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

“Give me a minute.”

Sawyer hears whispered voices. Then silence.

A few moments later, she hears the sounds of the barricade being taken down.

“Go, Sawyer,” mutters Felix.

Constantine doesn’t say anything. Sawyer glances at him, but he’s not looking happy.

After a few minutes, the gap is wide enough for them all to squeeze through.

Once inside, Sawyer straightens up and looks around the unit. It’s like all the others she’s been in. Two floors, with cells looking out over the rec area. The only thing that’s different here is that the unit is filled with geriatrics. It’s like pensioners’ day at the local mall, except instead of coupons they’re all holding weapons.

One of the inmates, an old man around five-five in height, orders the others to fix the barrier again. This must be Carl. He has wispy gray hair and a beaklike nose that juts out from a hollowed-out face. He glares at them suspiciously.

He finally turns his attention to the gun he’s holding. He racks the chamber and peers inside.

“Ah, will you look at that? You left me with a bullet in the chamber.”

He levels it at them. “A deal’s a deal, but if any of you make a move I even think is suspicious, the bullet goes in one of your heads.” He gestures toward the opposite end of the unit. “Move on. You’re so eager to go to your deaths, who am I to stop you?”

Sawyer, Constantine, and Felix walk between the lines of inmates. There are already three of them dismantling a small section of the barricade at the exit, pulling out what look like sheets of corrugated metal from the roof, desk chairs, metal poles, and parts of bookcases that have been broken down and slotted into place like a jigsaw.

“What’s going on in the next unit?” asks Constantine.

“Gang war,” says Carl.

“What gangs?” Felix asks.

“First off, we thought it was East Bloods and West Bloods. You know, doing what they normally do.”

“But it’s not?”

“Nah. It’s the Bloods against the Woods. As far as I can tell, they’re fighting over control of units 2 and 3.”

Sawyer thinks back to the intelligence pack she received when she got the job at Ravenhill. The Woods are white supremacists. The name is an acronym for Whites Only One Day. And if the Bloods have squashed their own intra-gang beefs to take the Woods on, it isn’t going to be pretty.

The inmates quickly open up a three-foot hole through the barricade.

“How am I supposed to get through that?” asks Felix.

“Crawl,” says Carl. “And while you’re down there, you might as well start praying too. You’re going to need all the help you can get.” He holds out his hand. “Magazine.”

Sawyer is about to hand it over when Felix makes a sudden lunge and snatches the gun right out of Carl’s hand. He points it at the old guy. To give him credit, Carl doesn’t panic. He just takes a step back.

“We had a deal.”

“I’m aware of that,” says Felix. “I’m also aware that we might need the gun more than you guys.”

“I couldn’t give a shit. You gave your word.”

“Felix, back off,” says Sawyer.

“Me?” says Felix in surprise. “The fuck you talking about? We need the gun.”

“Like the man says, we made a deal.”

“And that matters how?”

“It just does. Don’t be an asshole. Constantine? Tell him.”

Constantine sighs. He tosses the magazine to Carl, who catches it in one hand.

“Are you insane?” shouts Felix.

“No. Just being practical. We don’t have time to screw around here. And Sawyer’s right. We made a deal. Give it to him.”

Constantine turns and gets down onto his hands and knees. The water touches his chin as he pulls himself through the small opening they’ve cleared in the barricade. Sawyer waits for Felix. He hesitates, then grudgingly hands the gun over to Carl.

“After you,” says Sawyer.

Felix glares at her. “You’re a pain in the ass, you know that?”

Sawyer shrugs. “So my ex-husband says.”

He shakes his head and pulls himself through the gap. Sawyer gets down into the water and is about to follow when she feels a touch on her shoulder. She looks up to find Carl holding the gun out to her.

“They’re right. You will need it. But I think you should be the one to keep it. Don’t let them know. In case you need to use it against one of them.”

Sawyer hesitates, then takes the gun. “Thank you.”

Carl nods amiably. “Now fuck off so I can close up.”

She turns back to the hole and starts crawling. She’s barely through before she hears Carl ordering the others to plug the opening up again.

Sixteen3:45 a.m.

I crawl through the hole in the makeshift barricade, my mouth dipping into the warm water. I straighten up in a corridor identical to the one outside Unit 1. It travels about fifty feet to both left and right, ending at the doors leading into what were once the staff and inmate corridors. There are doors to offices and rooms along the wall in front of me, as well as the re-inforced door that leads into the Unit 2 sally port. Lots of doors. Lots of corridors. I’m sick of them.

I can hear screaming and shouting coming from Unit 2. Felix straightens up beside me and gives me an “I told you so” look when he hears the sounds of fighting.

“Don’t blame me,” I say. “You think I wanted to give up the gun?”

“It was the only way,” snaps Sawyer, pulling herself out of the hole.

“Not true,” says Felix. “There was the option of violence. Violence solves many, many problems.”

“And causes even more.”

“How? Those guys were nearly eighty years old. I could have whistled in Carl’s direction and shattered his bones.” He turns his glare to me. “Why did we listen to her? Is she suddenly the boss now?”

“Why are you so obsessed about who’s the boss?” asks Sawyer. “No one’s the boss. I saw a quick way out of the situation and I took it. Time is ticking, in case you hadn’t