out the herd.

  It doesn’t work. They jump me en masse, kicking and punching and stabbing. But the icing on the cake is inmate number 5447. He’s pulling my hair. He’s pulling my fucking hair. I snap his wrist along with a couple of necks, crack a few ribs, and relocate several noses.

  By the time I’m finished, only three are dead. The worst of the worst. They deserved to die long ago, in my humble opinion. Not that either me or my opinion has ever been humble.

  The rest I leave rolling on the ground in agony, their bones broken or their skulls a little shattered. All in all, it takes me seven seconds to take them down. I counted.

  The guards behind the glass are standing with mouths agape.

  I rest my hands on the glass, my chest heaving from exertion. “I trust you’ll have my back on this?”

  They nod, too astonished to speak.

  “Then open the fucking door.”

  They scramble to get the control room door open and drag their downed man inside.

  “Farrow,” O’Connell says through gritted teeth, “get in here. If they find out—”

  I laugh softly. “If they find out, I’ll be more of a freak?”

  “More of a legend,” one of the other guards says.

  I tilt my head. “That works, too.”

  The appreciation on O’Connell’s face is almost more than I can bear. I’m not used to such blatant gratitude. Even Dutch doesn’t show gratitude so much as bone-chilling fear when I save her life. Repeatedly. I bristle under his scrutiny. Step back as the door slides shut.

  A small group of inmates wanders up and look at the carnage. They want no part of the riot, but they’ve been locked out of their cells. When they question me with a combination of wide eyes and gaping mouths, I say, “Don’t look at me,” and point to the guards behind the glass.

  They turn their astonished gazes to the guards, buying me time to get back to my cell, which I inadvertently broke to save O’Connell’s ass, before the cavalry rides in.

  21

  I’ve been inside for almost ten years. I’ve gone through twelve cellmates. I’ve accrued enough money to buy a small country. I’ve earned another degree. No idea why other than because it was something to do.

  Amador and Bianca have a great life that I’m only a little jealous of. They have two kids they bring to see me. His daughter, Ashlee, is almost five now. She has asked me to marry her when I get out. It feels kind of weird since she calls me Uncle Reyes and incest is frowned upon, but who am I to argue with true love? Stephen is still in diapers and giving them a run for their money.

  Amador is worried about Kim. She doesn’t look well. I agree. Then again, she’s never looked well. I go see her often. I just don’t let her know I’m there. She barely eats enough to keep a chipmunk alive. She has become a recluse. Rarely going out. Rarely talking to anyone.

  He tells me that there are Web sites dedicated to me. “You making those up yourself?”

  I scowl and shake my head.

  “There’s some crazy bitches out there, cabrón. Watch your ass.”

  As much as I’m online, I’d never even thought to look, so the next time I’m on a computer, supposedly taking an online class on how to write your memoirs, I check it out. He’s right. There are fan pages dedicated to me. I shut them down in disgust. It’s like all those women who fill out applications to visit me. What the fuck for? They don’t even know me, and it’s not like we can date. I refuse them all.

  But I got another postcard today. It’s the fourth one, I think. I didn’t really pay attention to them at first, but the last one I got caught my eye. They’re never signed, and they’re sent from all over New Mexico. But the last one had the words Wish you were here written on it. It wasn’t the writing that got my attention. It was the scent. Familiar. Sweet. Cheap. It set my mind racing.

  But one thing is a given: I have to get out of prison, and I have to do it soon.

  22

  My new cellmate has Asperger’s. Not bad. Just enough to make him a little slower than the usual suspects. Then again, we’re in prison. Most of this populatio
n is slower than the usual suspects. The guy is huge, strong, and easily manipulated. I suspect that his cousin, who is inside as well, is the ringleader of their particular circus act. At first, they spend every second they can together. The dynamics are typical. Beau tells Jerry Lee what to do. Where to stand. Whom to hurt. And Jerry Lee follows him blindly.

  Normally I stay out of that shit, but I have to put a stop to it this time. Only because I don’t need an adversary of Beau’s coming into the cell to off his cousin. I’ve been lucky so far, but I have a whole new appreciation for life and the living. Besides, Beau is a piece of shit who doesn’t deserve the air he breathes. He was slated for hell by the time he was six years old, if that tells you anything about him.

