Blood trickles down from Diaz’s caved in nose, running down his cheeks and pooling into a nice little puddle beneath the back of his head. Tay wipes her arms across her face. There’s blood all over her, both hers and Diaz’s. She cleans up as much as she can be patting herself down with the sheets from her bed. It works to an extent, but only to the extent that she is no longer visibly dripping with blood. Her skin and clothes are still stained red, it wouldn’t take a ton of detective work for people to figure out that the dead and bleeding body in front of her cell belongs to her.
Cannon’s eyes nearly bulge out of his sockets like a cartoon character who just received their hospital bill. “Holy holy holy shit on my face, what did you do?”
“What, what happened?” Lex presses his face up against the bars and tries to peer to his left, but the whole ordeal happened just far enough away that he can’t actually see anything. “Guys? What’s going on?”
“Need a damn drink,” Rach says to herself.
Cannon says, “She’s crazy. She’s a goddamn lunatic. We’ah stuck in heah with a crazy person.”
Tay doesn’t pay them any attention. Cannon colorfully describes what just happened to Lex, as well as what’s happening now: Tay is on the ground, reaching out as far as she can until she’s able to get a few fingers on Diaz’s uniform. She tugs as hard as she can until his body is a bit more easily accessible. Now using both hands, she’s able to maneuver his body to the point where she can get to the keyring hanging from his waist.
Tay can’t see Lex because of the wall between them, but she wouldn’t be able to see him anyway because she’s in her own little world trying to get the key off the keyring. If she could see him, though, she’d see that he’s gone completely sheet white. “Oh gods. Oh gods, this isn’t happening. Please don’t let me die, please don’t let me die.”
“I’m not gonna kill you,” Tay says without looking up. “I need you.”
“So what’s your grand plan, huh? You get outta your cell, what’s next? You break out? How the hell you gonna do that? We got no idear how many guahds ah out theah, but howevah many theah ah, they’ah all probably bahkin’ like mad dogs to get you hanged. No way you’ah gettin’ outta heah all by yourself.”
The sound of tumblers and clanking metal come from Tay’s cell as the door swings open. She holds a key up in her hand and looks Cannon dead in the eye. “I’m not doing it alone.”
“Oh gods, is it true what you were saying to Diaz before he-- before you-- oh gods.” Lex throws his hands in front of his mouth and squeezes his eyes shut. He fills his mind with images of ice cream, cheese burgers, and fried chicken -- you know, the things that one thinks of to keep them from vomiting. The pool of blood coming from Diaz’s head has grown to the point where it is now within Lex’s field of view. “Oh gods-- so, are there more of you? More Marauders in Camp Trin?”
Tay ignores him. “Rach, you said its the same key for each cell?”
She nods. Then, to Lex, “I don’t think that’s what she means when she says she’s not gonna do it alone.”
Cannon cocks his head sideways. “What, like she’s got sleepah agents in heah or somethin’? What do you--” he cocks his head even more sideways when Tay walks across the walkway and inserts the key into the lock on his cell door. She twists it and it comes lazily undone. His door swings open. “Uh, what ah you doin’?”
“I’m letting you out.”
“Uhh, no you’ah not. I’m not goin’ out theah. I already got myself on the wahden’s shit list somehow, I don’t need this shit makin’ me look even worse. I’m tryin’ to get out on good behaviah.” He furrows his brow. “Come to think of it though, that is how I got in heah in the first place.”
Tay’s already stopped paying attention to him and is walking down to Rach’s cell. “Can you fight?”
Rach sighs. “Would you either believe me or care if I said no?”
“No, and no.” Tay unlocks Rach’s cell.
“Listen, I really don’t wanna be a part of this. If I wasn’t already sober, I definitely am now, so Morgan’s gonna let me out as soon as he comes back.”
“I’m sorry, but you’re already a part of this. All of you are.”
“What ah you gonna do, put a knife to my throat? Suah my cell’s open, but what’s gonna stop me from just pahkin’ my ass right heah wheah it is and watchin’ you go on your own little suicide adventchah?”
Cannon sits down in his bed in protest. Tay rolls her eyes and stands over him, her arms crossed like a fed up mother. “Let’s talk through it, shall we? There’s a dead body in here. A guard’s dead body. When someone, gods forbid Warden Morgan, comes to see it, they’re gonna start looking at who to point the finger at.”
