Page 117 of Into the Fire

The man shouldered his cohorts and stumbled away. Evan stood in the darkness until the sounds of their labored retreat faded.

Then he sat on the bench, gripped it at either side, and did his best to figure out how to breathe again.

48

I Saw What You Did

After prepping the cell, Evan rested on his bunk, visualizing his brain as healthy and unimpaired. He thought about all his symptoms—the nausea and light-headedness, the headaches and blurred vision, the light streaks and dizziness, the ringing in his ears and trouble with his balance—and he willed each one slowly away.

If he guarded his head at all costs, he just might make it through intact.

When the time was near, Evan hopped down and eased onto the catwalk to check the clock—8:57 P.M.

Three minutes to go time.

He went back into his cell.

“Monkey Mouth,” he said. “You should go to the dayroom.”

Monkey Mouth paused his oblivious yammering. “Why?”

“It’ll be safer there.”

Monkey Mouth scurried off the bunk and hustled out.

Evan closed his eyes. In two minutes Joey would black out the cameras. That would give him a limited window in which to get it all done.

He took a few deep breaths.

Either it would work.

Or any recognizable version of his life would be over.

One minute.

Keeping his eyes shut, he felt the firmness of the concrete underfoot, the pressure of the soles in his shoes, the weight of the air. A coolness at his nostrils with each inhalation. The rise of his chest, his stomach moving as well, every breath expanding ribs and belly, reminding him that right now he was alive and safe, standing on a planet with seven and a half billion souls, many of whom had bigger challenges even than what he was about to face.

He keyed to the snow-globe swirl of his thoughts and emotions and waited for the sediment to settle.

Once the water cleared, he opened his eyes.

He felt neither stress nor trepidation. Neither weakness nor concussion symptoms. He’d consigned all emotion to the future. Right now he was a pulse and a weapon heated to 98.6 degrees. He was muscle and bone that if deployed properly would produce predictable results.

And he was moving.

A broken third of his soap bar rested atop his sheet. The staple he’d smuggled in was embedded in the chunk, curved out like a horseshoe and padded with the foil gum wrapper.

Plucking it up, he crouched by the electrical outlet. Careful to grip only the soap, he jammed the small piece of curved metal into the outlet. An arc ran through the center of the horseshoe.

He’d placed the dead plant, dried further by the day’s relentless sunlight, on the floor beside his knee. He plucked up a stick of it now and touched it to the arc.

It caught, a makeshift match.

Scattered around him lay tufts of stuffing from his mattress.

Kindling.

He lit a tuft on fire. And then another. And then another. And then one more.