Page 9 of Blood We Steal

Even with his jaw gone, I recognized him. A frequent flier at the jail and so known and trusted that he didn’t even get searched anymore. Useful for my purposes then, completely useless to me now.

He reached for Simone, and I reacted without thought or hesitation. I pushed her back and stepped in front of her. Grabbed him by his collar and slammed his head against the railing. The soft crack was a good sign, but I didn’t take any chances. His temple gave at the first press of the flagpole, and I didn’t stop until he fell limp.

Simone made a sound behind me, and I saw her scrambling to her feet as ungracefully as I’d ever seen anyone do anything.

From anyone else, I’d expect to see gratitude, but not Simone. Her eyes were wide, first with fear, and then with something else that I couldn’t name. Something I refused to try to understand.

Instead I moved forward toward the catwalk, ready for whatever else might face me on this stroll through hell.

Two weeks ago there had been a fire, and part of the metal grate had been replaced with wooden boards to make a walkway. The warden hadn’t been in any hurry to pay for overtime to get it fixed, so inmates were responsible for navigating the path.

“Follow behind, Simone,” I said.

She nodded frantically, and when I made the first step on the wood—testing it, satisfied with what I found—I went across. Then it was her turn, and she hovered at the edge of the board.

She had never liked heights. Simone had rarely asked anything of me, but I remembered the time she asked me to stand on a stepladder to grab one of our files off the top shelf. So this walk…not her cup of tea.

I had half a mind to leave her. Let her fall or jump or face whatever else might be waiting for her. Were she anyone else, I would have. But I didn’t move. I just watched her. Studied the torment on her face as she held the ridiculous trophy so tight, her brown knuckles were white.

Studied the heavy rise and fall of her chest and the way her shirt clung to her body, adhered by sweat that had no place in a room this cool. Studied her so long that I was almost sure she had made her choice and would allow herself to die here.

No. That wasn’t a choice she got to make. But she moved before I did. Made it halfway across the board before she squeaked. I turned and saw another inmate shambling toward me. Knew immediately something about it was off. It had those same eyes, made that awful noise, and then it lunged at me.

I ducked the thing quickly and didn’t waste any time. I buried the end of the flagpole in its eye and watched it fall down limply.

I tossed the flagpole down and reached for Simone just as the sole of her cheap shoe betrayed her and sent her foot sliding across the board and out from under her. She pitched sideways, her mouth shaped in a silent scream.

No.

She would die on my word alone, and not a second before.

I closed my hand around her wrist.

FIVE

Simone

Iwill not die here.

That was my only thought as I hurtled toward the ground for the second time in less than ten minutes. Unfortunately, my concern this time wasn’t carpet deodorizer or hand abrasions. What lay beneath me was shiny tile over concrete that seemed to be coming faster and faster.

And then I wasn’t moving anymore.

I gasped when I was jerked back, still holding my stupid trophy, physically unable to loosen my fingers enough to let it go, and looked up. Rubin had his hand manacled around my wrist like iron, holding me in place.

I had earned every inch of my size 22 jeans and most days didn’t have a second thought about it. I didn’t think about now, either, because Rubin held me like I was nothing. I followed the veins in his hand up his taut forearm, struck by how his arm seemed as solid and steady as the floor I was dangling over. My capacity for awe had been left bleeding on the floor in the warden’s office, but something like it exploded in my chest.

I met his black eyes and got lost in his gaze for a moment, wondering how he did that, but the spell was broken by a sound. That inhuman moan that raised the hair on my arms.

Good sense told me not to look down, but when did I ever follow that? My stomach churned as I tore my gaze away from Rubin and looked toward the moans. People—if I could still call them that—were moving toward me with that disgusting, shambolic gait, inhuman eyes fixated on their target.

Me.

They gathered under me in a loose circle, that much more terrifying with how casual they were. On instinct, I lifted my knees, my abs straining with the effort, and bought myself five more inches that weren’t worth the sweat that rolled down my back.

I’d never thought I’d have occasion to feel like a rotisserie chicken, but that was exactly what I was as I dangled there.

I had one way out.