It’s always been my plan to break out of Hartley Creek Penitentiary. I’ve been working on it for the past two years, but I didn’t expect it to come so soon, and I sure as fuck didn’t anticipate it to be with none other than my little menace.
Once the guards regain control of the prison, headcounts will be done. They’ll search for survivors, and when they realize Aria Ashford is missing, they’ll know I’ve taken her.
I’ll be the world’s most dangerous fugitive. My face will be splashed across the front of every newspaper, television screen, and telephone post. There will be no escaping this. And while I might be the only person who’s escaped today, there will be bodies unaccounted for, and that might just be my saving grace. They will assume anybody unaccounted for escaped alongside me, thinning out law enforcement resources.
That fucker in the crawl space who attacked Aria will be left to rot there, at least until his body begins to decay and the smell becomes too much to avoid an internal investigation. Only then will they realize that he hasn’t escaped with me, but by then, I’ll be long gone.
Aria huffs and puffs beside me, clearly not one who spends her days working on her fitness, but I’ve got some bad news for her. If she’s already out of breath, then the next few days are not going to be kind to her. Assuming I keep her around that long. But that’s up to her. I’m not ending her until I get the answers I’m looking for, and only then will I put her out of her misery and take revenge for her pitiful betrayal. If she were smart, she’d drag this out as long as possible, but on the contrary, she might as well tell me what I need to hear so I can hurry up and put herout of her misery. We both know how this ends. There are no ifs, whats, or buts about it.
An hour turns into three without a single word passing between us. It’s peaceful. Apart from the sound of our footsteps in the old, dried-up sewer, it’s the most silence I’ve experienced in seven years. Well, I suppose that’s not entirely true. I’ve had more than my fair share of time spent in solitude. Look at a guard wrong, and you’re fucked. Forty-eight hours spent in solitude to think about your actions, but for me, it’s really not so bad. I enjoy the peace. It allows me a chance to reflect, plot, and plan, and time like that is more than valuable when planning an escape.
As for what happens next, I’ve got no fucking idea.
Every bit of planning I’d done before is out the window. I’m on my own, but I’m not worried. I’ll roll with the hits as they come, and there will be hits. Plenty of them. But if I keep myself five steps ahead, nobody can touch me.
Aria suddenly gasps beside me, her eyes going wide. My head whips down, trying to figure out what’s wrong. Has she rolled an ankle? Been bitten by something? “What’s wrong?” I demand, already trying to figure out how to solve whatever problem she hits me with. Rolled ankle? Tough break. Shake it off and keep walking. Snake or spider bite that infects her whole body, rendering her legs useless? Sure, it’ll suck, but I’m not opposed to carrying her out of here, healing her up, getting my answers, and then taking her out. I didn’t come this far to have my revenge ripped away by nothing more than a mere spider.
Aria shakes her head. “Nothing, it’s just . . . It just occurred to me why you call the psycho organ harvester, Doc,” she murmurs, keeping her gaze locked on the uneven ground before her. “Because he slices and dices people. Like a surgeon.”
Are you fucking kidding me?
I don’t bother to respond, just shake my head as frustration burns through my veins.
“What does he even do with those organs anyway?” she muses, still talking as her lips twist into an uneasy cringe, and a visible shiver tracks across her body. “Is he . . . no! Is he eating them? Like going full cannibal on their ass?”
“No fucking idea,” I find myself saying, unsure why I’m indulging this conversation as the image of Doc feasting on Aria’s intestines pops into my head. “I don’t know. Nor do I want to. The less I know about that man, the better.”
“Kinda fucked up, right? I mean, who looks at human flesh and thinks,mmmmmm lunch?”
I don’t respond, and after a minute, Aria sighs. “Seriously? Is this what it’s going to be like? We could be walking through this tunnel all night. The least you could do is try to be decent company. Besides, when those cuts on your shoulders start getting infected, you’re going to need me to help you, because you and I both know that with muscles like that, there’s no way in hell you can reach the back of your shoulders with those big meaty fingers. Can you even open a Band-Aid?”
For fuck’s sake.
Not that it’s any of her business, but no, I can’t reach the back of my shoulders, but it’s not as though I was going to ask for her help in the first place. And as for the Band-Aids, I could open one if I needed to, but I’m a man—a very big one at that—so naturally, I don’t need Band-Aids. They’re for small children who graze their knees, not convicted murderers who break out of prisons via sewer systems.
“Okay. Fuck the Band-Aids,” Aria says with a huff, realizing her ploy to bait me isn’t going to work. “What’s your plan?”
“That’s none of your concern.”
“You’re just going to bust out of this sewer line and hope that there aren’t any cops waiting for you at the other end?”she questions. “And if by some miracle, you happen to get out of here, without dying from an infection, what then? You drag me around everywhere you go and live life on the run? Because you know that’s not sustainable, right? You’re about to become the most wanted man on Earth. There’s nowhere you can go where people won’t actively be searching for you. You can’t walk through a town. Can’t get groceries. Can’t even stop for gas. What kind of life is that to live?”
“Are you done?”
She rolls her eyes and grumbles. “Not really. I have plenty more to say on the topic.”
“I’m sure you do.”
Another hour passes when I hear her stomach grumble, and she stops in the middle of the sewer, letting out an exhausted sigh. “Can we just . . . pause for a minute? My legs are aching, and I’m—”
“No. Keep walking,” I throw over my shoulder. “The sooner we find the end of this tunnel, the better. We need to put as much space between us and the prison before they realize we’re gone. They’ll canvas the outskirts of the prison first, but it won’t take long before they widen the search.”
She lets out a shaky breath. “I don’t hear the alarms anymore. Does that mean they’ve turned them off, or are we just too far away to hear them now?”
I shake my head. There’s really no telling.
“Wow. You’re just full of information, aren’t you?” Aria mutters, clearly irritated with the situation she’s found herself in, but I get it. If I were in her shoes, I wouldn’t be happy about it either. But then, if she didn’t want to get herself kidnapped by a convicted criminal, then she shouldn’t have baited the one she ensured was locked up in the first place.
“Get walking, Menace.”
