“Both dismal and abysmal,” she said. “Whatever you’re expecting, you’re going to be doomed to disappointment.”

  “Well, in my last stretch, back when my mom still kept me in my house, she regularly overcooked ramen, so …”

  “This may be an improvement, then,” June conceded.

  We got up and used the toilet hole in turn, then just kind of stood there until the doors opened. “Time to go,” June said, and I followed her.

  “Do we have to stand here for a prisoner count or something?” I asked.

  “No, they count us in our cells,” she said, and pointed at a little orb in the shadows in the corner of the room. “They’ve got eyes on us always.”

  “Now I feel really awkward about using the bathroom,” I said.

  “You get over it after a few days,” she said, casual enough I knew she’d done the awkward mental gymnastics of thinking about public urination and defecation. “It sucks, but what are you going to do?”

  “If I were you, I might puff a purple cloud in front of the camera,” I said.

  “And get my powers yanked for weeks at a time? No, thanks,” June said. “I should warn you: they have a system.”

  “Who’s they?” I asked.

  “The bad ones,” she said. “They’ll hit you in a pack—one will rumble with you, get your powers yanked, then the reserve members—”

  “Kill you while you’re powerless,” I said. “Clever.”

  She nodded. “So … get ready for that. Of course, since you’re already …” She looked around, didn’t say it. “They might improvise and go right for the throat.”

  “Thanks for the heads up,” I said. For whatever good it might do.

  “This way,” she said, leading me toward the tables.

  I followed her. The inmates were gradually making their way to the tables in the middle of the cube, which looked like a combo cafeteria/social space/Thunderdome for when things got hot. Every table and every chair was bolted to the ground, presumably sturdily enough that they couldn’t be used as a weapon.

  Which was kinda unnecessary. Anyone with powers in here could split a human skull open with their bare hands. Having a weapon available might have made it possible for a depowered chump like me to defend herself. Instead, I was going to be hand to hand against people whose strength, speed, and dexterity outclassed my own by a factor of ten.

  So fun.

  I sat down at one of the tables toward the outer ring of the square. Each was made for four people, and a couple guards were rolling around those carts that airline attendants used to serve meals on. They were dishing out food on prefabbed plates of the sort they’d served here when I was in charge, the kind that biodegraded when they were done. No weapon there. I looked at the cutlery offered, and it, too, was the flimsy and deteriorating kind. A trifecta of near-useless weapons.

  “Get a good night’s sleep?” Owens asked, following one of the guards with a cart over to our table. A couple trays got slopped in front of me and June, and the cart moved on. Owens hung behind for a minute, but kept her eyes on the cart. Looking for dangers to her fellow guard, who was vulnerable while serving. I knew that mentality well.

  “Surprisingly, yeah,” I said. “I was probably tired from the excitement of the last few days. It was nice to get into a mellow, chillax mode here at the resort. I see breakfast comes with a side of brown gravy and wet toast.”

  Owens curled her lip looking at my tray. “I don’t envy you that, but it probably tastes better than that danish Burke choked on yesterday.”

  “You talking about that guard that forced the lockdown?” I asked. I was playing innocent because I was innocent. I’d had nothing to do with Burke’s demise, if he’d in fact died.

  “Yeah,” Owens said. “choked to death on a pastry, can you believe it? Big, bad dude like that and he’s brought low by a bakery item.”

  “They say what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, but I don’t see how a danish could, it’s all carbs and fat,” I said, deadpan.

  Owens snickered, then wiped the emotion off her face. “Don’t … let the other guards hear you talk about Burke like that. I may think it’s funny, but the rest of this crew? They’re a tight knit tribe that’s always feeling like they’re under siege. Say something like that to any of them and you’re liable to get your ass kicked.”

  June nodded without saying anything. I guess it was universal agreement then.

  “What’s on the list of activities for today?” I asked. “Do I get to spend some time on the lido deck?”

  “You get to sit around and talk all day if you’re good,” Owens said with a smirk. “If you’re not, you get locked down. Lunch at 1200 hours. Dinner at 1700. It’s a shower day, so there’s that.”

