Undercover Prison King novel · Chapter 12 of 24

Chapter 12: The Strike

By the second day, the heat had stopped being heat and become a thing with weight.

Sawyer lay on the concrete with his cheek to the cold drain.

He had stopped counting hours because the numbers kept sliding.

Tap, tap-tap, came the pipe, faint and steady.

It had never stopped.

When the lock turned, he thought it was a dream.

Light hit his eyes, and a small figure knelt over him with a canvas bag.

"Drink," Lorena said.

Water ran down his chin.

He drank until he choked, and she held the bottle and wiped his mouth with her sleeve.

"Hargis's keys," she said, dangling a heavy ring on one finger.

"I took them off the hook in the guard office while he was screaming at the yard. Nobody stops a doctor with a bag."

"The yard?"

"Two hundred and eighty men."

Her hands were already on his pulse, brisk and shaking.

"They sat down at dawn yesterday and haven't eaten since. Not one."

"Wicks?"

"Out of isolation with the boy and the man from cell 9. I told the warden the TB was a false alarm."

She gave a short breathless laugh.

"He was too busy to check."

He sat up.

The room swam, then steadied.

"Your arm," he said, and took her wrist.

Her sleeve had ridden up and he saw a purple ring where Hargis's hand had been.

"It's nothing."

"It's not nothing."

"It's his, and I'll deal with it." She pulled free, and her eyes were shining. "Can you walk?"

"Yes."

"You're lying."

"A little."

She hooked her shoulder under his arm.

They went out through the quiet place, past the boiler-house vent, up the stairs and into a corridor lit by the last red sun.

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