“They’ah not gonna have to do much fingah pointin’ cause I’ll be pointin’ this little guy at you from the get go.” He flips Tay the bird. “I’ll tell ‘em that you killed the guy and we had nothin’ to do with it. Open and shut case, kid.”
“Have you been paying attention? They already think we’re working together.”
“Yeah, but we’ah not.”
“Imagine you’re Warden Morgan. In one night, a boy shows up in town claiming to be part of the royal family--”
“--I am--”
“--Shut up. One guy shows up pretending to be the prince, another guy shows up and beats up a high ranking member of a notorious crime family, and a Marauder kills a guard and sneaks into town. Sounds a bit crazy to be just a coincidence, doesn’t it? If you’re Warden Morgan, you’re probably on high alert for some kind of conspiracy. Maybe some plot from Seven Cities, who knows. If any town is gonna be caught in the crossfire of the war, it’s this one. When he comes down here and sees the dead body of one of his guards, he’s not gonna point the finger at any one of us. He’s gonna point the finger at all of us. To him, there’s no other explanation for all this crazy shit other than the fact that we’re all working together for some mysterious plot. He nips that plot in the bud by executing all of us. Open and shut case. Kid.”
As Tay explains this, she paces around the room, locking eyes with each of the other three. For the first time since their incarceration, she and Lex are able to look at each other eye to eye. She tries her best to put on the front of the cold, calculating criminal, but Lex’s glare is a cocktail of anger and disappointment. It’s tough to look him in the eyes. “So, let me get this straight,” Lex says. “You’ve just implicated all of us in a murder, and you’re trying to, what, use that as leverage to make us help you escape?”
“Pretty much.”
“You’ve gotta be aware at this point that I am who I say I am. I’m the prince. They’re not going to kill the prince. I don’t have to come with you.”
“Of course I know that. That’s why you’re coming with me, whether you like it or not. Plus, with all the shit that’s happened here in the last 24 hours, I wouldn’t be surprised if they shot first and asked questions later.”
She unlocks Lex’s door. He rubs his neck. “You say ‘all the shit that’s happened’ as if you didn’t directly cause at least half of it.”
Tay sighs. “Look. Think about it this way. I need you alive so that I can get my ransom money. Warden Morgan doesn’t know that he needs you alive, which means he and the rest of the guards are a lot more likely to kill you than I am. Especially considering you had a hand in doing this,” she points at the dead body on the floor.
Lex wheezes and stifles another bout of vomit. Now that he’s out in the walkway, he’s got a perfect view of the body. Face crumpled like a piece of paper, eyes frozen in an empty stare. “I don’t know why I feel compelled to tell you of all people that I definitely did not have a hand in this. But, yeah, I see what you mean.”
“So you’ll come with me, then?”
“I don’t know why you’re even asking me, I know I don’t have a choice.”
“Smart kid.” She looks around at the group. “So we’re all in?”
“Whatever,” Lex says.
Cannon growls. “I guess now the only othah option is sittin’ heah and waitin’ to die. I’d rather go down swingin’ than go down on my ass. Auugh!” He puts his face in his hands. “You’ve ruined my whole goddamn life, you know that?”
“Feel free to kill me when we’re out of town.” She looks over to Rach. “You in?”
Rach’s forehead wrinkles up. “This is a hell of a pickle. On the one hand, yeah, this whole, well, everything, this all looks pretty incriminating. On the other hand, I’m not a stranger. Morgan knows me pretty well. He and everyone else in town, they know I’m--” she stops and frowns. Tay expects to see anger in her face-- that’s what she sees in Cannon’s and Lex’s. But Rach doesn’t look angry. She looks sad. “They all know I’m not capable of anything like this. That I’m not really capable of anything.” She draws in a deep breath and looks down at the floor. “I’ve been telling myself for years that I need to get out of this town. I don’t know if this is a sign from the gods or if it’s just some kind of sick joke, but, either way, I think this is goodbye.” She looks back up to Tay. “You don’t have me by the balls the same way you’ve got these two, but, yeah, you got me. I’m in. What’s the plan?”
“Good question.”
Lex looks at her, incredulous. “You don’t have a plan?”
“My plan was getting you all in on the plan,” Tay says.
