I mean, what the ever-loving-fuck?
My cami is torn to shreds. There’s blood splattered all over me. I’ve stolen a gun from a guard. Killed a man who was determined to rape me. Watched a psycho-killer easily take down at least fifteen men. Helped Stone Blackthorne tear a rapist’s throat out. Had my stolen gun stolen from me. And now I’m helping said psycho-killer stage what could only be described as themost spontaneous bullshit breakout in the history of all prison breakouts.
Complete insanity.
We crawl through the ceiling space, and the amount of dead rat carcasses and spiderwebs that touch my body is absolutely unacceptable. I have a line, and touching dead rats goes far beyond it. Not to mention, there’s a horrendous smell that no member of the vagina squad should ever have to endure. And this right here . . . This one is right at the top of the list.
“What the fuck is that smell?” I whisper-yell to the murderous asshole who’s crawling up ahead.
“Figured that was you,” he mutters, not even bothering to glance back to make sure I’m keeping up with him. “You always had a nervous gut. Must have shit yourself when that asshole had you by the leg.”
My jaw drops. He did not just accuse me of shitting myself. But more than that, how does he know I’ve always had a nervous gut? Though it’s not so much of a nervous thing as it is a lactose intolerance thing. But that’s my business and my business alone. Nobody knows that about me. He just made a good guess.
“Fuck. You really are an asshole,” I seethe. “And for the record, I did not shit my pants.”
“Right.”
“For fuck’s sake,” I mutter under my breath, clenching my jaw and shaking my head. How the hell did my big break turn into his big breakout? “You’re gonna get us both killed. You know that, right?”
“Keep moving.”
“I get that you think you’re invincible, but you’re not. You’re just another prisoner, nothing but a problem that a sniper will take out the moment he gets the chance. Especially after going on a murder spree and taking me as a hostage. There’s no way this ends well for you.”
“Do you ever stop talking?”
“Not really. But you’d know that about me,if you actually knew me,” I throw at him. “What’s that all about anyway? Are you just delusional? Been locked up too long that you think the first woman you’ve seen in seven years is some mystery woman from your past? Oh, maybe this Menace has an evil twin who looks just like me. Now I can write a good story on that.”
He lets out a heavy sigh. “I’m really going to enjoy ending your life.”
“Yeah, yeah,” I mutter. “I’ve heard it all before. That’s like the hundredth time you’ve said that. Sounds like you’re all talk and no action. You know, all bark and no bite.”
He ignores me, but what can I say? Pushing buttons is my specialty, and when his buttons were pushed during those three seconds of interviewing that actually happened, that might have been the best fun I’d ever had. Until it all went to shit, of course.
“So, what’s your grand plan to kill me, anyway? Gonna wait until you miraculously get us out of here and then set yourself up with a little bachelor pad? Might I suggest something by the beach? Guess we’re a little far away from that. Oh, I could die via tree impalement because we’ll be on the run, right? You know, just like how Olaf impaled himself on an icicle, only this would be you doing it. Not me. I wouldn’t want to rob you of your big impalement moment. I know how you like murdering things and all that. Though maybe you’re more of a hands guy. Not like cutting them off. More like strangling me kind of thing. You seemed to really enjoy that earlier. Now, correct me if I’m wrong, but you were totally getting hard while you were choking me out, right?” I say with a stupid smirk. “Such a dirty little birdy.”
I hear his sigh of frustration up ahead, and the next thing I know, he glances back at me just moments before his strong leg shoots out, slams against my chest, and shoves me up against the wall of the small crawlspace, knocking the breath right out ofmy lungs. “Shut the fuck up. Otherwise, I promise you, Menace, your body will rot in this fucking crawl space until it’s nothing but dust.”
Well shit. I suppose now isn’t a great time to remind him that he still hasn’t told me who he’s been trying to protect all these years.
My hands grip his strong thighs, desperately trying to put some space between his muscled leg and my chest, but all I can do is scowl at him until he finally releases me, making me realize that not only could he kill me with his bare hands, he could also kill me with nothing more than a single thigh. Just fucking great. Though there’s no denying just how strong that thigh was. It was juicy. I wouldn’t mind taking a bite out of—ooop. Nope. I cannot start thinking about Stone like that. He is the literal definition of a walking red flag. Only, Stone doesn’t believe in red flags. His are pitch black, and he enjoys flying them high.
He gets moving again, and deciding that remaining with him is still my safest bet, I shuffle along behind him, my knees grazing the uneven crawl space and tearing holes in my pants.
We move over the top of the canteen, and the noise is insane. I hear the men below talking about us, bragging about what they’re going to do to me once they find me, and just how brutal it’s going to be. It’s almost like a competition between them, and as we move through, I find myself grateful for the overwhelming alarm disguising any noises the inmates might hear as we crawl overhead.
“Where are we going?” I ask, realizing Stone’s moving with too much conviction. Though after studying the prison layout for the past week, it seems like he’s making his way deeper into the prison, as opposed to the edges. I mean, sure, I’m not exactly versed in executing prison breaks, but surely heading this way is counterproductive.
I get no response, and considering I have no real choice in my participation, all I can do is keep moving and hope like hell this professional moron doesn’t get me killed before I can escape.
As we continue crawling through the roof space of C-block, I find small holes that make up some kind of vent. They give me a clear view of the space below, and as I peer through them, I realize this must be the C-block guards’ quarters.
The room is empty, probably having been raided long ago, but the camera feeds are still up . . . most of them. A lot of the cameras have been disabled and destroyed by the inmates, but they’ve clearly missed a few.
“Hey, check this out,” I say to Stone.
He groans. “Keep moving.”
“Okay, sure. We’ll just keep moving blindly through the prison when we could look at the surveillance feed directly over the guards’ quarters and see exactly where the other inmates are and what areas the guards have access to. But sure, let’s go with your plan. Seems like you’ve really thought it through. When in Rome, right? Risk it for the biscuit and all that good shit.”
