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

Felix whistles.

My memory drifts back to that night. The kid in the dining room. He looked a bit like Sawyer. He wanted to leave. Wanted out.

And I didn’t let him.

“Sawyer… I’m sorry. I didn’t know…”

“I don’t want your apologies. I want you to help me fix it.”

“How am I supposed to do that?”

“I want your confession. On record. That you framed Kincaid.”

I look at her with dawning realization, then shake my head slowly. “Was this your plan all along? Is that why you came to work here? To get to me? Is that why you came in during a fucking hurricane?”

“I thought it might be my last chance.”

“And how exactly do you want me to confess? Got something to record me? No? What about pen and paper?” I pat my prison scrubs. “I seem to have left my journal in my cell.”

“Jack,” says Felix softly. “Ease up, man.”

“No. I want to know.” I take a step toward Sawyer. “What the fuck is your plan, Sawyer?”

“I don’t know!” she shouts. “Jesus! I’ve been planning this for a year now. Training, moving here, applying for a job. I thought it was all working out; then this fucking hurricane hit… I panicked, okay? I had to come in to work. It could have been my last chance. I didn’t plan on hanging around here, believe me. I’m not insane. But when I was left behind, I thought… why not just go through with it? I saw you being taken to the infirmary this morning. I thought I’d… I don’t know, get you out of here before the hurricane hit. Thought I’d get you before a judge or something, get him to hear your confession.”

Felix shakes his head. “You know how crazy that sounds?”

“I know, Felix! Jesus Christ. What else was I supposed to do? Just sit around here and die?”

“And what made you think I’d even do what you wanted?” I ask.

Sawyer hesitates. Her hand drops slightly. “I… don’t know. Like I said, I wasn’t thinking straight…”

I wait for her to glance away, then grab the gun from her, turn it around and point it in her face. I step back, gun still leveled. “I’m sorry about your brother, okay? I really am. I didn’t mean for that to happen.”

“You think that makes me feel any better?”

“No. No, I don’t think it does. All the same, I am sorry.”

Her shoulders sag. “So you’re going to go kill them now?”

“Always said I was.”

Felix steps forward. “Jack. We need to open that door. Get everyone to the storm tunnels.”

“The fuck you care, Felix? You hate everyone.”

“It’s… different now,” he says, looking almost embarrassed.

“Why?”

“Because we’re all just trying to survive. Look at what we’ve been through tonight. Doesn’t that count for anything?”

I hesitate. Felix almost gets through to me, mainly because he’s repeating the same thoughts I’ve been having over the past hour or two.

But then I get a flash of Amy lying on the living-room floor, her head smashed in, the two men responsible only a few hundred feet from where I’m standing.

I’ve been waiting too long for this. Amy has been waiting too long.

I tighten my grip on the gun. “I have to do it. I’m sorry. You two can open the door. You don’t need me.”

I turn and start walking, leaving them behind, heading deeper into the Glasshouse.

I follow the exact same route we took this morning. The rotting magazines that were piled up in the rooms now float across the surface of the floodwater. Old TV Guides from the eighties. A few Playboys from the seventies. Omni magazines. Gossip rags with stars of bygone years staring up at the ceiling with rotting faces and mold-smeared eyes.

At least the lights—those that were working this morning—are still on. Whatever generator powers this place is industrial in design.

I enter the laundry. The washing machines are now half submerged. The sheets, black with mold, float and bob across the room, looking like an oil slick coating the water. I exit into the corridor covered in old white tiles. I remember that the ones underfoot are orange-brown, like they were lifted from a Spanish villa.

The metal gate that Evans unlocked still stands open. I step through, following the winding corridors lit with hanging bulbs that cast a jaundiced glow over the water. It feels more like a morgue now than anything else. Which is kind of fitting, seeing as we’re all probably going to die here.

Unless I just let the prisoners out and go back to help Sawyer and Felix with the door.

No. I can’t. I have to do this. I didn’t protect Amy. Didn’t protect our child.

I owe them…

There’s a high-pitched wailing coming from somewhere up ahead. It grows louder as I approach the reception area of the prison, the one that looks like it belongs in an old hotel.

The walls have been breached. The noise is the wind howling through holes in the bricks. Rain surges through the gaps like water from a hose, flicking into the room in windswept sheets.

The entire building shakes suddenly, almost throwing me off my feet. I start to run. This whole place is about to come down. If it does, fine, but I want Wright and Tully first. They have to die by my hand.

I sprint through the corridors, barely remembering where I’m going. I know I’m heading in the right direction, though, because I can hear the inmates shouting for help, a cacophony of voices raised in panic and fear.

I finally burst through the door and into the Rotunda.

I remember being impressed by it this morning, the colossal circular tower containing tier after tier of cells. But now, as I wade through the floodwater, staring up at the ruptured roof a hundred feet above, rain pouring down into the cylindrical prison, I think it looks more like a zoo.

The inmates are all hanging on the cell doors, pulling, pushing, slamming themselves against the metal in an attempt to get free. When they see me, the