“Getting us all in on a plan that you don’t have?”
A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.
“Right. That’s the plan.”
“That isn’t a plan.”
“It’s a plan.”
“Planning to have a plan isn’t a plan.”
“I planned to have us have a plan.”
“That isn’t a-- what are we doing here?”
“Well,” Tay says, “let’s plan it out. What do we need to accomplish?”
“Is-- is that a trick question? I thought you said we needed to get out of here.”
“Right, but how? We need to break it into smaller chunks.”
Cannon says, “Alright, well let’s staht with the fact that they took all of my shit when they locked me up in heah. I gotta get that back, especially if we plan on scrappin’ our way outta heah.” He flexes. “These guns ah good for punchin’, but I’m much bettah off with Nomah in my hands.”
Tay nods. “Yeah, they took my cards, too. Rach, is there-- wait. What’s a noma?”
“My baseball bat,” Cannon says, referring to his lacrosse stick. “I call him Nomah.”
Rach asks, “Why the hell did you give your baseball bat a name? Also, I don’t think that’s what a baseball bat is.”
“Uh, yeah it is. And Nomah Gahciapara was the greatest baseball playah of all time.”
Rach raises her eyebrows. “There’s a regular at the bar who’s got this wooden club thing with a bunch of nails and barbed wires on it, he says that’s a baseball bat.”
“Whatevah kid, I don’t know how you’ah gonna be able to throw a ball with somethin’ that’s got bahbed wiyah all over it.”
“I’m pretty sure he put the barbed wire there himself, the bat is the wooden club thing. That stick you were using didn’t look anything like a bat.”
“Bats can come in all shapes and sizes.”
“I think bats come in just about one shape.”
“Whatevah. Point is, I gotta get Nomah back. And my baseballs and all my baseball pads and helmet.” Again, to be clear, he’s referring to his lacrosse balls and his lacrosse pads. “Tay, you said you gotta get your cahds back. Ah those cahds your weapons?”
Tay nods slowly. “Yeah. My cards. Those are my weapons.”
Cannon also nods, a bit confused. “Yeah. Okay. So, that’s what’s I said, then.”
Tay nods again. “Right. Cards.”
Cannon nods. “Right. Cahds.”
“Right.” She pauses. “Cards.”
“Cahds. Yes.”
“Do you recognize that we’re saying two different words?”
“The fuck ah you talkin’ about?”
“Say that word one more time. Cards.”
“Cahds.”
“Cards.”
“Cahds.”
“Carrrrrrrrds.”
“Cahhhhhhds.”
“You don’t hear a difference there?”
“I have honestly no idear what you’ah talkin’ about.”
“Wait wat wait. Idea.”
“Idear.”
“Idea.”
“Idear.”
“Ideaaaaaaaaa.”
“Idearrrrrrrrrr.”
“And you still have no idea-- no understanding of why I’m confused.”
“Not the foggiest fuckin’ idear.”
Tay nods. “Fascinating. Anyway, yes, you’re right, we need to get our gear if we’re going to have a fighting chance of fighting our way out of here. I need my cards, and you need your Nomah. Which, I’m gonna guess is probably actually Nomar, but, whatever, neither here nor there. Rach, how well do you know this place?”
Rach smiles. “This place is practically my vacation house, I know it like the back of my hand.”
“Excellent. Is there a place where they usually keep the stuff that they confiscate from prisoners?”
She nods. “There’s a closet a few hallways down. A guard showed it to me one time when I was drunk as a joke. I mean like, he showed it to me as a joke. I was drunk for real. He probably thought I’d forget about it the next morning, but,” she knocks on her head. “Mind like a steel trap.”
“That’s great. Can you lead us to that closet?”
“Yeah, but there’s gonna be guards between here and there. Armed guards. And--”
“--Good thing I’m ahmed, too.” Cannon flashes his grin as well as his biceps.
“And, if you’d let me finish, that door is gonna be locked.”
Tay says, “That’s fine, we’ve got Diaz’s keys right here.”
“Not quite,” Rach says. She grabs the keyring from Tay. “I count one, two, three keys. Remember how I said there were three cell blocks in this place? If I were a betting woman, which I am, I would bet that these keys are for the cell blocks. Not likely that they’ll also open the confiscation closet.”
