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So, I suck it up and grind my teeth hard enough to crack a tooth. And the guard doesn’t turn the radio off. The whole five hours he’s driving—I know because I stare at the clock the entire time—we listen to seventies and eighties pop and R&B. I didn’t even know radios would play songs for this long without a commercial break.
I blow out a long breath when we finally pull off at a rest stop. Sitting in the same spot for hours on end, being tortured by songs that bring up memories of the not-so-distant past is maddening.
I’m taken in to piss, then they give me a cardboard box with a warm sandwich, a soggy pickle, and a bottle of water as my meal. The moon is high and bright, reminding me of some of the nights Finn and I sat on the balcony and made-up stories about the stars.
Tossing my half-eaten sandwich back into the box, I shove it away, upset that it seems like fucking everything reminds me of that fucking traitor.
“Not to your liking?” the driver sneers, snatching my half-eaten food away and tossing it into the trash. I wasn’t fucking done. Fucking asshole. “It’ll be better than anything you get on death row, inmate.”
I curl my lip to retort, but the other guard catches my eye and he shakes his head imperceptibly. I’m not sure why, but I heed his warning and I relax my face. “Just a little carsick,” I lie with an edge in my tone. The driver raises an eyebrow at me but doesn’t say anything.
We sit at the rest stop for another minute, then a van just like ours pulls up. Quickly, I’m unshackled and transferred to that van. My regular guard and the driver check my bonds, then the driver gets in, reverses, and drives away in less than five minutes. It was like something out of Fast and Furious with how he peeled out of there. Not sure why the change of van was necessary, but again, it ain’t my business.
He doesn’t turn the radio on and I’m thankful.
We ride in silence for the next hour, the landscape sliding by quickly. To my surprise, I start to doze off. I’m not comfortable at all, but my eyes won’t stay open.
Just before I slip off into sleep, the guard swerves quickly. I sit up straight, looking around. “The fuck was that?” I grumble, upset that sleep was denied to me.
“Sorry about that, boss. Something ran out in front of me. You okay back there?”
I grunt, trying to get comfortable again and close my eyes. Then it happens again, only this time, we’re on the side of the road, rocks and debris flying up on the windows.
“Hold on!” the guard shouts, wrenching the wheel to the right, almost as if he’s going into—
Before I can form my next thought, we’re driving off the side of a bridge, the water rushing up to meet us. I can’t hold on, since my hands and feet are cuffed, so I try to brace as much as I can.
We hit the water with a loud splash. The driver’s head hits the steering wheel sickeningly, but he shakes it off, going for his seat belt. He grabs his head where blood is starting to pour, holding his shirt sleeve against it. As the van bobs on the surface and water starts to trickle in, he maneuvers into the back seat with me.
He looks me over and curses. “I was hoping that would knock you out. Oh, well. Plan B.” The guard pulls a syringe from his pocket, bites the cap off and spits it away. I try to pull away, not wanting whatever the fuck is in that syringe anywhere near my body or bloodstream. “Hold still.” I don’t listen, moving my head back as much as possible.
The guard looks at the water rushing in, then says, “Fuck it.” He punches me in the face, dazing me and I feel a pinch in my throat. Then my world goes black.
I wake up with a pounding headache and a sore nose from the clobbering it took. I raise a hand to my nose, making sure it’s not broken again. Then I realize my hands are no longer shackled and I sit up quickly, tossing a blanket off my legs, looking around in surprise. I’m in bed with the morning sun beaming in on me though slightly opened blinds.
Blinds? Aren’t I supposed to be in prison? Prisons don’t have blinds.
No matter how hard I try, I can’t make sense of my surroundings. The room is decorated in different shades of blue—the queen-sized bed I’m on has royal blue bedding. The curtains are a robin’s egg blue and there’s a throw rug that is a pale blue. Whoever lives here is obsessed, apparently.
There’s a desk with a television on it directly across from the bed and a dresser just beside the door that’s bare of anything atop it. The nightstand beside the bed has an old school alarm clock—like the ones that were popular in all the nineties movies—and some papers that I don’t even bother trying to read.
Why am I in a room and not a prison cell?
My head swims when I stand too quickly, so I plop back on the bed, trying to get my bearings. When I’m no longer dizzy, I lift my head, looking around as if the emptiness of the room can give me answers.
Slowly this time, I stand, pushing my hair back so I can look down at myself. I’m not wearing prison grays anymore. Who the fuck changed me and what the fuck is going on here?
I pull open the door, peeking into the hallway. Looking left and right, I follow the voices that I hear from down the stairs. Hugging the wall, I tiptoe down, not wanting to be seen right away and trying to catch the voices to see if I recognize them. I sigh in relief when I do and round the corner to meet my brothers. Zeke and Pete are sitting at the table, talking about God knows what.
Pete spots me first. He smiles and stands up. “The dead has arisen.”
Zeke turns around and grins, covering the distance between us quickly and throwing his arms around me. “Fuck man, it’s good to see you.”
“You too, man.” I pat his back, not believing I’m even able to touch him. I figured for the rest of my life I’d be seeing him through plexiglass.
Pete takes his place and hugs me tight. “You’re a heavy motherfucker, you know that?”
Before I can ask what that means, I see a slight figure over Pete’s shoulder. It takes me a minute to recognize him, since he doesn’t have long hair with the ends dyed green. But when I blink, his face comes into focus.