  I looked up and saw, for the first time, there were big screens hanging in the middle of the room, four of them, in a kind of squarish pattern like the displays in the center of a hockey arena. “We don’t get to watch anything?” I asked.

  “Once a week, if you’re good, the warden brings in a movie,” Owens said.

  “They always suck,” June said. “They’re inevitably something pre-1980’s, usually pre-1960’s, and they’re always rated G.”

  “Can we watch Bambi?” I asked. “It fits those criteria.”

  “No Disney,” Owens said, shaking her head. “I don’t think they want their movies shown in a prison.”

  “Bummer,” I said. “I have this sudden, uncontrollable desire to watch Cinderella again.”

  “Look at this,” a woman said, coming over to the next table and sitting down, three flunkies trailing in her wake. She was a big lady, big boned, I guess you could say if you were being charitable, just a hulking mass of a person. Her thighs looked bigger than my hips, and she wore her jumpsuit pretty snug, like she’d swelled her arms and legs just for the sake of swelling them as she walked up. “Fresh fish.”

  I blinked at her. “Is that … are you referencing how you smell? Because I hear it’s shower day.”

  Owens snorted, and even June’s shoulders shook with silent mirth. The two women on either side of my harasser scowled at me. It wasn’t my first time being scowled at by potential badasses, though, so I just kept one eye on them while I picked at my food, which looked … pretty shit.

  “Gert,” Owens said, “why don’t you and Clara and Marta sit over there today.” She pointed at the other side of the cafeteria area.

  I gave them a closer look while Owens was making her suggestion, which sounded a lot like a command. Marta was a little slip of a girl, deeply tanned, but probably three inches shorter than me, so minuscule. She was the anti-Gert, skinny as a rail, like a more outdoorsy version of Cassidy, and with black hair. Her friend Clara was a dirty blond, average height, medium build, a real athletic look to her, and her face looked as flat as a plate, her nose only jutting out above her cheeks by a little.

  “Hey, Owens!” someone called from across the room. I looked; a guard was waving her toward the exit.

  Owens evinced a moment’s reaction—pained. Her jaw tightened. “Just a minute.”

  “Warden needs you right now,” the guard called, still waving. “Says it’s serious business.”

  Owens might have wanted to swear under her breath, but whether it was because she realized they’d hear anything she said or because she just had that good a self-control, she kept it to herself. “All right,” she said, and pointed to Gert. “Other side of the room, you three.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Gert said, her husky voice in full demurral mode. She and her clunky comrades started picking their way through the tables, heading where Owens had pointed.

  “Watch out, Nealon,” Owens muttered, and she was off at a jog, heading for the door. The guard already had it open for her by the time she made it, and she vanished inside about ten seconds after she left my table.

  “One,” I said under my breath, “two …”

  “What are you doing?” June asked, mouth full of gravy. Or whatever the brown stuff was.

  “… Three … four …”

  “What’s up, you little bitch?” Gert said, pushing between two prisoners at the table next to me, Clara the plate face and Marta the minuscule in tow. Not one of them was smiling. It was as though I’d stolen all their joy.

  “It’s breakfast,” I said, cramming a terrible piece of toast in my mouth. It was drier than my preferred humor. “Whuzzz ub wiv uuu?”

  “You shouldn’t talk with your mouth full,” Gert said, smirking evilly.

  “That’s good advice if you give a damn about manners,” I said, swallowing the toast and throwing a flimsy paperish sporkful of eggs down my gullet. It tasted like cardboard. “Ah givs no fugggs arout politesess wiv uu, tho.”

  “The hell is she saying?” Gert asked, face getting red.

  “I think she says doesn’t care about being mannerly around you,” Marta said, her olive skin flushing a shade darker.

  “That’s rude,” Gert said. “We should teach her some manners.”

  And she stepped toward me, body swelling as she increased her size and strength with her Hercules powers, her two comrades just a step behind, ready to pound me into stuffing.

  17.

  I laughed, exploding a mouthful of shitty eggs all over the prison cafeteria table. I mean, I was faking, mostly, but I laughed and laughed, and the three women who were coming over to kick my ass paused in their approach, first sign of confidence flagging. They’d been so sure of themselves a second ago.

