Prisoners jumped off the fence, screaming. Someone clasped his hands around his broken leg, the bone protruding through the flesh.

Two more gunshots slashed through the prison yard.

Milan’s glance flicked around. There had to be something they could do. Anything. It would be near-impossible to climb over the fence. The barbed wire was placed there for a reason, and not to mention the psycho who was shooting at them. If only Milan hadn’t lost that key, they could’ve opened the gate.

Wait. There was something else. Milan pulled out the pocketknife he’d hidden in the same place as before — his ankle under his sock. He grasped the fence with one hand, and with the other, he sawed the knife back and forth in a vertical line. It was thick, but not impossible to cut through. Under normal circumstances, he’d be caught at once.

Still, it was taking longer than what he would’ve preferred. Milan’s shoulders shook, and his arm grew numb. He had to continue before it was too late. Before he ended up like Chet.

Milan panted, sweat forming on his forehead. They still had a chance if the inmates kept up the chaos, but most of them huddled by the fence. Some still made their way up. Milan wasn’t sure how many had escaped, but it couldn’t have been more than a couple.

“I order you to stop!” The officer’s arm pulled straight, gun in his hand. “This is your last warning.”

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Milan swallowed the lump in his throat as he started cutting in a horizontal line. They didn’t need a big hole. Just anything. Just quick.

A series of shots rang in the air. One after another.

Milan’s body jolted. A bullet clanged against the fence, inches away from his hand. Behind him, inmates shrieked and thumped to the ground. Blood colored the ground red.

This wasn’t a jailyard.

It was a graveyard.

Milan worked as fast as his body allowed him. The shots echoed in his ears. The mass of bodies dumped to the ground, one after another, behind him. Alive or dead, Milan didn’t know. But one thing he knew: it would be him if he didn’t hurry.

Milan gripped through the fence holes with both of his hands, bending the wire along the cut lines. His eyes trailed the yard. Eli. Where was Eli? Could it be… was she dead?

No. She stood paralyzed with her head bowed, glaring at Chet’s corpse.

“Eli!” Milan called.

Eli’s eyes widened, and her arms hung loosely by her sides. Milan thought she looked as good as dead, if it wasn’t for the fact that she was standing. A stiffness enveloped Milan’s chest. He could leave on his own. Be free. Logically, that was what made sense — to save his own life.

But he couldn’t.

He snatched his hand around Eli’s wrist, hauling her out of the mess of gunshots and corpses through the hole in the fence. Then, they sprinted. Legs pumped faster and faster. Now, they just needed to do one thing. To get the hell away.