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

She stares out over the ocean, smells the salt in the air, watches the surfers and families playing in the sand. She shivers a little as the waves crash over the kids, listens to the laughter and screams of teenagers. She has to fight down a flash of fear at the sound. Has to remind herself that everything is fine. That no one is going to die.

Thirty hours they were trapped in those flood tunnels. Thirty hours. The weird thing was, she never once felt in fear of her life. Not from the inmates, at any rate. All that mattered was surviving. At that moment, they were just human beings trying to stay alive, nothing else, and they all looked out for each other.

It was a strangely uplifting thing to experience. The world might be a shit show, but there is some decency left. Humanity has a way of pulling together when the chips are down. It makes her feel optimistic about the future.

A shadow falls across her table.

“This seat taken?”

She takes off her sunglasses and glances up. Her eyes go wide as Constantine lowers himself gingerly into the seat opposite. He’s holding a bottle of Bud that he sips from while she gets over her shock.

“Jack… I thought… we all thought…”

“That I was dead? Yeah. Me too. It hasn’t been a pleasant few months, I can tell you.”

“But… how?”

“I made it into the outflow tunnels. Couldn’t get through the gate, though. Didn’t realize it opens automatically when the water pressure gets high enough. The weight of the water just sort of pushes it open. I was thrown out into the ocean during the tail end of the hurricane.”

“And you didn’t drown?”

“Nearly did. Washed up on the beach. Just managed to strip my jumpsuit off before passing out. FEMA found me, took me to the hospital.”

“How did you explain the bullet hole?”

“Looters. They didn’t make a big deal of it. There was too much going on.”

Sawyer nods. She stares hard at him, then takes a big swallow of her beer. “Why are you here?”

He places something on the table. She leans forward. It’s a memory stick.

“What’s that?”

“My confession. About how I framed Kincaid. How your brother shouldn’t be in prison. It’s all there. How I stole the drugs from dealers. Planted them at Kincaid’s place. Set up the bust for when I knew he was at home.”

She reaches out and takes the memory stick with a shaking hand.

“I’m sorry,” he says. “Really.” He finishes his beer and stands up.

“Wait.” Sawyer looks up at him. “What are you going to do?”

“Not sure. I’ve got a few contacts. People who can make me a fake ID. Maybe I’ll go up north. I’m sick of the heat. I’d like to see some snow.” He gives her a small smile, and she can’t help noticing the sadness behind it. “Or maybe I’ll take up a hobby. Storm chasing sounds interesting.”

She smiles. “Take care, Jack.”

“You too, Sawyer.”

She watches him disappear into the crowd. She clenches her hand around the memory stick and sits back with a contented sigh, watching the setting sun flash orange on the tips of the waves.

Acknowledgments

I would like to extend appreciation and thanks to my amazing agents, Sandra Sawicka and Leah Middleton, and to my editors, Toby Jones and Wes Miller. Your suggestions and comments without a doubt made the book much stronger and tighter.

Also, I would like to say a special thank-you for your empathy and concern during a very difficult time. It was (and is) greatly appreciated.

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About the Author

Paul Herron is a Scotsman struggling (and failing) to survive the heat and humidity of South Africa. Although Breakout is Paul’s debut thriller, he also writes computer games and comics, and has worked on over twenty-seven television shows, one of which was nominated for an International Emmy Award. One of his previous works of fiction is being developed by Jerry Bruckheimer Productions and CBS as a television series. Paul lives with his wife, Jo, on the east coast of South Africa. He has three children.