Chapter 4: Prisoner 1178
Maya barely rolled beneath the closing security door.
Behind her, Captain Shaw struck the metal barrier with both hands.
“Cross! Stop!”
She ran toward the service stairs.
The prison remained under lockdown, but the alarm had created confusion. Officers rushed toward the eastern yard while frightened civilian employees crowded into secured offices.
Maya slipped into the laundry facility.
Rows of industrial washers shook against the walls. Steam filled the room, hiding her from the security cameras.
Rafe was waiting beside the final machine.
“How did you get out of the yard?” she asked.
“I never went into the yard.”
“I saw you.”
“You saw someone wearing my uniform.”
Maya studied him.
The man before her had the same tattoos and face as Rafe Calder, but a fresh bruise darkened his jaw.
The version she had seen from Mercer’s window had no bruise.
“Who are you?” she asked.
“Right now, I’m the only person keeping you alive.”
Rafe pulled open the industrial dryer.
The back panel had been removed, revealing a narrow tunnel.
“Cell Zero is down there.”
“Why did you attack me yesterday?”
“I needed to know whether Lucas had told the truth about you.”
“What truth?”
“That you were trained by the best federal tactical instructor in the country.”
“My father was an insurance investigator.”
Rafe gave her a pitying look.
“That’s what they told you?”
Footsteps approached the laundry room.
Rafe climbed into the dryer.
Maya followed him and pulled the door shut.
They crawled through a passage between the walls.
“Lucas saved my life during the Block D riot,” Rafe whispered. “The official report says he started the fire. He didn’t. He was trying to get prisoners out.”
“Who started it?”
“Captain Shaw.”
Maya stopped crawling.
“Why?”
“Because the fire wasn’t meant to kill prisoners. It was meant to destroy records.”
Rafe continued forward.
They reached a metal grate overlooking a private corridor.
Below them, Warden Mercer stood beside a heavily guarded elevator.
Two officers wheeled an unconscious prisoner toward it.
The prisoner had gray hair and a scar across his cheek.
Elias.
Maya gripped the grate.
“He’s alive.”
Mercer bent beside Elias.
“You promised to stay away from her,” the warden said.
Elias slowly opened his eyes.
“She came looking for the truth.”
“She doesn’t recognize you yet,” Mercer whispered. “Leave before something makes her remember.”
Maya’s breath caught.
Rafe turned toward her.
“You know him?”
“No.”
But even as she said it, an image surfaced in her mind.
She was six years old, standing beside a lake.
Her father knelt behind her, teaching her how to hold a fishing rod.
On his right hand was a burn scar shaped like a crescent.
Maya looked through the grate.
Elias’s right hand hung from the stretcher.
A crescent-shaped scar marked his palm.
The elevator doors opened.
Mercer glanced up suddenly, as though he had heard Maya breathing.
Rafe pulled her away from the grate.
The elevator descended.
Maya stared at the key marked ZERO.
“My father died fifteen years ago.”
Rafe did not answer.
“What aren’t you telling me?”
Before he could respond, a red light activated inside the tunnel.
A female voice came through a hidden speaker.
“Welcome back, Maya.”
May you like
The metal doors at both ends of the passage locked.
Gas began pouring through the vents.
