“Hands together,” he ordered, hauling my wrists up to re-tie.
“Sure,” I said, and let him. When the fresh tie cinched, I tilted my palms just enough that the blade edge I’d hidden kissedthe plastic as it closed. He checked the give, satisfied. He didn’t clock the thin slit buried under the cinch.
“Stage and wait,” the watcher told him, back to mild. “We hold till green.”
Tote-guy backed out, smug restored. The watcher pointed his chin at the floor. “Try not to bleed on it,” he said to me, then shut my door. The latch bit. The light stayed on.
I tasted coins and wiped the taste on my teeth. The storm shouldered a colder breath through the stairwell and men upstairs started arguing softly about schedules like that could fix mud.
I slid my wrists along the wall until they found the bolt head I’d mapped earlier. It was a ragged little nub where somebody tried to grind it flush and quit. I laid the tie across it and worked the pre-cut in the plastic with the rhythm of footsteps overhead. A few careful drags. Hiss.Almost. I didn’t pull through. Not yet.I let it sit pretty like it was still whole.
Ankles next. I palmed the flat blade down my thigh, pinched it in my fingers, and rocked it against the plastic. I timed each saw-stroke to a door slam topside and a laugh that didn’t fit the room. The tie chewed,caught,gave.
Blood and grit make a paste that bites where skin would slip. I worked my hands in it, then eased off the bolt and left the half-cut tie draped making it look like it was tied but wasn’t.
Across the row, Sunshine watched with her whole body. Juno murmured a prayer that sounded like steel on stone. Farther down, the man who hadn’t spoken kept not speaking.
I put my shoulder back to the seam where Ariel’s shoulder had been and let the first hot animal in my chest rake its claws once more. She’s upstairs. I shoved it into the box and sat hard.
The bobby pin and wire warmed in my palm. I felt the bad weld where cage met floor, the tiny drag groove from when they’d muscled this box into place crooked. Skinny friend, bad seam, patient pressure. A map is still a map in the dark.
Upstairs, the flat voice with the range cadence said, “Hold till green. Keep it clean.”Paper rustled. Mag checks clicked. Men hate waiting. Waiting makes men sloppy.
Good.
I tucked the bladeunder my wrist, pushed the screw deeper into my cuff. My hands looked tied. They weren’t. My feet looked still. They weren’t going to be.
I breathed until the room matched me. Then I let patience settle in like weight and listened for the mistake that would be ours.
