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We continue on, finding more traditional cells with inmates who start shouting when they see us. Prudencia and I stay in the very center away from reaching hands; if anyone touches her
, I’ll shove a fire-bolt down their throat. I scan everyone’s face, but no Ness.
“I bet some of these prisoners would have great stories for Celestials of New York.”
“I’m going to unfollow you in real life,” Prudencia says.
“Hey, I’m just saying—”
The ceiling bulbs flash red and metal grinds as all the cell doors slide open.
The inmates have been freed.
Sixty-Seven
Manhunt
NESS
My heart is beating as fast as the flashing red lights. The other inmates cautiously step outside their cells as the doors open. I don’t know what powers they possess, only that they’re probably not as lethal if they’re in these standard cells. That doesn’t mean they’re not dangerous.
Unless everyone else has been falsely imprisoned too.
There’s static coming from the speakers in the corner. “Attention! Before you start blowing off some steam and beating the lights out of each other, you got to know something,” says a low voice I’ve never heard before. “Those of you who weren’t incarcerated until after late January will remember that a senator’s son was one of six-hundred-something people killed during the city’s Blackout. Except he wasn’t. Eduardo Iron lives and breathes in this prison. He became a specter for the Blood Casters and will be standing trial for acts of burglary, trespassing, selling hallucinatory drugs, aggravated assault, identity theft, and terrorism.”
In other words, I’m here for life, if they let me live.
I’m fighting back tears on how corrupt this place is.
“Eduardo has the power to shift,” the voice continues. “He can look like anyone—a stranger, your cellmate, even yourself. If you’re looking for an extra challenge while blowing off some steam, whoever hunts down the shifter before dawn will be rewarded with thirty minutes on the roof this morning.”
I don’t doubt the lure of that grand prize. Breathing in the air before being banished back to this darkness could be as welcome as a hug from a loved one.
The red lights stop flashing as the speaker says, “Happy hunting.”
There are shouts and cheers, even a roar, echoing through the halls.
A bald man with a three-headed hydra tattoo on his forearm is talking with someone while staring at me. There’s one clear tell that I don’t belong here: I’m not wearing one of the lime-green jumpsuits. I charge the opposite way, hearing them call after me.
I fight through the pain of my stinging wound, glowing gray midrun and giving myself the jumpsuit and a new face before blending into a crowd of celestials beating each other to death.
A lot of people mistaken as me in disguise will die tonight.
Sixty-Eight
Firefly’s Flames
EMIL
“Hide-and-seek with the shape-shifter just got infinitely harder,” Wyatt whispers as we hide in a stairway.
“And he doesn’t even know that we’re trying to find him,” I say.
Just when I thought this place couldn’t be more monstrous, the guards are siccing the other inmates on Ness as if this is some acceptable practice. More than ever I’m terrified to be here though I have zero regrets. Ness might think he’s alone in this fight, but I’m going to back him up.
“Perhaps it’s time we regroup.” Wyatt tugs at his whistle.
“No, someone might think we should bounce.”