  I waited until I got most of the ass-flavored eggs out of my mouth, and quieted my braying, fake laugh. “You … you know who I am, right?” I looked the lead, Gert, right in her giant head, didn’t blink, and kinda smiled. “You know what I do? What I’ve done?”

  Gert just stared at me, her dark eyes going hateful. “I know all about you, you little bitch.”

  “So you probably know how many Hercules types I’ve killed?” I cracked my knuckles. There was a trick to bluffing stupid people, and it was having credibility. I’d killed a lot of folks in my day. Everybody knew that. It wasn’t a malicious thing. I didn’t enjoy it, particularly, but I’d done it, and now that my life was on the line, I wasn’t going to be shy about sharing that fact to save my ass. “I mean, I’ve lost count, but I’m sure it’s recorded somewhere.”

  Gert hesitated, then looked to her comrades, Marta and Clara, as though seeking encouragement. “We can take this little bitch.”

  “No, you can’t,” I said, not blinking. I was going to stare her down, because I’d stared down a lot worse than her in my day.

  But usually I had something to back up my mouth and evil eye. Here … I had a plate full of shitty eggs and gravy. That was not going to get me far.

  “You want to know how I’m going to kill you?” I asked, really pouring it on. I looked from Gert to Clara to Marta, sensing for weakness. “It kinda depends on your powers. I don’t have much use for a Hercules, see, so I’ll just flat out murder you, Gert.” I smiled at Marta and Clara in turn. “But … if either of you have … interesting powers … maybe I’ll add you to my collection. How’d you like to spend the rest of eternity as part of my soul collective? It’s an easy job—you just become my mental slave forever, and I torture you if you say anything that displeases me.”

  Ah, there it was. Marta evinced a hint of dismay, a flicker of uncertainty in her eyes, a hesitant half-step back.

  “She’s bluf—” Gert started to say.

  I burst out laughing. “Which part’s a bluff, y’think? The part where I kill you? Or the part where I make you my soul slave?” I laughed again. “Have I never done either of those things before? Or do you just think you’re so damned awesome that you’re … what? Immune to getting your ass kicked?” I twirled a finger around me. “Cuz you ended up in here, so I’m guessing someone kicked your ass, thus disproving that thesis.”

  Gert’s face reddened. “Your brother put me in here.”

  “His mistake.” I shrugged. “Attitude and face like yours? I would’ve put you in the ground.” I smiled wolfishly. “Still might.” I pushed to my feet. “Wanna go a round, Gert? See if you can last more than one punch? Because I’m guessing … even with your bone structure … you won’t.” My smile evaporated.

  “You ain’t gonna see us coming, Nealon,” she said, taking a step back.

  “You’d be hard to miss,” I said. “But give the surprise attack a go. I’m guessing your foot steps are never quiet.”

  Plate-faced Clara flared a little fire around her hand, and I realized I must have hit her in the pride with that one, too. I didn’t quite realize why until I looked at her feet—they were disproportionately large. Big face, big feet, big hands, as the fire flared around them—Clara looked a little demonic as the flames lit her sallow skin.

  Shit. She had a long-range attack. That was going to be a problem for me. But hopefully not yet.

  “Be seeing you, Nealon,” Gert said, stepping back. She pointed at me through the crowd, now five tables away, heading toward where Owens had sent her. “But you won’t see me.”

  “You’re a Hercules, moron!” I called back. “You don’t get much smaller, and I’d have to be blind to not see you. Or hear buffalo-foot Clara over there.” I watched Clara’s head snap around, face lit with anger. That was perhaps not the wisest thing to say.

  They kept going, fortunately, and I sat back down. June was finishing up her breakfast and let her papery spork down on the plate and wiped her face with her napkin.

  “Thanks for the assist,” I said to my cellmate. At least she hadn’t stood up and whacked me in the back, or revealed I was powerless in the middle of my bluff.

  “You had it under control,” June said, as calm as though she were on Prozac.

