Biggs was desperately trying not to hear the inmate beside him jerking off when the alarm sounded. He chewed with his mouth open, napkins wadded in his ears.
"Jesus Christ," Biggs said, "can't you wait twenty fucking minutes?"
The string of an inmate moaned. He pushed bony fingers toward Biggs' mouth. "Bite me, baby, make it hurt."
Biggs didn't hear the alarm. He wrestled the hand from his mouth. The inmate only moaned louder.
"Ungh. You got me so close. Fight harder."
Biggs twisted the con's wrist, wrenched until he heard a snap. Fight Harder? He'd been fighting for his life since the cops first drug him away. Badges and blues beat the shit out of him, drug him from his wife and kids. Fight harder? Mother fucker, you don't know the meaning of fight.
The inmate fell slack, sobbing. Wet oozed across the front of his olives. Biggs raised a foot, ready to stomp, when the first gunshot rang out.
Biggs put his hands over his face. Instinct. A beaten dog whimpering at a sneeze. But the blow didn't come. Bodies pressed to his. Churning. Tumult. He expected to taste the iron, see stars, that smell like fire when a club crushes your skull. But nothing.
Biggs' guts knotted tight. Snapping that con's wrist hadn't triggered the alarm. It wailed before, hadn't it? Yeah. He almost wished he'd taken a blackjack to the ear, now. At least that way it'd be over quick.
Biggs looked back to the closest dick. Stupid. Dull, heavy eyes bore a hole through Biggs. Fingers drummed a nervous beat on the barrel of his AK. Biggs damned himself, his stupid instinct. He should have dropped to the floor and crawled like hell. Now they know: Biggs knows.
Quick as a flash, he turned to the other two who had been drug in with him. Their eyes carried the same wideness, the same horror and adrenaline.
So that's what this is. Biggs wondered if even the broken-wrist con was in on it. Probably not, but the whole thing was fucked from the start, so maybe.
He dropped to the floor. Hands and knees he crawled through the mosh pit. The Reaper closed in. Biggs could feel death like a pressure wave at his heels, pushing him forward. There wasn't a plan. Just go, somewhere, anywhere, and stay the fuck out of sight.
The shadow of death didn't bother Biggs so much as the chaos. Death, he assumed, had been the endgame from the very first. And now here he was crawling through a jungle of killers and pederasts, siren shredding his ears, not one single fucking idea in his head except, "just go. Meet up with the other two and don't die in this riot."
"Shit."
Harris looked up from his seat on the toilet. The black binder slid from his lap, pages splayed.
"You don't have to announce yourself." Arthur didn't bother looking up from his own black binder. "Just be quick and flush at first splash."
"Not that shit." Harris plucked the binder from the floor, turned the pages to Arthur. "This shit. Our shit."
Arthur looked up. He need only glance at the pages.
"Shit."
He saw the title and froze solid. Riot World.
"How's it end?" Harris said through a gulp. "I don't remember this one."
Arthur struggled to form words. "Biggs and two other inmates disappear in the riot."
"Disappear?"
Arthur shrugged. "In a riot."
Harris slammed his fists to the toilet. "Christ. How did we end up here? What did we ever do?" He crumpled in half, hands tugging his hair.
"It's not ours to question the fates," Arthur sighed, "only paddle through their whims."
"Those motherfuckers can paddle this." Harris reached into the shadows under the prison john and came out with his green Sherlock Holmes.
"I'm not sure the Bard of Baker Street has an answer for this one," Arthur said.
"Oh but he does." Hands shaking, Harris leafed story after story until he landed on the one dog eared page.
"'A Scandal in Bohemia,'" Arthur said, reading the story's title. "I don't get it."
Harris flipped the book face down in his lap. Open to this specific page and pressed face down, the binding pulled away from the spine just enough for Harris to dig his finger into the hole.
"Desperate times and desperate measures, Arthur. I already gave one of these to Kavia, before we left the library. Now I'm giving one to you."
Harris pulled his hand away from the book. A small bag emerged from the binding, a low glimmer in the shadows of their cell.
"I wasn't sure but now I am, Kite. First thing in the morning, we're starting a riot."
"What the hell is that?" Arthur squinted at the little plastic baggie. "It looks like a cheese stick."
Harris looked up from the baggie. "Our oar for paddling against the fates. Alex was right. We need to get to solitary confinement."
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