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I blink against the mist in my eyes, managing to keep my expression vague. “Is there anything you can do?”
“Unfortunately… not with something like this. Your best bet is to… maybe get it covered up with a tattoo. I’m sorry.”
“I figured,” I mutter, my voice cracking. I pull my shirt back up over my shoulder. My mind works to shove the complicated feelings to the back burner and instead focus on the next important matter at hand. “We have to get Salvatore.”
“We’re already working on a breakout plan. We got you out first because it’s what he would’ve wanted.”
“What’s the plan?”
“You’re not involved—”
“Don’t,” I interrupt sharply, shooting him a warning glare. “Don’t you dare start with that bullshit. We’reallinvolved! Salvatore is my fucking husband and I want him home immediately, safe and in one piece. I will do anything in my power to make sure it happens. I’m a part of this and you will deal with the fact that I am!”
Stitches answers me with stunned silence. Then, slowly, he rubs the back of his neck, and gives a nod. “Okay,” he says simply, “okay, you’re right. We bust out Psycho together. But I’m telling you right now, he won’t be happy about it.”
“Stitches, I’ll be too relieved to have him home to care.”
salvatore
“One of us is dying tonight.”
Volchok tells me this as we time the shift change between the guards. With no clock and no concept of what day it is, we’re forced to rely on basics like counting out the minutes in between. Not the most accurate way of telling time, but our only means given our fucked up circumstance.
“Maybe both of us,” he goes on after another twenty seconds passes. “We both may die tonight.”
I grit my teeth, ignoring him long enough to count the minute we’re on. Dying has never been something I’ve feared—from the time I was a teenager making trouble in a suburb from hell like Westoria, I was okay with death. I was aware I’d die if I exacted revenge against Lucius.
That was never a problem. So long as I got my payback and the last laugh, death seemed a lot like life.
Pointless. Meaningless. Something I didn’t care about.
It wasn’t ’til recently I began wanting to survive. I started thinking about a real future with Delphine and what that could mean. But if destroying Lucius and taking down his operation means I’ve got to die in the process, then so be it.
…so long as I ensure Delphine gets her freedom.
Then she can move on. She can live the long life she’s always dreamed about, well into old age like she deserves. Even if it’s without me.
“Are you okay with this?” Volchok asks.
I’m on the third minute. The two guards who were outside our cells have gone to the end of the hall to brief the pair coming on shift.
They average six minutes on these shift changes. The longest has been seven minutes and forty-nine seconds. The shortest five minutes and thirty-three.
We need a miracle if we’re ever going to make a break for it; we’ll have to be in and out in the amount of time they’re distracted.
“Six minutes and about twenty-four seconds,” I whisper when they’re done.
The pair now on shift march with dutiful footsteps toward our cells. The heavy door in the hall swings shut, signaling the others have left.
“You are not okay with dying,” Volchok says from his cell. His calm rasp travels between the jagged crack in the concrete.
I ignore him, listening more closely to what’s going on outside the cell than inside—studying the guards and their habits is a lot more important than answering his stupid questions about life and death.
Volchok is not okay with being ignored though. He keeps pushing.
“You will need to be okay with it. You will need to make peace.”
“Shut the fuck up,” I grit out. “Let’s focus on what we’ve got to do.”
