The switch flips.
I've had it my whole life, this switch, this ugly, hard-wired thing. It flipped when I was thirteen with those scissors. It flipped the night Danny's parole officer showed up and everything went sideways. It doesn't ask. It doesn't consult. It just saysnoin a language older than words, and then your body's already moving.
I drive the heel of my palm into his nose. Cartilage grinds but doesn't break, not enough left in me. The guard grabs my arm, twists it hard enough that white sparks up to my shoulder.
I sink my teeth into the meat of his hand. Deep. Past skin, into something that shouldn't be in my mouth. Copper floodsmy mouth, hot and wrong, as he howls, ripping his hand back, a chunk of him staying between my teeth. I spit it at his feet.
Then I scream.
Not for help, there's no help here, never has been, but because the sound tears out of me anyway, because my body has decided this is what it's doing. Three weeks of not screaming have apparently filled some reservoir I didn't know I had, and now it's going all at once, ripping up through my wrecked throat until it turns ragged and wet and not quite human anymore.
He's got a hundred pounds on me easy. He's bigger, stronger, fed and rested while I've been running on stale bread and Matt's butchered Shakespeare.
I fight him anyway.
What choice do I have?
He slams me down, concrete biting into my shoulder blades through what's left of my shirt. One hand pins both my wrists above my head. Easy, so easy, like I'm nothing. The other rips at fabric, and what's left of my shirt gives way like tissue paper.
I keep thrashing. Keep kicking. What comes out of my throat isn't really a scream anymore, but I keep making it anyway.
And my brain, my stupid, stubborn, architectural-restoration brain that cannot stop cataloguing things even when the building is actively on fire, does what it always does when the structure fails. It focuses on the stupidest possible details.
His left bootlace is frayed. Just the one, the right one looks brand new. One.
There's a nicotine stain on his index knuckle. Two-pack minimum, maybe three. Two.
Overhead bulb flickering every four seconds. Exactly four. I've counted it a thousand times from this floor.
Three.
The walls are cracked but standing. I'm still here. I'm surviv?—
He shoves the skirt up and forces a leg between mine, his belt buckle biting into my thigh as the cold air hits skin that shouldn't be exposed. His breath is hot on my neck, sour, and the belt buckle digs into my thigh like a brand. Still half-undone. Still telling me exactly what comes next.
Four seconds. Flicker. Four seconds. Flicker. Four...
The world explodes.
Not metaphorically. Notmy world came crashing downthe way people say it when their boyfriend forgets their birthday, or their flight gets canceled. The actual, physical, concrete-and-rebar world detonates. A concussive explosion so massive it doesn't register as sound but as pressure, a fist of air slamming my eardrums flat. My teeth rattle, as dust rains from the ceiling in a gray curtain. The bulb swings wildly on its cord, strobing light-dark-light-dark.
The guard on top of me freezes, just as there's a second blast. This one closer. Bigger.
My eardrums ring as muffled sounds of gunfire reach us. Rhythmic and controlled. Professional.
The guard's head snaps toward the door, his weight shifting, as his hand goes loose for one heartbeat. One heartbeat is all I need to drive my knee into his groin with every scrap of strength my legs have left.
He makes a wet, choking noise that folds him sideways off me as his hands release my wrists.
I scramble backward on torn palms and raw elbows, not standing because standing takes too long, justaway,just as far from him as possible. My spine hits the far wall, my shirt torn to strips, doing nothing to shield me from the cold of a concrete wall. I welcome the cold.
The cold means I'm still here. Surviving.
My ears pop back into the here and now as the sound of gunfire gets louder. Whoever this is, they're close.
The guard gets up, takes one menacing look my way, and draws his gun aiming it at my chest. Good, whatever death will be better than whatever he's got in store for me. But then he cocks his head when sharp Italian voices cut through the space and lowers his gun. Whatever they're saying sounds like commands. Call and response.
Is this salvation? Is this a faster way to die? I genuinely cannot tell.
