??
“Yeah. He taught me using a pair of slippers he’d torn apart. Obviously, they weren’t sharp or anything, but that’s how I initially learned. We’d spar, and he’d tell me in beautiful detail about how he slaughtered all those girls.”
“Beautiful?”
“His word. Everything he did was beautiful. He did it because they were beautiful, and seeing them cut up made him feel powerful.”
“That’s…sick.”
“Very much so.” I look away, knowing that I was nearly as sick as he was, or at least could be. “Are you sure you want to hear all of this?”
“I’m sure.” She gives my leg a squeeze.
“After he was executed, another prisoner was placed in the cell with me. I don’t really remember much about him. He cried a lot. I do remember that. When he was gone, there were a few more, but I don’t remember much about them. That’s also when they started dosing me with drugs.”
“What kind of drugs?”
“No idea. Initially they said the pills were supposed to keep us relaxed and nonviolent, but they kept changing what I was given. After a while, they just started sedating me. I’d lose time; my head was always fuzzy, and I hated it. I started holding the pills in my cheek until I could get rid of them, but they started strapping me down and injecting me instead. I think they were trying to get me to overdose.”
“Why?”
“Because all executions come with paperwork and a blackout,” I say with a shrug. “Paperwork means admitting someone was executed, and if you don’t have the paperwork, you can’t explain the blackout.”
“I remember those blackouts,” Aerin says. “They were always very distinct. If they tried to do one that wasn’t scheduled, everyone would know. They needed a cover story.”
“Guess so.”
“But it didn’t work.”
“No, and eventually they went back to the pills. I managed not to swallow them most of the time. I stumbled a lot so they thought I was taking them.”
“That’s pretty smart.”
“I did what I had to do,” I say. I look over at her, staring into her eyes. “Everything I did was because I had to do it to survive.”
“I understand.” Aerin leans against me and places her head on my shoulder. “Go on. Tell me the rest.”
“My last cell mate was Byron. He was caught stealing a bunch of documents from the capital building, killed two guards, and ended up charged with murder and treason. He was the only sane person who was ever in my cell. He knew who I was, and we shared a few thoughts about the Naughts outside the walls. He’d been trying to gather evidence about a government cover-up. He was sure his brother had been murdered but didn’t have any proof. When he found out I’d learned knife fighting, he was impressed. His family did a lot of hunting before the deer populations were depleted, and he knew how to kill. Byron thought we could combine our skills and escape, but we needed real knives.
“He never told me exactly how he got them, but the day after two people were killed in an inmate riot, Byron came back with them. They were simple, short pocketknives but deadly enough if used right. I practiced with them every moment I could. Byron taught me where to insert a knife for a quick death as well as ways to stab someone without killing them, and I taught him how to move quickly against an armed opponent. We practiced all the time. We had the knife skills, but finding the opportunity—that’s much more difficult.
“Everyone thinks there’s only one way in and out of Havens—through the main gates—but that’s not true. There is one other way, which is the drainage system underneath the prison. There was a small pipe in the floor of the showers, barely big enough for a person, but that’s how we managed to escape. We hung back after everyone else was done in the shower, and Byron killed the guard. We crawled through the pipe and dropped out next to the river. For about a minute, I thought no one was going to know about it. We made our way to an alley between the brick buildings that housed the administration offices, and all we had to do was make it to the trees on the other side of the road. I remember we smiled at each other and even shook hands. Then Byron was hit with a bullet from behind us.
“I don’t know how they found us. I assume they figured out we were gone and followed our trail, but I’m not sure. I wasn’t as good at covering my tracks then. I just know they did find us. What happened next is a little blurry. I heard a few more gunshots and guards shouting behind us, and then another guard jumped out right in front of me.
“It was Johnson. It was the same guard who had spoken to me when I was in solitary. I didn’t have time to think—I just stabbed him. Blood went everywhere even before he dropped down to his knees. I’d practiced the technique of stabbing someone, but the reality was very different. I think I froze for a minute, just looking at his face and his eyes staring at nothing. The smell hit me then, and I knew he’d shit himself when he died and that I had done that to him.”
Aerin pulls away from me, and I stop speaking as I glance at her. She’s twisting her fingers around in her lap while she stares at the ground, eyes wide.
“It wasn’t like we were friends,” I say softly, “but he was the only one who had shown me any kind of humanity while I was there, even briefly. I don’t know why. Maybe he sympathized, or maybe he was just a nice guy. I don’t know. I’ll never know. I killed him, and I can’t take that back.”
“You did what you had to do.” Aerin’s voice is so soft, I can hardly hear her words.
“I can still see the look in his eyes. I can hear the sound he made right before he dropped to the ground. I can smell the stench. I don’t know if I had to do it or not. I just know that I did it.”
“They would have killed you in there,” Aerin says, finally looking at me. “Eventually, they would have figured out a way. If you hadn’t done that, you would have died.”
“And he would have lived.”