Although I’m wishing I had Cecily’s photographic memory. That girl could picture and recall anything she wrote down in her own handwriting. If she wrote it down once, at the snap of a finger, she could recite it back to you. If it had been that easy for me, I could have just written the plan down and followed the map in my mind. As it is, I’m stuck repeating everything over and over again so I don’t mess up.
I’m thinking of Cecily when the watch under my skin beeps and comes alive.
And the numbers start counting down.
00:05:00
03:11:05:00
This is it. My life-or-death moment. I take a deep breath and jump up off the cot.
4
I only have one chance to follow all of Barclay’s instructions. If this doesn’t work, and I’m still alive, I’ll be stuck here.
3
Barclay won’t be able to do anything without going against orders.
2
If this doesn’t work, if I don’t get us out, I could end up being beaten and tortured for the escape attempt, and Barclay will most likely leave me here.
1
I’m standing in front of my door, muscles tense and ready to spring, my fingers ready to pry the door open as soon as it unlocks.
The sound is audible. It’s the sound of electronics powering off. The sound of silence.
And the lights go out.
03:11:00:00
I hear something click inside my cell door. My heart pounds in my chest as I push through. The door gives easily as if it was never locked, and I’m in the hallway. I move steadily north, staying along the right side of the hall just in case the cameras come back on early. My heartbeat and my feet hitting the floor as I run are the only things I can hear.
I try not to look at the doors I’m passing by. I know there’s nothing I can do, but my insides twist anyway. I hate that I’m leaving people behind.
As I run past Derek’s door, I pound on it with my palm and yell, “I’ll come back for you,” because if we make it out of here, I’m not going to forget what this place is like.
Then I keep running.
I slam into Elijah’s door, cell number thirteen, and I key in the code burned into my memory.
4-0-7-5-2
The door swings open, and I gasp.
Even in the dark, I can see he’s been tortured. The left side of his face is swollen and distorted. Blood and dirt are caked on his face mixing with the bruises. It looks like he hasn’t showered in a month or more—his reddish-blond hair looks brown. He’s thin, bony in places, like he’s lost fifteen, maybe twenty pounds. His mouth opens when he sees me, but no sound comes out. I’ll be lucky if I can get him walking. I grab his empty food dish and use it to prop the door open, then I run to him and pull him off the ground.
“Elijah, I’m going to get you out of here,” I say. “You have to follow me.”
He nods and I can feel him pull himself together to support himself. “You look good.” His voice cracks, another sign he’s delusional.
I sling his arm over my shoulder to help support him, and we move to the cell door. I hold the edge of it just barely open, kick his food dish out of the way, and look down at the numbers on my skin.
00:14:70
We don’t have much more time. If we’re caught by the cameras, we might as well just head back to our cells.
I throw open his cell door and pull Elijah through, then hobble, half running and half dragging him down the hallway. His breathing is labored, and there’s a definite hitch in his step like he can’t put much weight on his left leg. Which means most of his weight is on me.
But we get to the stairwell, and as I’m pushing through the door, dim overhead lights start to click on.
The backup generator.
“I need you to hurry,” I grunt, pulling him down the stairs. My pulse pounds in my ears, and the muscles in my arms are shaking under Elijah’s weight.
“If you get us caught, they’ll probably just kill us,” Elijah says with a cough.
“Stop trying to be helpful.” I almost smile. This is the Elijah I know. They haven’t broken him yet.
We hit a landing, the halfway point, and I adjust my grip and keep pulling him with me.
We have to get through the infirmary to the medical bay—where dead or severely injured prisoners are taken, operated on, or even transported to the morgue. There’s a grate down to the sewer system. With the code, I’ll be able to deactivate it, and Elijah and I will go through and down into the sewers. We’ll make our way through the tunnels and come up where Barclay will be waiting for us. He’s apparently already gone through them from the outside to make sure they lead the right way.
We hit the bottom of the stairwell, and I punch in the door code to let us onto the restricted basement level floor.
3-5-1-1-7
The door opens and I push Elijah through.
Barclay and I were hoping the power outage and any general confusion during the shift change would give me enough time to get to the infirmary, down the grate, and into the sewers without being seen by the cameras and setting off the alarms.
But when I glance at my skin and see that I’m at fifty-three seconds, I know I’m too slow.
We’re going to get caught on camera.
I grit my teeth and try to move faster.
The infirmary is in the opposite wing of the prison, and as long as Barclay’s directions are correct, we should make a right at the end of this hallway, then a left at the end of the next one, and it will be in front of us. If we flat-out sprint, maybe we’ll be able to make it.
We turn right.
I’m dragging Elijah down the corridor as I run. I don’t have to glance down at the numbers counting down on my skin—I know we’re not going fast enough.
We’re about to take our left and turn the corner toward the infirmary when a door at the end of the hall opens, and a guard shines his flashlight on us.
I make eye contact with him, and I see the surprise on his face as he fumbles for his weapon.
