A moment later, the door to her cell swung open.
“We’re going to have a riot.” Garra leaned in, captured her eyes, and returned his gaze to the sights on his rifle, which he aimed into the hall. “The González Cartel is trying to take control of Area Three.”
A riot? Images of fires, hostages, breakouts, and bloodshed caved in her chest. Without the aid of prison security, who would contain it?
The mayhem of stomping boots and gunfire grew closer. Her pulse exploded, and her hands slicked with sweat as she hunkered down and covered her head.
They could kill one another for all she cared, as long as she didn’t get hit in the crossfire. This wasn’t her fight.
“It’s safer upstairs,” Garra said calmly and fired off a few rounds down the corridor. “Go!”
Then he was gone.
She clenched her fists. He wanted her to go out there without a gun? Shots were firing from every direction. Why couldn’t she just stay here?
Fear trembled through her as she inched toward the open door. A peek into the hallway gave her a view of the stairwell thirty feet away. Beyond that, crowds of inmates ran left and right, plowing one another down.
Some faces she recognized. Others she didn’t.
The unfamiliar men swept along the corridor, spraying bullets into every cell they passed. It wouldn’t take them long to reach hers.
Paralyzed by panic, she ducked back into her cell. Adrenaline coursed through her system. She couldn’t catch her breath.
The attacking cartel would consider her an enemy merely because she was in Area Three. She was a sitting duck.
Dropping to her hands and knees, she poked her head into the hall, waited for a clear break, and scrambled for the stairwell.
Bullets whizzed by overhead, and one tore a hole in the wall right beside her. A scream escaped her throat, and she might’ve peed a little. She couldn’t feel her body amid the violent pounding of fear.
She bustled across the floor, crawling, sliding, falling, and dragging her legs. Her lungs heaved a frantic pace, chopping her breaths and burning her chest.
Almost there. Almost there.
With a knee-grinding lunge, she flung herself through the gap in the open doorway of the stairwell. Her elbows banged against concrete, and her head hit the wall. But she made it.
“Fuck.” She released a heavy exhale and flew to her feet, pivoting to race up the stairs.
Gunshots rang out overhead. Multiple shooters. Angry shouting. A firefight waged right above her.
Her stomach flipped inside out.
Goddamn Garra! She couldn’t go up there, and she couldn’t risk running back to her cell.
Fucking fuck, fuck!
She spun in a circle, jumping at the deafening pops of guns. Shooters were in the stairwell, in the corridor, and she was caught in the middle.
“What are you doing?”
She whirled toward the deep voice in the hall.
Across from her, the door to a cell stood open. An older man with silver-black hair leaned a shoulder against the door jamb, arms hanging at his sides, his expression as calm as could be.
“I…I don’t know.” She’d seen him a few times in the common area but hadn’t learned his name.
“Do you know how to use a gun?”
No. She nodded jerkily.
He removed a pistol from his waistband and tossed it across the hall to her. “The safety’s off.”
She palmed the heavy weight of metal, turning it over in her shaking hands.
The sound of his door jerked her head up.
He’d returned to his room. Shit. She should’ve told him the attackers were shooting into all the cells.
The stampede of boots broke out in the corridor, stomping in her direction. The report of gunfire on the stairs above her resounded in her ears. At any moment, she was going to get shot.
But she had a gun.
Clutching the grip in both fists, she hunkered low to the floor between the corridor and the stairs and tried not to throw up.
Her nerves wound so tightly the pistol rattled in her sweaty hands. She’d never even practiced on a paper target. How would she shoot a moving person? She didn’t have the guts or the skill.
Except she’d strangled a man with his own belt.
Surely, a bullet would be easier. Quicker.
The thought steeled her spine as an army of González members ran past the stairwell.
She backed into a shadowed corner, out of view, and held her breath.
Some of the footsteps slowed at the doorway, but the sound of gunfire upstairs sent them continuing down the hall.
All but one.
A young, lanky guy with a rifle stopped at the door to the old man’s cell and tried the handle. It didn’t open.
Her pulse rushed in her ears.
The armed man stepped back, trained his rifle on the door handle, and fired.
The bang stopped her heart and echoed in her eardrums so loudly and painfully she wondered if they’d ruptured.
Ten feet from her hiding spot, the shooter raised his gun to fire into the now open doorway of the cell. He intended to kill the old man.