I tried to focus my attention on what Rishi was doing, while at the same time, keeping my eyes down so I didn’t draw any attention. Out of the corner of my gaze, I watched as Rishi pawed at a vent at the bottom of the wall, which was partially hidden by the bunk bed. It was a tiny vent— only big enough for a cat to get through. Rishi managed to get the vent cracked open enough so he could slip through into the air ducts, and he vanished.
The guards shut off the lights, only leaving one singular red bulb glowing in the middle of the room. People started going to bed. We made a show of lying down, but I knew Rishi was crawling in the air ducts around the storage room. The lights remained on in the observation room, so the guards could watch us as we slept. Creepy bastards.
When the room fell quiet, the guards behind the glass pane started bullshitting with each other, making dumb jokes and loudly complaining about their lives. I barely heard their muffled voices through the pane on the other side.
After a while, I heard a couple of snores. Most of the inmates around us had gone to sleep, and those that hadn’t had silenced the sounds of their crying. The eerie quiet that filled the space put me on edge.
“Come on, Rishi,” Marcus whispered, and I heard Kallie shudder in the bunk above him.
A couple long moments passed that felt like the equivalent of an eternity in hell. I heard a soft, scratching sound, and Rishi slipped out of the vent, holding a set of keys in his mouth. Rishi had gotten the keys from the observation room undetected. The guards had been too busy talking to notice him slip in and out. Marcus reached out and took the keys from Rishi to tuck them slowly into his pocket.
We had a key. Now we just had to get the guards away from the door.
Rishi darted off into the dark. Across the room, I heard a collection of the wooden boxes that I’d seen earlier crash to the floor. The noise was profoundly loud. A couple of students awoke blearily, complaining to keep the noise down.
“Who’s crawling around out there?” a guard demanded. “Nobody should be out of bed!”
Another crate smashed loudly against the tile, and the guards protecting the door started forward. “Anyone sneaking around after lights-out is gonna get it!”
“Let’s go.” Marcus was already on his feet, and Kallie jumped down from the top bunk. Charlie silently helped me back into my wheelchair, and we proceeded toward the entrance. The fact that it was almost completely dark in the room concealed our movements, but we’d only have seconds to open the door and slip out before the guards returned.
Marcus fumbled with the keys and almost dropped them. Kallie cringed, while I hissed. If he got us killed, I’d kill himagainlater, because we couldn’t afford to fuck up this time.
He finally got the right key and fit it into the lock. Marcus opened the door, and I thanked the ancestors it didn’t creak. We slipped out into the dark hall, and Rishi sprinted through the open crack just before Marcus shut the door behind us.
I wanted to breathe a sigh of relief, but we were far from out yet. These hallways were crawling with guards, and we had to get outside if there was a chance of us reaching the lake.
“Do you think they’ll notice we’re missing?” Kallie whispered.
“It’s so dark in there they won’t realize we’re not in bed until they turn the lights back on. Let’s hope they don’t do that,” Marcus worried.
“Quiet. Before someone hears,” Charlie demanded.
When we came to a corner, I dared to peek my head around it. Guards were wandering up and down the hallway with flashlights, patrolling the area. Along the floor were open and empty cardboard boxes from the factory— boxes that had previously held the brand-new, shining rifles that the guards carried now.
Charlie waited at the head of the group. The darkness didn’t slow him up like it did the rest of us, so he was able to hear where the guards were, and told Rishi when to move. We had to create a distraction to get past them, because we couldn’t leave a trail of bodies behind, or they’d find us.
Rishi swished his tail, then raced forward. A guard swept his flashlight, but Rishi jumped in one of the cardboard boxes, concealing himself from view. Once the light shone down the opposite end of the hallway, Rishi leapt out of the box and continued running. He darted from box to box, shielding himself from the glow of the flashlights until he’d gotten to the end of the long hallway, and into the cafeteria. From far off, we heard an assortment of pots and pans clatter to the floor in the kitchen.
The guards hurried off that way, leaving the hallway empty. We hustled through it. Kallie went to put her hands on the door that led outside, but Marcus grabbed her wrists.
“I can feel a ward here,” Marcus said. “The Warden’s armed the doors to the exit with alarms. We’ll have to crawl through a window.”
“That would be fine if my chair could fit though,” I grumbled.
“You can ride on Oberi’s back once we’re outside. Marcus can subconjure it for later,” Charlie said.
We changed directions and headed into a classroom, looking for a window that was big enough to crawl through. We found one at the back, near the teacher’s desk. All of the windows were fitted with bars, but I used my Fire magic to melt them off. Marcus put a silencing ward on the room, and Charlie gritted his teeth as he broke the window. The sound of shattering glass caused me to bristle, but we waited for a minute and didn’t hear any guards.
Marcus carefully climbed through the broken window first. I heard anoofas he fell on the ground. Oberi jumped through, landing cleanly on his feet before transforming into a unicorn. The illusion saddle appeared on her back, at the ready. Marcus reached his arms up for me, and Charlie picked me up, passing me through the broken window. Charlie got a cut on the back of his hand, but he didn’t flinch, just proceeded like he didn’t feel the pain. Marcus helped me onto Oberi as Kallie and Charlie climbed through the window after us. I healed Charlie’s hand. He couldn’t be leaving blood droplets for the guards to follow.
“Where’s Rishi?” I asked, but as I did so, the cat came slipping out through one of the drains at the base of the building, squeezing through the bars. He must’ve found the drain in the kitchen and followed it out here. The tip of Rishi’s tail twitched as he looked onward with huge eyes, observing the gaping expanse of the prison yard.
There weren’t any guards patrolling the grounds, but they were up in the towers, using searchlights to scan the yard. The round spotlights seemed so pervasive and all-seeing. How were we going to get past them without being spotted?
“There are spotlights everywhere. Stick to the wall,” Kallie rasped.
My leg skimmed the side of the stone wall as Oberi cautiously crept forward. The sound her hooves made as they clacked against the asphalt surrounding the school made me wince. The others followed behind me, but I felt terror explode inside my chest as I realized one of the spotlights was coming right toward us. My heart leapt into my throat, and Oberi came to a rough halt as I watched the spotlight span the stone wall ahead. The spotlight edged up the tip of Oberi’s hoof, seconds away from revealing our location.
