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Sammi watches me and looks down to her own plate, grimacing, before sitting cross legged and pulling it toward her. I watch with interest as she tears off the small visible bits of mold off the bread and grabs the water, pouring a few drops onto the rest before popping it into her mouth. She sees me watching and flushes.
“It’s so hard this is the only way I can chew it,” she says, shrugging. I look to my own bread and mimic the gesture, shrugging before starting to pick away the bad bits. My stomach grumbles at me and I don’t know if it’s in early protest or anticipation, so I ignore it.
Really wish I had that last bottle of rum right now.
Twenty Six
Axle
“Ax?” A voice says, vague and distant through the bloodlust coursing through me. It only took about two hours to get everything out of John, but I can’t seem to stop myself. The smell of sewage is now replaced with the unique smell of people’s insides, mixed with the coppery tang of blood. The knife is like my own twisted form of therapy.
When I was with Ana, I felt like I was home. Every fucking minute with her was perfect.
But this? This is like coming back to an old friend.
An old friend who doesn’t quite scratch the itch of wanting to turn this knife on my own skin. Or wanting to tear this place down brick by brick to get to Ana.
It’s okay baby, I’ll be right back….
Again and again, I let the blade slide over his flesh. The steady drip of blood is like music to my ears. Another strip, let the knife push in slowly…
“Ax, you gotta stop man,” Ethan’s voice cuts further through the haze and I blink a few times, stopping mid-motion to turn to him. His gaze looked pained when he glances down at John’s now still form in front of me.
“You gotta stop,” he repeats, “you know what happened, she didn’t give herself up, and you got your vengeance. We need a plan now.”
My body is so tense it practically shudders when I try to release it. The heartbeat pounding my ears slowly quiets and I look down at the mangled body in front of me and then back at Ethan.
“I don’t know if I can stop,” I say quietly. I feel a hand on my shoulder and brace myself for the wave of anger that usually comes, but it doesn’t. Instead, some of the anger seems to deflate out of me.
“Ana needs you,” Ethan replies, his voice equally quiet. My eyes blink a few more times as reality begins to sink in again. Fuck. I turn back to the corpse and I wrinkle my face in disgust, dropping the knife that’s been clenched in my fist for hours.
Just stay quiet, sweetie and they won’t bother us….
Smacking my head a few times with my palm, I turn to Ethan with wide eyes.
“Okay, I have an idea,” I begin, “it’s fucking crazy though.”
Ethan nods, as though this is exactly what he was expecting. If not for the seriousness of the moment I’d want to laugh. I’ve gotten him into so much fucking trouble over the years, especially when we were kids. He always just went along with all my insane ideas.
“We need to start another riot, and lead twenty or so of our best men through the sewers with a handful to go back around and open the front gate. It’ll be enough of a distraction we can get to the guard building and grab Ana.”
Ethan blinks a few times.
“That’s fucking insane. We can’t do that,” he says, his tone more even and matter-of-fact than surprised.
I grin. “When has something being insane ever stopped us?”
* * *
“You’re telling us there has been a possible way out of here you’ve known about for twenty years and not told us about?” Emilio asks incredulously. I respect the man, but fuck, is that really what he cares most about right now? That I didn’t tell him sooner?
“I think we should focus on the fact it exists rather than why or for how long,” Luis points out and Theo nods along.
If we are going to do this, I need to start here.
Unfortunately, I killed two major Tomb family bosses today, and there are a lot of inmates I am going to have a bit more trouble convincing.
Then again, freedom is a powerful motivator.