  “He’ll be fine,” I tell Jerry Lee as they wheel his cousin out. “He won’t be running any marathons, but…”

  Odd thing is, Jerry Lee isn’t all that upset. If I had to pinpoint his exact emotion, I’d say he was more relieved than anything.

  My plan involves the shot callers of a couple gangs for whom I’ve done enough favors to warrant a favor of my own. Not that they’ll realize I’m collecting. It’ll all be over before they even know what hit them.

  That night, I visit each one in their cells while they’re sleeping. I basically talk shit. Tell them the other shot callers are planning a war, and they need to get their armies ready. I do that every night for a week, until the tension in the prison is so high, you could bounce a quarter off it.

  I give it one more day, one more night to plant the seeds of my plan, then instead of preventing war, I incite it. Humans are so easily manipulated. A whisper into the right ear while I’m in ghost mode, a perceived attack, and all hell breaks loose.

  We’re out in the yard when it goes down. Men are glaring. Guards are watching. And then, in a split second, it begins. One group starts across the yard. They are trying to look nonchalant, but anytime a group of violent, dangerous men moves en masse, it raises a few flags.

  Sirens blare from loudspeakers. Guards on the ground rush for their riot gear. Guards in the towers aim their rifles.

  I can’t let it end too soon. I need the guards on the absolute edge. The razor-sharp one where their trigger fingers flinch in reflex.

  A guard is yelling through a loudspeaker, ordering the men to get on the ground. Most listen. Some do not.

  Jerry Lee reacts in the exact fashion I expect him to: He freezes. His eyes round in utter panic. He can’t understand what they’re saying, and when the tower guard fires a warning shot into the yard, he is paralyzed.

  Two shots are all it takes for the men to stop. Several are already bloody, but even those men get down. I’m already down. Have been since the whole thing began. But Jerry Lee is not.

  I almost feel bad for using him as bait, but I know procedure. I also know the guard in the tower. I chose him quite purposefully. A former marine sniper, he’s an excellent shot.

  When he aims closer to the ground by Jerry Lee, the only one left standing, I spring into action. My plan is tricky, but not impossible, because one of the things I’ve learned to do with the hours upon hours I have to think is stop time. I can’t do it for long, and I’m not really sure if time actually stops or if I go into another dimension for a short period. Another time zone.

  Either way, just as the guard aims and pulls the trigger, I slow time. I don’t actually stop it until I see the bullet slicing through the air. It’s going to hit about two feet from Jerry Lee’s feet. I dive for Jerry Lee, cringing at how much that tackle’s going to hurt him when time bounces back.

  “Sorry about this,” I say before knocking him to the ground. Then I position myself perfectly, hold my breath, and release time.

  It bounces back with a vengeance, but I’m too busy letting a bullet rip into my skull to notice. Even for me, it’s a lot to take. I strain against my natural inclination to grab my head and curl into a fetal position as it presses about half an inch into my gray matter and exits the other side. I also fight the inclination to mutter holy shit and son of a bitch and what the fuck was I thinking?

  It shatters my skull. Sends fragments onto the grass.

  The alarms continue to blare. The inmates are ushered inside, and the entire place is put on lockdown as they call an ambulance.

  O’Connell, the guard I helped out during the mini-riot a few years back, the sniper with one of the longest recorded shots in marine history, is the first to get to me. Deputy Warden Neil Gossett is next. He’s in a suit and tie. I laud him for coming onto the yard with no protective gear. O’Connell holds a towel to my head. I can only hope it’s clean.

  I stay put, feigning unconsciousness. Wishing I wasn’t having to feign it, because my head is pounding. Probably because half my brain is lying on the grass.

  When the ambulance comes, I leave my body and watch as they load me up and drive me to the hospital. And since I’m supposedly comatose, I stay out of my body so that I pass all the coma tests they do. I check on Kim. Amador, Bianca, and the kids.

  But I watch Dutch. I watch her work. I watch how she is with people, both alive and dead. She is incredible. Her energy infectious.

  I’m in Las Cruces, searching every dive they have when she summons me a few days later. I appear by her side instantly. Only she’s asleep when I get there. She doesn’t even know she’s doing it. She’s probably never known she was doing it. Summoning me.