“Hurry!” I say to Elijah, because I can’t keep supporting him and get both of us out alive.
Only my voice is drowned out by the gunfire.
03:10:58:49
My reaction is automatic. I duck and throw an arm over my head out of some primal instinct. And I keep running.
Elijah must have the same instincts because he manages to pick up his pace.
We turn the corner.
I can see the door to the infirmary. It’s maroon, like Barclay described, the door code panel right next to it.
The code is 12386.
Time seems to slow.
I can still hear the echo of the gunfire, and even though I know it isn’t a direct threat since the guard is still around the corner, I’m still holding my head, and my breath, waiting to get hit.
But I can also hear my feet fall against the concrete floor. Every step reverberates through my legs, matching my heart rate.
I don’t slow down as we approach the door.
I run full speed, right into it.
It hurts like hell, but if I live until tomorrow, the bruises will be so worth it.
My fingers find the door code panel, and I punch the numbers in.
1
The alarm kicks on above us, red lights flash, and a siren wails through the walls.
2
I glance behind me in time to see the guard turning the corner.
3
There’s a loud pop behind me—the sound of gunfire.
8
I flinch as a bullet lodges itself in the concrete less than an inch from my hand.
6
The door clicks, and I turn the handle.
As I move through the door, I see Elijah fall against the wall. My throat closes a little, and it feels like some kind of weight has knocked into me. I grab his arm and pull him into the room.
He stumbles, and a hundred and sixty pounds crashes into me. We fall backward and I slam into
something sharp and cold. I hear glass breaking.
But we’re safe for a moment.
We’re here—the infirmary.
Only one step left before we can get out of here.
Elijah groans. “There’s something wrong with my leg.”
I reach down and my hand touches something warm and sticky.
Blood.
03:10:58:36
My dad got shot on the job three times. The first time, I was a little girl, maybe two or three, and I don’t have a memory of it. The second time, I was eleven, and he got hit in the arm, just above his elbow. It was a through-and-through. He only took a day off from work.
The third time, he died.
But before he did, he told me when you first get shot, you don’t feel anything. It isn’t until you look down and see the blood that your body lets your brain absorb the pain.
03:10:58:35
I check myself. My eyes sweep over my arms and legs, my hands feel my stomach and back. The only blood seems to be coming from Elijah. From his calf.
I don’t know how bad he’s hit. The bullet could be still lodged in there. It could have punctured something important. I haven’t taken anatomy so I don’t know if there’s an artery that could be counting down the last few seconds of his life. But it doesn’t matter. I know I have to somehow stop the blood flow. And I know I don’t have much time.
Because that guard is coming down the hallway right now.
I grab my sleeve and start to rip. Then I hand the material to Elijah, who’s pushed himself into a sitting position against the wall. “Tie this above the wound. As tight as you can. I don’t care how much it hurts.”
“Shit, J,” he says. “You got me fucking shot.”
“Be pissed off about it later. We still have to get out of here.”
I look at the door. We don’t have enough time to disable the grate and get down into the sewers with the guard behind us. I’ll have to take him out somehow.
When he comes in, the door is going to swing open. If he’s been trained at all, he’ll lead with his gun as he opens the door. He’ll come in slow, looking for us. If he hasn’t seen much action, he’ll be nervous and holding the gun out in front of him like some kind of shield.
I take a deep breath and I think of Cecily who needs me to do this. I tighten my hands into fists and then release them.
We can still get out of here.
Elijah is seated diagonally across from the door, which means he’ll draw the eye of the guard. If I stand behind the door, I’ll have an advantage. I can knock the gun out of his hands then gain possession. I can come at his wrists with something heavy where the bones are fragile no matter the size of the person. I’ll have about a second to disable him.
But I need something—a weapon—first.
There’s a shard of glass on the floor. It’s from a mirror that I broke when Elijah and I came barreling in here, and it’s a thin triangle, the size of my forearm. But it’s not going to be enough to disable him.
Then I see a fire extinguisher on the wall. It will be heavy, unwieldy, but it might just work. I grab it, position myself behind the door, and then flick off the light switch so the light from the hallway will give me another advantage.
And I wait.
03:10:58:10
The red lights flash, the alarm blares like a siren, and Elijah moans in pain, but over all of it, I can hear the pounding of my heart.
I keep my eyes down, staring at the light under the door. When the shadow of the guard crosses through it, I tighten both of my hands around my makeshift weapon and try to steady my breaths.
This is my only chance.
I can’t hesitate. It doesn’t matter that this one guard isn’t necessarily my enemy. It doesn’t matter if he’s not the guy who threatened me or tortured Elijah. It doesn’t even matter if he doesn’t know who I am or what IA wants to do with me.
It matters that he’s shooting at us—that he shot Elijah. It matters that Barclay is waiting for us—that Ben and Cecily need us. That the traffickers are out there and we need to stop them.
It matters that in three days, ten hours, and fifty-eight minutes, we could all be dead.
I take another deep breath. Right now it’s him or me.
