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

came, wading through the water, pushing past the huddled mass of inmates.

“Where are you going?” shouts Sawyer.

“I can get to the Glasshouse. I’ll open the door from the other side.”

“Are you insane?” shouts Felix. “The prison is falling apart. The hurricane…”

“… hasn’t come back yet. The eye is still right above us. It will last about three quarters of an hour.”

“It’s already been over twenty minutes,” says Sawyer.

“So stop talking and let me go!”

“You can’t, man,” says Felix. “You heard Leo. The Mental Health Unit is locked down. So is the ACU. It’s suicide.”

“And waiting down here isn’t? Once the eye passes over us, this place is going to flood. We’ll all drown. Every single one of us.”

“There has to be another way.”

“There isn’t.” I turn to Sawyer. “Time to put your money where your mouth is. Give me the keycard.”

Sawyer hesitates.

“Come on, Sawyer. The clock’s ticking.”

“I’ll hang on to it.”

“Sawyer, there’s no time—”

“I’m coming with you.”

“Me too,” says Felix.

“Don’t be stupid. I’ll do this on my own.”

“Look. I don’t think you’re a bad guy,” says Sawyer, “but forgive me if I don’t quite trust you.”

“Trust me to do what?”

“What’s to stop you just going off on your own to get those two guys who killed your wife?”

“You think I’d let everyone here die? I said I’d open the door, and that’s what I’ll do.”

“Maybe you will. But I’d like it opened before you head off on your suicide mission, and I get the feeling you might not agree with that.”

We stare each other down. I can see there’s no way I’m going to convince her to stay.

And why bother anyway?

If she and Felix come with me, they can open the door to let the inmates through, and I can go for Wright and Tully.

It’s win–win.

Twenty-One5:50 a.m.

It seems to take so much longer to retrace our steps back up to the prison than it did to get down. We wade along the tunnels, then up the slope, pushing through the water that surges against our legs and knees and makes every step harder than the last.

I try to count heads as we move. I figure that our first guess was pretty close. Nearly two hundred inmates have responded to Felix’s call, most of them shouting questions at us as we try to get past, questions I don’t want to answer in case I set off a riot.

Sawyer, of course, doesn’t think like that and eventually decides to try to calm the inmates down by doing something no one should ever do.

She tells them the truth.

Not the best move, all things considered. They don’t take it well, hurling abuse at her as if she personally locked the door and put their lives in danger.

Things aren’t totally out of control. She’s handling the insults and the questions pretty well. Until someone—I see it’s Dexter, the guy who organized his own personal fight club—mentions rape.

That’s when Sawyer steps back, takes out the Beretta I gave her, and points it at his face.

“Say that again.”

Dexter stares at the barrel of the gun. He licks his lips, frowning. His eyes flicker right and left, taking in the other inmates watching this go down. I can see exactly what will happen. He won’t want to lose face in front of the other prisoners, especially not to a woman. He’s not going to back down.

I rest my hand on the Ruger, making sure he notices. “Don’t be a moron, Dexter.”

“Jack,” says Sawyer kindly, her arm not wavering, her voice as steady as before, her eyes on Dexter. “If you don’t back off right now, I will shoot you both.”

I look at her in surprise.

“I’m serious. I can fight my own battles.”

I shrug, swing the gun onto my back, and move a few steps away to join Felix. We watch as Sawyer and Dexter stare at each other for a full twenty seconds before he laughs, nervous but trying to hide it behind volume.

“Just messing with you, sister. We all good.”

“You sure?” asks Sawyer.

“Yeah. You’re cool. We cool.”

“Everyone’s cool, huh?” says Felix, amused.

We set off again and finally arrive in the large room that holds the army beds. I shut the door behind us.

Sawyer frowns. “What are you doing? You can’t lock them in.”

“I’m not locking it. But a closed door will stop more water than an open one.”

She nods. “Fair enough.”

We move through the rooms and back to the basement stairs. They’re hidden behind a literal waterfall that is so strong we have to pull ourselves up by the handrail. It’s way worse than before. The roar of water echoes in the small space, cutting off any chance of communication. The spray gets in our eyes, up our noses, in our mouths. I think the whole of Ravenhill has started to breach. Whether the floodwater is pouring in through the walls or the windows, I’m not sure. But if it is the windows, then that means the water has risen high enough that the entire prison will soon be submerged, tunnels and all.

We arrive at the top of the stairs and make our way past the remnants of broken rubble and into the corridor beyond. The water is up to our stomachs now. We push on, heading in the direction we were going before we bumped into Leo. We should have just fucking left him and carried on with our own plan. I should have known Leo’s plan wouldn’t be as easy as that.

The lights are failing all over the building. I can feel water sluicing down the walls every time I touch them, an invisible curtain that pours into the prison.

There are other noises too. Louder now that the hurricane has died down. Creaking, rending sounds. Crashing. Metal under pressure, bending, making loud wailing noises as roof supports sag and buckle.

We pass more inmates on the way. Most of them are already heading for the corridor in response to Felix’s announcement. But there are some who aren’t, some who still seem ready to