Page 284 of Craving Venom

“What?” I chuckle.

“That’s not even real.”

“Want me to prove it?”

She glares, but her a blush creeps on her cheeks. “Keep going with your little prison escape story before I throw you out of the car.”

“Fine. Where was I?”

“The secret corridor,” she mutters.

“That corridor runs beneath admin wing. There’s a hollowed-out access duct behind the electrical room which wasn’t part of the original structure. My grandfather’s design ended with sealed steel. But the contractors extended the space to install backup cooling systems. It left a void.”

“And nobody knows?”

“Not unless they helped build it. And most of those men are dead or retired. The rest… don’t talk.”

I continue. “That duct leads to the sub-basement, a place even the guards avoid. It’s unstable. They sealed it decades ago after a fire. Only problem is, it’s not actually sealed. They used temporary blast doors during the investigation and never replaced them. Every few months, I loosen the bolts on one side. Takes time. Patience. But eventually, it swings.”

Her mouth parts just slightly.

“Once I’m in the sub-basement, I wait for lock reset. The prison security system runs a fifteen-minute offline refresh between 3:17 and 3:32 every Tuesday, Thursday, and Sunday. During that gap, cameras reset, and two gates are powered down. From there, it’s about timing. The last cleaning crew exits through Gate 6 at 3:15. Two minutes later, I move into the ventilation shaft directly beneath their route. The vent spans thirteen meters and lands in the secondary waste disposal unit, which no one’s used since ‘04 because the plumbing’s been rerouted. The sensor on that room has a blind spot. You can move through it if you keep your back low and your body slow.”

I glance over. She’s listening so hard her body forgets to blink. I tap my fingers against the steering wheel, each beat synced with the engine’s low purr beneath us.

“There’s a dead zone just past that door. There are no cameras. No alarms. Nothing but old wiring and dust. From there, the only obstacle is the west guard booth. But that guard, Steven, is asleep 90% of the time. And if he’s not asleep, Terry distracts him with a fake radio call about a med emergency in Block C.”

She slides one leg across the other again. Her heel scrapes against the floor mat.

“The moment he leaves the room, I cross the hall. There’s a mop closet beside the emergency exit. It’s never locked. Inside is a duffel with fresh clothes, gloves, wipes, and a phone. I change in sixty seconds, cover my tattoos, wipe the floor down, andwalk out the back door. Terry handles the setup, he feeds me the details, and I move on instinct.”

I reach down and adjust the AC, even though I don’t feel the cold. My blood’s too hot. She’s still watching me.

“And sometimes, when I’m really lucky… I end up in your room.”

She stares at me, dumbfounded. Her mouth opens but nothing comes out at first. It’s the first time I’ve seen her look truly stunned, and fuck, it’s a sight. Her legs are still, her purse forgotten in her lap. She doesn’t even react to my last comment.

“What about guards? Cameras? Prison officials? You’re telling me no one notices a prisoner going Houdini every other week?”

I grin, pulling my eyes back on the road. “That’s the part you’ll like.”

“Each guard station in the west wing runs on a four-hour rotation. But the sleep quarters are directly connected to the admin hall. Between 3:10 and 3:30, two of the three posted officers are off duty. That leaves one man watching ten feeds, half of which are looping because Terry triggers a false diagnostic from the external panel. Unless you know exactly what you’re looking for, you’ll never catch it. It loops footage of me asleep in my cell.”

She finally blinks.

“The exit sensor logs a maintenance ID number. One that expired five years ago. Terry hacked it back into the system and buried it behind six layers of junk code. To anyone checking the logs, it looks like routine cleaning staff leaving at a routine time. And by the time they realize there’s no real employee with that badge number, I’m already five miles out.”

I adjust the rearview, and ease into the next turn.

“And as for official logs?” I snort. “There’s a digital trail for everything. But the admin server sits inside the superintendent’soffice. It is an old hardline system that hasn’t been updated in seven years. I plug in a flash drive with ghost software once a week during library duty. A quick wipe of outgoing entries, just enough to erase timestamps, reroute my ID tag, make it look like a clerical error.”

I glance at her again, slower this time. “If I leave for two hours, the system thinks I never left.”

“And the guards?”

“Some are smart. Some are scared. All of them know better than to ask questions. You think they want to admit an inmate walked right past them? That he’s done it more than once?” I shake my head. “No one wants to be the one who missed it. So they keep their mouths shut, report nothing, and pray they’re not the next one to slip.”

She doesn’t answer.

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