Page 8 of No Way Back
They don’t seem like costumes either—the jumpsuits are thick, and the backs read NOCF: NorthEast Ohio Correctional Facility. She already has one on from intake, but I’m still in my regular clothes. She elbows me twice in the stomach as she moves the girl into a corner, so with a singular heave, I finish the effort for her. She turns on the LED light in the mask, the bright pink glowing in the dark.
“Jesus.” I take a good look at her. “There is something so fuckable about you in that mask.”
She brings her hands behind her back and swivels. “Add it to the shopping cart. This one’s gonna be evidence by the end of the night.”
“I have another surprise.” I finish zipping up my jumpsuit and tossing the guy’s body on top of the girl, moving the only thing I brought inside from the pocket of my jeans along with her phone.
I turn around and lift up theprops. “They weren’t lying.”
Her jaw goes slack as I hand her the military flail. She wraps her fingers around the iron bar, the heavy, spiked ball dangling from the chain. Camila’s eyes dart back up to me. “I don’t think I’ve ever been this turned on in my life.”
I slide the mask up her forehead, catching her mouth in a brief kiss, practically speaking into her lips as I answer, “Just wait ‘till this chainsaw gets going.”
She bites her lips down into a flat line, a moan escaping her chest as she tests one of the many spikes on her weapon with the tip of a finger.
“It’s gonna be pandemonium out there without power. You know that, right?” I warn her, but she just jumps up and down like a boxer, ready to go a round.
She gives me a singular nod. “I’m betting on it. How long until it’s fixed?”
I laugh. “Not tonight. I took the chainsaw to the electric panel.”
“The fact you won’t let me bang you right now is borderline criminal.” Her words are playful, but her tone says she’s annoyed.
“Well, good thing we’re in the right place then. Tell me the plan, Darkling.” We’ve been here less than an hour, but I know my girl’s twisted mind has already cooked something up.
“Start in cell block A. Kill the guards. Release the inmates.” She lays it out like it's a grocery list.
“Rinse and repeat?” I ask with a smirk.
“Once it’s batshit crazy out there, we go find our boy.” She illuminates the real goal of the night.
She doesn’t need to clarify who.
“No mistakes,” I tell her. She doesn’t need more than that.
Camila nods. She understands.
It’s an entirely different world outside that closet. With a chainsaw and a flashlight as my only tools, I walk side-by-side with her back into the halls of cell block A. The jailed are like infectious leppers, caged away, moaning and pleading for help, attention, or maybe just to add to the frantic climate.
The tour group is a mess, some rich kid threatening to sue if a guard doesn’t take him back to get his things and release him. The guards don’t even acknowledge his presence.
That’s when I notice it’s a different tour group now, ours having already passed us and moved on to the next block.
Good.
It means our absence has gone unnoticed in the chaos. The guards are likely only getting paid enough to keep the inmates from rioting, and with them locked in the cells for the event, I’d bet money on them being fully unprepared for what havoc we’re about to wreak.
“There are three I can see on the other end, plus the one directly behind us.” Camila’s quiet enough that only I can hear.
A gasp from her mouth forces me to turn my head. A pale hand slips through the bars of a cell and grabs Camila’s jumpsuit.
“No touching!” the guard behind Camila barks, flashing his light at the prisoner.
She skulks back into the shadowed cell, the guard staying behind a few steps.
“I’ll put this one to sleep. You get to the front,” I whisper in her ear, giving her a nudge with the blade of my chainsaw.
She’s in the middle of the group, almost camouflaged in the orange aside from the mask, but she’s making casual conversation with a stranger, as if she has been there the whole time. I turn my mask off, stopping in place and feeling the guard’s shoes against the back of my boots.