  And something happens. Something exciting and new. She pulls me into her dream. It’s strange at first. Disorienting. It’s like walking on Jell-O through fog, and then the veil is pushed aside and she’s there.

  She’s in bed even in her dream. She’s kicked off her sheets. They’re wrapped around her calves. Her hair is in tangles over her face. Her head thrown back. Her spine arched. Both hands are clutching the sheet beside her, her fists locked tight, her knuckles white.

  I step forward. Push a strand of hair out of her face.

  She shudders when I touch her. When an electric current passes between us. As far as dreams go, this one is killer. Her breasts strain against the T-shirt she wears. Below that is bare skin and a succulent patch of dark hair. She arches again and I look back at the T-shirt. It reads REMOVE PACKAGE BEFORE CONSUMING.

  An appreciative grin widens my mouth. I have every intention of doing just that. Easing onto the bed, I plan to take my time. To get to know every inch of her. To memorize every curve. But this is her world, and in it, she rules.

  Before I know what’s happening, I’m pinned against the wall several feet away. She has a hand around my throat, our roles reversed, and her heavy-lidded eyes shimmer dangerously. I can only pray she plans to eat me alive.

  She presses into me, her movements slow one moment—then so fast, I can hardly see her the next. Her teeth sink into a shoulder. Her nails scrape along my ribs. The sensual pain wrenches a growl from me and she stops. Stares. Like an animal. She is no longer Charlotte Davidson. She is a beast from another dimension, and I’m hypnotized. Not subdued enough, however, to let her win.

  I reverse our positions. Shove her against the wall. Clamp my hand around her throat and my mouth over hers.

  This time she growls. She kicks and bites and claws, but I lower her to the floor, clasp her hands over her head, and explore. Her skin is salty when I run my tongue along the length of her stomach. When I nip at the peaks protruding from her T-shirt. She tosses her head back. Squirms under my hold. Rubs her crotch against my erection.

  A part of me can’t believe this is happening. After all this time. After everything we’ve been through, to have her here. Now. It’s surreal and hypnotic and disarming.

  Something is happening deep inside, but I ignore it. I grab hold of her hips. It’s been a long, long time for me, and this is a dream come true. Literally. I would hate for the evening to end too soon. I draw in a long draft of air before peeling off her shirt and cupping her breasts. A soft moan escapes her when my mouth tastes each one in turn. When it nibbles and sucks and grazes.


  But she is impatient. She wants more and she wants it now. She reaches down and caresses my cock. Blood floods the length of it when she twists onto her knees and dips her head.

  I grab a handful of hair to postpone her descent, but she looks delicious with her bare ass up in the air and her gold eyes gazing into mine and I am momentarily distracted. Her mouth, hot and wet, slides down the length of me in one quick thrust, and the heat that has gathered in the pit of my belly and at the base of my cock reaches critical mass. I almost come. Again.

  I hold her head. Force her to slow. But even that is proving too risky. So I raise her up and flatten her against the wall—only this time she’s facing it. That’ll chill her little ass out. She rages when I crush into her. Fights. Pushes. Snarls. I curl a hand around her throat and pull her against me. But she is doing more to me than just getting me hot. She is penetrating layers of my psyche. Weakening my armor. Storming the gates of my soul. I need to bring it back to the physical. Back to the things I know.

  “Dutch,” I whisper into her ear, and she stills herself instantly. “I’m going to fuck you now.”

  She lays her head back against my shoulder. Looks up at me. Frowns. “Where have you been?” she asks, and I wonder whom she’s talking to. Surely not me. She can’t know who I am.

  “Waiting for you.”

  A gentle smile spreads across her face. It pierces the armor and I fight. I cover her mouth with mine. Her skin is so soft, it doesn’t feel real when I push a hand between the wall and her abdomen and dip my fingers between her legs.

  She sucks in a soft breath. It’s cool against my teeth.

  I push her knees apart with my own, and my fingers open the folds of her delicious cunt before I take advantage of her sensual mouth by dipping my tongue.

  She arches against me and I can’t take it any longer. I push her legs apart and my erection inside. She gasps aloud. Digs her fingernails into the wall. Writhes with each thrust of my hips. I use my arms like a clamp to keep her locked to me as I pump inside her. This is better, I think. This I can control.