Total pages in book: 154
Estimated words: 148220 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 741(@200wpm)___ 593(@250wpm)___ 494(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 148220 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 741(@200wpm)___ 593(@250wpm)___ 494(@300wpm)
The circle of life. A song that I used to happily sing along with Matt when we were kids. A song that Lissa and I sang together here, trying to recapture a little joy and the memory of life outside this prison. A song that her murderer is singing along with as a joke.
Suddenly there’s room for one more emotion within me: the despairing certainty that I’ll die here, but it won’t be a mercifully quick death. Instead they’ll kill me little by little, destroying every bit of life and hope within me long before my body is dead. Only a few minutes ago, I’d been so sure that this nightmare was almost over.
Instead it has just begun.
3
I don’t know what they do with Lissa’s body. Probably the same thing that they’ll do with Bravo’s. The crack of the gunshot that marks his execution comes just before eleven that morning, a few minutes after Crash and Handlebar finish their five-mile run. Both bikers and the two guards who are serving as my escort go momentarily still and look in that direction, but I continue writing Handlebar’s and Crash’s pulse rates into their charts without a single hesitation.
The gaping hole that Lissa’s murder has torn open inside me is empty now. Matt is terrified that I’ll be executed, too, but I don’t feel anything except numb. It’s a form of shock, maybe. Or some other coping mechanism that kicked in. Whatever it is allowed me to get through the hours after we found her, because curling up in a ball and crying wasn’t an option. Instead Victor dragged me to my feet, ordered me to clean up the pills I spilled, and continue the fighters’ health checks.
So I did. Then I began the exercise rotations, and although the short walk out to the track is usually filled with jokes between the fighters—being allowed outside always puts them in a good mood—this morning they were distinctly subdued. Almost everyone liked Lissa. Even the guys who are here because they took the bait she dangled. I heard a couple of them swear to end Tusk if they ever got into the Cage with him. And almost everyone has congratulated me for getting the drop on Victor and laughed when they heard where I’d zapped Tusk.
Everyone except Matt. Each mention of it just makes him more afraid for me.
But not even once does he tell me that I shouldn’t have done it. That’s not who he is. What’s done is done. So all that matters is what needs to be done next.
I’ve begun to regret my actions, though. Not what I did to Tusk—I’ll never regret that, unless Papa decides to take his anger out on Matt. But I don’t think he will. Fighters are too valuable, so whatever he does, it’ll be done to me. And I just can’t find it in myself to care all that much.
Instead my regret is focused in another direction. Because I did everything right. I kept my eyes open, the way Matt taught me to. I noticed that when Victor holstered his Taser, he didn’t fasten the strap that secures the weapon. I knew that his gaze wasn’t on me, but on Tusk. I knew that Tango had left the barn to round up Bravo, leaving only Charlie and Victor on duty.
So in that long, diamond-sharp time…I could have taken out Victor. I could have stunned Charlie when he came out of the booth. And I could have freed all of the fighters. Escape wouldn’t have been certain. We’d have had to fight our way past the other guards up at the farmhouse. But we’d have had the advantage of surprise…and a chance.
Until I squandered that chance.
Lissa was killed because she’d been trying to find a way for us all to escape—and her death provided the one real opportunity that we’ve had.
But I fucked it up. None of these guys seem to realize how much my rage cost all of us. I know it, though. And the pain of that knowledge is almost enough to pierce the numbness as we return to the barn.
But I’m more aware of the subtle glances passing between Handlebar and Crash as they talk—not really saying anything, just a random conversation about some guy they both know, and loudly enough for the guards to overhear. But I swear there’s an undercurrent, as if another conversation is taking place beneath the audible one. The same kind of conversation that took place right before Handlebar snapped a guard’s neck.
As we enter the barn, though, the next look they share seems hot with frustration. Because they weren’t going to take out a guard, I realize. They’d been hoping to kill Tusk, who has been locked up in his restraints—his back against the bars and his head vulnerable to anyone passing by his stall. No doubt one of them planned to rush our guards while the other got his hands around Tusk’s head and broke his neck.