  “For now,” I said, staring after Gert and her cronies. They’d taken their seats and were now engaging in a staring contest with me, which I did not choose to partake in. I pretended like my full focus was on June, but I was watching the hell out of them with my peripheral vision.

  June squinted at me. “What? Do I have something on my face?”

  “Just keeping an eye on trouble without acting like I’m paying them any attention,” I said, picking up my spork, which was now soggy and thus useless. I sighed. I didn’t want to eat this shit anyway. “See, if you dignify them with a response, they think they got to you. I want them to think they’re as irrelevant to me as Katy Perry’s fashion choices.”

  “That’s pretty irrelevant to you, I guess,” June said, folding her napkin and laying it across her breakfast tray like a sheet over a corpse. “What’s your plan when they come at you? Because they will.”

  “Tell me something I don’t know,” I said. “My plan will be highly dependent on where I am at the time, and if I have a weapon close at hand.” I lowered my voice and leaned in. “Can I get a shiv in here?”

  June just blinked at me. “Uhm … I don’t think so, no.”

  “Shit.” A shiv was prison-speak for a makeshift knife. “What about a can top from the prison cafeteria?” That was another golden oldie fave for traditional prisoners. A metal can lid was easy to sharpen against any concrete or hard surface, and voila—you had an edge with which to open someone’s throat. I would have preferred a Ka-Bar knife or a Baghdad Bullet, but alas, you do what you can with what you have.

  “No prisoners work in the cafeteria,” June said with a shake of her head. “Guards bring down the food, and it’s manned by some concession company. We have no interaction with the workers, so … probably not.”

  “Is there a machine shop here?” I asked. “Prison laundry?”

  She shook her head. “Nope. We’re neither being rehabilitated to society nor expected to pull our weight. We’re too dangerous for that, I guess. No work crews, no library, no personal possessions allowed, nothing. What you see here is what we have and what we do.” She looked at her fingernails, which I realized for the first time were kinda rough, like she’d had to chew them off. “Welcome to the most boring stretch of hard time you’ll ever do.”

  “Nealon!” someone shouted, and I turned my head in time to see a nurse—definitely not Slaughter—in a white lab coat making her way across the room to me. A guard had done the shouting, the same guy who’d called in Owens. He pointed at the nurse, and just as loudly as the first, shouted, “Time for your suppressant shot!”

  You could have heard hope die in that room right then. I know mine did, though I was buttoned up enough to keep from letting it make a sound—like a squeal.

  “Well,” I said, as the nurse made her way over to me, needle in hand, and I looked at the guard who’d done the shouting—yeah, the bastard was wearing a big smile, probably because he had me in the dead pool during the next day or so—and I fought to keep a sour look off my face, “I’d say this stretch of time just got a lot more interesting.”

  18.

  Sophie

  Four Years Ago

  “Where the hell are we now?” Sienna asked. They were miles off the interstate, the exit ramp a good half hour behind them, and nothing but hills and sagebrush ahead.

  “You know where we are,” Sophie said, hands on the wheel, the world dark, hidden behind the veil of her sunglasses. “It’s the middle of nowhere.”

  “Uh huh,” Sienna said, eyeing her warily. She’d done that all along. “What a wonderful place for an ambush.”

  “You have a very suspicious mind.”

  “You say that like it’s a bad thing.”

  “No,” Sophie said, “you take it like it’s a bad thing. I said it very neutrally.”

  Sienna fell silent for about ten minutes. “I’m losing patience.”

  “Patience is a virtue that seems somewhat lost on your generation,” Sophie said, keeping her hands loosely on the wheel.

  “Listen, lady, I’ve done more stakeouts than I can count,” Sienna said, “but I had some expectation of what was waiting at the end of those. You’ve packed me across the desert of Texas from Houston to here in a car that is seriously lacking air conditioning, on a trip I could have made myself in like an hour at supersonic speed. You’re cagey as all hell, and you’re dismissive of my irritation at being jerked around. The only thing you’ve got going for you is that I’m picking up a vibe that you don’t actually mean me harm. Just that you’re indifferent to my annoyance.”

 

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