“Shit,” Tay says. “Any idea where that key might be?”
“Mistah Wahden had about ten thousand keys on his keyring. One of them’s gotta be the right one.”
Tay nods. “Makes sense to me. So we need to find the warden, get the keys from him, fight our way to the confiscation closet, grab our stuff, then fight our way out of the prison and out of town until we’re home free. Sound like a plan?”
“Sounds like a fuckin’ doozy, but, yeah, I don’t think theah’s a bettah way.”
Rach nods in agreement.
They all look at Lex. His eyes are wide. “You can’t be serious.”
Cannon puts an arm around his shoulder. “Relax, kid. You don’t gotta do any of the fightin’, I’ll take care of that for ya.”
“I’m not worried about that. Well, yes, no, I actually was worried about that, I don’t want anyone to be under any sort of preconceived notion that I’ll be doing any fighting whatsoever.”
Tay smirks. “We weren’t.”
“Okay, hurtful. But, seriously, this can’t be your plan.”
“And why not?”
“If there are only, like, three guards in the entire prison then, sure, yeah, that might work. Rach would you say there are only, like, three guards in the entire prison?”
“Definitely a lot more.”
“Right, obviously, because it’s a prison. Now, I know you guys are all badasses, but I don’t think you’re badasses enough to fight an entire prison complex. An entire town. More importantly, you’re not badasses enough to do it as fast as you need to do it. I don’t think you’ve thought about that. This guy here. Diaz. He’s been here for what, 10, 15 minutes by now? You don’t think people aren’t gonna realize that he’s taking a long time to do whatever it is he was doing here? That he hasn’t come back yet? When someone catches a whiff of something being wrong, they’ll come down here and check. When they see a dead body here, the whole town is gonna collapse on this place. There’s a time limit here. As soon as people realizes that we’re not in our cells, we’re done for. So we need to be quick.”
Cannon takes his arm off of Lex’s shoulder. “Damn. Kid’s got a point.”
“Yeah, he does. Okay, so we’ll split up. Two of us will go steal the keys from Warden Morgan. The other two will clear a path to the confiscation closet. That way, once we have the key, we won’t have to waste any time fighting guards with our bare hands. We can blitz to the closet, then blitz out of here.”
Rach says, “Good idea, but it only works if Team Keys doesn’t get caught and if Team Closet doesn’t leave any guards conscious enough to sound the alarm.”
Cannon’s hand shoots into the air. “Dibs on goin’ to the closet. I don’t know what’s up with the whole justice system heah, but if they’ah gonna get on my case about cleanin’ up their streets, then they got anothah thing comin’. Me. I’m that thing that’s comin’. I want some payback.” He nods to himself, then chews on his lip. “Plus, I really gotta get my stuff back.”
“Good,” says Tay. “Honestly, I wasn’t going to let you go with Team Keys anyway. Stealth doesn’t really seem like your strong suit.”
Cannon grins and shakes his head.
“I’ll come on Team Closet, too,” Rach says. “I’m good with a bit of fisticuffs. I barely even have a weapon anyway. Just a tankard.”
“A tankard?” Lex asks.
“Yeah, like, the thing you drink beer out of? But it’s also good for other stuff. I know we’re on a time crunch here so I won’t bore you with the details, but, yeah, it’s a pretty cool tankard.
“Okay, great. Cannon and Rach, you two clear a path to the confiscation closet. Lex and I will go get the keys from Morgan, then we can--”
“--Wait wait wait, no, no, no. I don’t wanna be on your team.” Lex furiously shakes his head.
“We’re four people. That means teams of two, and we already have one of those teams set.”
“Yeah, so put one of them on your team and let me go with them. Last time I was alone with you, you tried to kidnap me.”
“Well, full disclosure, I had already made the decision that you and I would be on the same team here. Just so happened that Cannon and Rach both wanted to be Team Closet. After all, I am still trying to kidnap you.”
“I really don’t like that me getting kidnapped is part of the plan.”
“Still a better plan than you getting caught by the guards and killed because they think you’re part of some crazy conspiracy.”
“A conspiracy that they only think exists because of you.”
“Sure, yeah. But that doesn’t change the fact that your options are to either come with me and be kidnapped, or not come with me and be killed.”
“I feel like there’s a third option.”
“The third option is that I just throw my hands up and kill you now.”
