Page 22 of Blood We Steal

“Yeah,” Rubin responded, though he didn’t look back at me. His eyes instead focused ahead, searching the now-illuminated corridors for any threat.

“That’s where we were before,” I said, when we went to the little hallway that we had left what felt like a lifetime ago.

He stopped and looked into the office, took a quick look around, and then stepped back out. “Come on,” he said.

“Why?”

“I need to see what else is here.”

Obviously.

I should have known that. But nerves were getting to me, so it was okay if I wasn’t running at full strength. Together we moved into one office, mercifully empty, and then the next, which was less so.

Rubin’s face was even more grim, and I clenched my teeth as I processed the sight. Two men, both dressed in uniforms that left no doubt that they were correctional officers. And between them they had three attached arms. One of the guards was holding the fourth with chunks of flesh entwined with blue threads hanging from its teeth.

The absolute wrongness of the sight froze me in place. Again, Rubin didn’t have that problem. He moved without hesitation and buried the sharpened spoon in the one-armed CO’s ear. I would have expected the cheap plastic to splinter and break, maybe scratch skin but not do any real damage. But Rubin slid the spoon like a key into a lock. There was a soft squelch, and Rubin stabbed again and then again until blood and brain poured out of the dead man’s ear. The other, who’d been clumsily moving toward Rubin, got the same treatment.

And then the room was still and silent and wrong in a way that threatened to undo me.

Rubin stepped in before that could happen. “See if there’s anything useful in here.” Then he started to leave the office.

“Should we split up?” I asked, almost regretting it when Rubin looked at me but liking the idea of being alone even less.

“Not smart, but there’s nothing behind us, so let’s be efficient,” he said.

I nodded and tried to pretend like I wasn’t on the verge of a meltdown. Not that it was necessary to pretend with him. He knew me well enough to know that I was panicking. He’d only seen it one time before, and had handled it much the same way then. I swallowed, my mouth thick with spit yet simultaneously dry. I couldn’t let myself watch Rubin leave, too worried that I would beg him not to. So instead I whirled around and started to look.

I found two emergency kits with flares, antibacterial cream, and thermal blankets. A sweet stash of canned coffee, some Band-Aids, and an unopened pack of blue ink pens. It took less than ninety seconds. And when Rubin came back, he was wiping his bloody hand with the leg of his pants.

“You got an upgrade,” I said, gesturing toward the Bowie knife he now held. He had a walkie-talkie tucked in his back pocket.

“We’ll see what else we can find. You might get one too,” he said. He went into the office and looked around. “What’d you find?”

I showed him my stash, and he nodded at the two dead men. “What was on them?”

I had been going out of my way to ignore them. I hadn’t looked, and Rubin knew it.

Not even a second passed before he sprung into action, kicking one of the bodies to its side and rummaging through its pockets. He grabbed a set of keys, another knife, a baton.

“Want some gum?” he asked.

I could feel the disgust on my face, and I shook my head.

“All right, let’s go back to the warden’s office,” he said.

“Why?”

“It’s got a bathroom, better location, and equidistant between both of our ways out of here. But first, one last stop,” he said.

I nodded and followed behind him, the shiv still in my grip. I followed Rubin down a hall and saw three more bodies and then an exit.

“Is that the way out?”

“We’ll see.”

We approached the door. This one had glass and a heavy plexiglass opening along a long hall that led to the other unit.

“But I bet it’s locked, I—” I cut off when I saw a figure through the glass.