Breakout by Paul Herron (notion reading list .txt) 📕

my side. I’ve got a killer stitch going on. “Believe me. Kincaid wants me dead. Now he’s seen me, he’s not going to let it go.”

“Why? What’s he got against you?”

“I… put him in here. When I was a cop.”

“Ah… Okay. I get it.”

She really doesn’t.

I peer around the corner into the next corridor. Looks clear. We start moving again, splashing through the water. I keep looking over my shoulder. We’ve been running for a few minutes, but there’s not many places to go in the admin building. Kincaid’s guys can’t be far behind us.

“Where are we actually going?” asks Sawyer.

“I’m thinking we head over to the inmate corridor on the west side of the building. Hopefully it’s not blocked off like—”

I stop talking as we round a corner into another passage. I hear loud voices up ahead, laughing and talking in Spanish.

I grab Sawyer and rush to the closest door. It opens into a staff bathroom. We duck inside and I push the door until it’s almost closed. They walk past our hiding place, joking around with each other. They’re still wearing their orange prison uniforms. Two of them have white T-shirts on, while the others are bare-chested. I scan the exposed skin. Among all the other tattoos they sport, they all have ink showing a five-pointed crown. That’s the symbol of the Latin Kings.

Castillo’s men.

“Who is it?” whispers Sawyer.

I gently close the door. There’s no point in hiding it from her. I kept quiet back in the reception so she wouldn’t freak out, but she needs to know the danger we’re in.

“Latin Kings,” I whisper. “Castillo’s men.”

“Castillo?”

“The guy we pulled out of the water.”

“Oh… Why are we running from him?”

“What do you mean, why? You think he’s our friend now because we saved him?”

“Isn’t he?”

“Jesus—are you really that naïve?”

“No!” Her voice is defensive.

“Look, any inmate in this prison is going to be after you. Either for your keys or because of… other reasons.”

I look at her, make sure she understands. She does. She folds her arms over her T-shirt, trying vainly to disguise any hint of a female figure.

“Exactly. You need to stay out of sight. We both do.”

I wait until the sound of Castillo’s men fades away; then we exit the bathroom and keep moving west. The admin building itself isn’t too wide. We should be close to the inmate corridor by now.

We’re passing a corridor that branches off to our right when I hear a shout. I look over and see the massive form of Carter standing about thirty yards away. He looks to his left and shouts again.

“Over here!”

Fuck. I push Sawyer and we start to run. We only make it a few steps before the lights flicker, then suddenly wink off.

We’re plunged into darkness. Sounds seem to grow louder. Sawyer’s breathing. The sudden slowing of Carter splashing through the water. I hear shouts echoing around other parts of the prison.

I reach out and put my hand on Sawyer’s forearm. She stiffens, almost jerks away, but I tighten my fingers and lean close to where I think her ear is.

“Move slowly.”

We wade through the water carefully, so as not to make any noise. I remember the layout of the corridor. It travels ahead of us for about thirty feet, then turns right. We angle slightly until we bump up against the right wall, then use our hands to guide us to the turn.

I hear Carter shouting behind us, calling out to Adler. There’s an answering call even farther into Admin, back toward the staff corridor. I’m not sure if Carter is waiting for backup, but the more distance we can put between us and them, the better.

We’re moving in what I think is the general direction of the inmate corridor. It’s hard to tell. We’ve made a few turns already, right then left, then right again. We need to keep track so we don’t end up back where we started.

“You think the generator has run out of gas?” asks Sawyer.

“Shouldn’t have. It’s supposed to last at least twelve hours.”

I’ve barely finished speaking when the lights flare to life. A few of the strip lights pop at the surge of power, dropping sections of the corridor back into darkness. I hear Carter shouting again. Voices respond—Adler and Sullivan, I assume. All three are much closer than I want them to be, and I hear the sounds of splashing feet as they give chase again.

We run. There are doors all along the hallway, but I skip the first couple, not wanting to make it obvious where we’ve gone.

“Next one!”

Sawyer grabs the door and shoves it open. I follow her in and slam it shut behind me, quickly turning around to see where we are.

It’s a staff cafeteria. Tables and benches are bolted to the floor. On the far side of the room are serving counters, and just to the left of them, the door into the kitchen.

Felix sits at one of the tables, calmly eating a huge plate of fries. I look at him in amazement.

“Felix?”

“Constantine! My man. Glad to see you’re alive. Wasn’t sure you were gonna make it.” He points a sauce-covered fry at me. “But you’re a survivor. I always said that.”

Felix’s orange jumpsuit is torn, covered in blood. He has cuts and bruises on his face and makeshift bandages around his forearm and bicep.

“You okay there?”

He glances down at his wounds and shrugs. “It got a bit dicey, I won’t lie to you. I had to kill a couple of people. Protection, you know? Had to do it in front of some of the others too. Show them I’m not to be fucked with. Seems a few of them forgot in all the excitement.” He dips a fry in a dessert bowl of ketchup, then pops it into his mouth. He leans back and looks appraisingly at Sawyer. “You going to introduce me to your friend?”

“Sawyer, this is Felix.”

She looks at me with wide eyes. “This is the guy you said was your