“I feel like there’s a fourth option.”
“There is no fourth option.”
Cannon interjects, “This is a great talk. Really, wicked impoahtant stuff you guys ah talkin’ about heah. But we’ah in a rush, yeah? How about we like, staht rushin’?”
“He’s right,” Tay says. “Let’s get moving.”
“Good, cause I’m ready to staht crackin’ skulls and get back to my geah. I feel naked without it.”
“Just remember that you’re diligent about cracking all of the skulls. If any skulls are uncracked enough to be able to tell all the other skulls about our escape plan, then we’re sunk. Got it? When you see a guard, you either have to make sure they don’t see you, or--”
“--Oh, they’ah gonna be seein’ me alright.”
“Right, duh, okay, so then when you see a guard, you have to make sure they can’t run off and tell the rest of the unit that we’re out.”
“Got it. Crack skulls, gag mouths, break ankles. Anythin’ else?”
“Think that’s just about it.”
Lex puts his face in his hands. “Could we maybe try to avoid killing people? This may be an unpopular opinion in this group, but I’m pretty firmly of the opinion that killing people is a bad thing.”
“They shoulda thought about that befoah they decided to lock me up for no reason whatsoevah.”
Rach smiles at Lex. “I’ll try my best to just beat the shit out of them enough to make them go night night.”
Lex frowns. “I feel like you’re being sarcastic.”
“No, who, me? No, I would never.” She laughs. “Seriously, though. These guards are my friends, and so are their families. I won’t let anything too bad happen to them. Just bad enough so that we can all get out of here without anyone putting our heads in a noose.”
Lex nods in appreciation.
“Rach,” says Tay, “Where do you think Morgan’s keys would be?”
“Honestly, I don’t think I’ve ever seen him without the keys on his person. His keyring is like his little baby boy.”
“Seriously? He never leaves it in his office or anything?”
“Girl, I’m pretty sure he sleeps with it.”
“Okay, but he does have an office, yeah? That seems like a good place to start.”
“Yeah. It’s about dinner time, with any luck he left his keys there while he himself is at the mess hall. But that’s probably wishful thinking.”
“I’ll cross my fingers. Alright, we’ve got our jobs. Let’s head out.”
Cannon rolls his shoulders back and forth and shakes the sillies out of his arms. “Rogah that. Let’s do this!” He darts out of the room and runs down the hallway.
The other three stand in shock for a moment before Rach darts out after him. “Why are you leading the way? You don’t know where you’re going!”
From down the hall, Cannon yells out, “Can’t help it, I’m fast as fuck!”
With Cannon and Rach out of the room, it’s just Lex and Tay. Tay gives him a smile.
“Good thing they’re not the stealth team.”
“Don’t make small talk with me. Contrary to what some people might say, some liars, that is, we aren’t friends.
Tay sighs. “Look. I’m sorry. I didn’t come here to kidnap you.”
“So you just so happened to randomly run into me while I was explaining to Cannon that I was the prince of New England?”
“Um. Actually, yeah.”
“Oh. Huh.”
“And I promise that my plan doesn’t involve hurting you. I’ll bring you back to my family, we’ll get some ransom money for you, and you’ll go back to New England. Safe and sound.”
“What about my plan, huh? Maybe you weren’t listening to anything I told you last night, which wouldn’t surprise me because I doubt you’re a very good listener, but I need to go south. To Atlantis. If your plan goes according to plan, my plan won’t.”
“I’m sorry. Honestly, I am. I didn’t want things to go this way. But at this point, I don’t have a choice.”
“You always have a choice to do the right thing.”
“It’s not that simple, I--”
“--Look, I get it. Family can be,” he scratches his chin for the right word. “Tough.”
Tay chuckles sarcastically. “Somehow I doubt that living in the royal palace is like living at Marauder camp.”
“No, I’m sure it isn’t. But I’ll bet we’ve got more in common than you think. Okay. So, I’m obviously very much not on board with your whole ransomy, kidnappy plan. But, I get that you’re in a bind. And I do understand your whole family deal. Or, at least, as much as someone like me can. Maybe we can figure out some kind of compromise that doesn’t involve me being brought back to your serial killer family like a tender piece of holiday ham?”
Tay chuckles again, this time genuinely. “Yeah. Maybe we can.”