My life depends on what I do in this next moment.
I hear the click of the lock, and the door handle turns.
03:10:57:24
The light from the hallway casts a glow against him, outlining him so he stands out in our dark room. I can easily see that his left hand is on the door, his right on the gun.
With both hands tight around the fire extinguisher, I lift it over my head, and with as much force as I can possibly muster I bring it down on his wrist.
He screams. It’s a terrible sound.
The gun clatters to the floor and skids away from me.
The guard pulls his arm into his body, cradling it against his chest, and the door slams shut, blocking out the light from the hallway.
It takes a split second for my eyes to adjust to the darkness.
The guard is disabled, but he knows where I am now and his gun is too far away for me to get to it first.
With only one good arm, he rushes me. I swing the fire extinguisher again, but this time he expects it and his left hand grabs it before I manage to hit anything. The misstep throws me off balance, and he pushes me, knocking me into an empty hospital cot as he twists the fire extinguisher out of my grasp.
I slam a heel onto one of his feet, and he grunts, dropping the fire extinguisher. It thuds heavily against the ground, and I lift my other knee to strike for his balls, but he’s faster than I expected, and the blow glances off his thigh instead. My ankle turns awkwardly, pain shoots through my leg, and I feel myself going down.
As my back slams into the ground, a hand tightens on my throat, crushing my ability to breathe. I try to thrash away, but a knee presses into my chest.
I’m trapped.
03:10:56:58
My dad always complained about how feminism told us that women were equal to men. Not because he was sexist or anything, but because he firmly believed in realism.
Fact: The average man is five and a half inches taller than the average woman, and he outweighs her by twenty-six pounds.
Fact: A woman who weighs 150 pounds still has only 70 percent of a 150-pound man’s strength capacity.
As a result, straight strength against strength, a man is going to overpower a woman.
That’s why I’m not about to throw my strength at someone bigger and heavier than me. I’m smarter than that.
Nose, throat, groin, ears, and eyes are weak spots for everyone.
03:10:56:57
I go for his eyes.
I reach up, my fingers touching the slippery, sweaty skin of his face, and I press my thumbs into his eye sockets.
I try to ignore the sick feeling in my stomach as the rubber elasticity of his eyes gives under my thumbs. I think of my dad, standing in our backyard with me and Alex and teaching us basic self-defense, telling us we had to mean it, that we couldn’t be squeamish about hurting someone who was attacking us.
I press harder, reaching and straining off the ground. My neck squeezes into the hand against it, until it feels like my windpipe might collapse. Stars corner my vision, but I keep working—struggling to do what my dad taught me.
Until something gives way under my right thumb.
The guard jerks back with a grunt, releasing just enough pressure on my throat to allow me to gasp for air, and my left hand slides down his nose.
Air fills my lungs, and my vision clears to see blood rolling down his face from his left eye.
Teeth bite into the soft skin between my thumb and forefinger, and my scream is swallowed by the fingers that tighten around my throat and push my head against the concrete.
Pain explodes from the back of my head, and for a second the whole world is black. I feel an overwhelming heaviness, and my hands drop uselessly to my sides.
That’s when I touch it.
Something cold and sharp under my right hand.
The broken piece of mirror.
I feel around for the widest part and curl my fingers around it. The jagged edges bite into my palm, but the sharp pain helps clear my vision and give me a moment of clarity.
I remember the kill zones my dad taught me, and with every ounce of strength I have left, I drive the pointy end into his neck, right under his chin.
Blood rushes out of the gaping hole, onto my hands and chest. It’s warm and thick. The pressure on my throat lets up as he reaches for his neck, trying to stop the blood, trying to hold on to it somehow, but he can’t. I’ve hit an artery—the carotid, I think—and he’ll bleed out in a matter of seconds. He looks at me, brown eyes wide with surprise as he begins to lose control of his body. The strength in his legs gives out and he starts to slump to the side.
I force myself to keep looking at him—he’s in his late twenties–early thirties with short blond hair, a strong jaw, and a crooked nose—while the life leaves his eyes.
My chest feels tight.
I’ve just killed a man.
03:10:54:58
I tell myself I had no choice, but as I look down at my hands, covered in his blood, I feel nauseous. They don’t look like they could possibly be mine. As they start to shake, I drop the piece of glass.
Behind me, I hear Elijah’s labored breathing. I will my hands to stop shaking, and I lean down and wipe my hands on the dead guard’s jacket. Not all of the blood will come off. Then I pretend this isn’t me—I didn’t kill this man, I’m not escaping from prison, and I’m not running around in an alternate universe trying to save my friend from human traffickers. This life belongs to someone else—I’m just acting it out.
“Are you okay?” I ask Elijah. “Did you get the tourniquet tied?”
“I’m fucking shot,” he says. His voice is calm, quiet but annoyed, like he’s telling me he forgot his homework—like he didn’t just watch me kill someone. He shrugs. “How is that ‘okay’ to you?”
Unbreakable (Unraveling) Page 15
