The phone receiver makes contact with the camera and shatters it, knocking it off its place and causing it to tumble to the floor.
“You’re in some serious fucking trouble, brother,” the guard says as he approaches Lucien with his baton, his mouth open at the display of raw athletic skill in front of him.
Those are the last words for a while from the guard as Lucien takes the chair with one hand and lifts it in a swing, swirling it around him and making contact with his head. I hear a thud as the guard falls to the floor. Before even his body hits the ground, Lucien has grabbed a pair of keys, his baton, and his gun and rushes over to my side, where he kicks open the door.
I run to him, but Lucien rushes past me and takes the phone receiver that I was just using.
He snaps it off, aims at the camera, closes one eye, brings his hand back, and throws.
It meets the same fate as its counterpart had moments earlier.
I stare at the clock on the wall. The whole episode took less than 3 minutes.
And that’s when the alarms start going off. Sensing loss of contact with the Visitation Room, the prison starts to go into alert.
We have minutes, if that. I go back toward Lucien and reach for him.
He grabs me and looks at me.
“You’re not safe out there, Marshall is going to come for you again!” Lucien says, his eyes scanning the entrances for guards approaching as he cocks the gun.
I nod. “What do we do?”
That’s right. I’m with him. No matter what.
He doesn’t think. Rather, he operates on pure instinct.
“Come with me,” he says and grabs my hand.
I try to keep up with him as we run toward the door. Going into the prison, I try not to think about how we may be going in the wrong way, deeper into captivity. But somehow, as long as I’m with him, I don’t mind following.
But one thing is absolutely clear.
I am very sure now that he had no involvement in sending Deputy Warden Marshall to knock me out and bring me here.
24
Lucien
The note had been pretty clear. Take out the guard. Kill him if possible. Then take his gun and take Kerri hostage. After that, talk into the cameras and tell her I had her hostage. Then, start making my way out through the Visitor’s Entrance that ran next to the prison yard. Do whatever I had to to make sure that all attention was focused on the side toward the Visitor's Entrance and the prison yard. And whatever I do, do not destroy the cameras.
But here I am, fucking running into the prison with a pregnant woman after having destroyed both the cameras.
The prison is going into full alert and I already know what’s happening.
The sharpshooters are gearing up and scanning the prison yard for anyone who's making a run for it. Local police are being alerted and are setting up road barricades on all major roads that lead from the prison. Helicopters are being launched that are scanning the complex from above.
Everyone is looking for people who are trying to leave the prison.
And Kerri and I are running headlong further inside of it.
See, I may have never gone to fucking school as much as I should have, but that doesn’t mean I don't know how to think. And ever since Spider handed me the note, I’ve been trying to wonder what Grinder’s angle has been. I thought about it quite a lot, and I think I finally figured it out.
But it's too soon to tell you what I figured out because right now we’re running past the cells and I swear it’s like all Hell has been unleashed. The prison’s going into lockdown but because the guards are all heading toward the Visitor’s Reception area, there’s a power vacuum in D Block.
Ancient beef between two inmates? They’re sorting it out now. Someone owe someone else money? It’s time to collect. Someone having a bad day? Time to last out. A collective wail of frustration at being locked up, despair at the circumstances that put them behind bars, and anger toward the world is being unleashed.
Tables are being overturned in common areas and chairs thrown against the walls. Most of the cameras have been destroyed, torn from the cages that protect them on the ceilings.
A few times I take Kerri and we hide in nooks, shadows, or behind doors as roving bands of prisoners walk by. Some people pass us by but they’re not paying us any mind. But I’m no fool. These men have been trapped here, some for years. All that testosterone and nowhere to put it too. And Kerri is fucking gorgeous. The last thing I need is for us to get delayed because I’m shooting some people who’re trying to get too close to us.
For her part, Kerri is keeping up with me. She realizes the danger of the situation. But believe it or not, we’re safer here than had we gone the other way—toward the Visitor’s Entrance. Eventually the guards are gonna start coming this way, when they figure out that I came inside. But right now they don’t think I could be that stupid. What’s the point in trying to escape from jail if you’re gonna head into it more?