Brighter Than the Sun (11 page)

I grind my teeth. The whole point of this was to get her set up so she never has to work again. Instead, she’s working odd jobs and barely scraping by when she could live anywhere in style.

I go to see her sometimes. She’s not like Dutch. She can’t see me, but when I move a picture or knock over a vase, she knows I’m there. She talks to me for hours. I’m beginning to think I’m more hindrance than help. She lost her last job because she sat and talked to me instead of going to work.

“She needs to move on,” I tell Amador. “Tell her—” I breathe in to strengthen my resolve. “Tell her I’m not going to go see her anymore. Tell her it’s too dangerous for me. Tell her to take the money and see the world.”

I know she won’t. She’s waiting for me. She’ll die waiting for me if I can’t figure out how to get her to detach.

Instead of dwelling on Kim, I focus on Dutch. On Amador, Bianca, and the kids. We invest in several companies that skyrocket the minute they go public, and soon we are all millionaires dozens of times over.

Amador keeps pouring money into Kim’s account. An offshore account that’s not actually in her name, but one she has access to 24/7.

It does little good. She barely takes out enough to live on, but at least she’s dipping into it now. At least there’s that.

20

My eighth year of incarceration turns out to be one of the more exciting. There is a riot. Almost. More like the beginnings of a riot, but it could’ve ended as badly as the one from the ’80s if the inmates had commandeered a control room like they planned. New Mexico has a history of violence that few states can rival, and the energy in the old prison was volatile because of it. Toxic. Too much had happened there over the centuries. Too many deaths. Too many massacres.

The land on which the new prison was built doesn’t have the violent history of the last one. It helps. But once a potential riot gets out of hand, it’s difficult to gain control again.

But me? I’m Sweden. I’m nonpartisan. I’m neutral territory. I read in my bunk while my new cellmate goes out to party. He never takes me anywhere.

I do my best to stay out of it. I really do. But when a guard—one of the good ones, not the douche bags who think they walk on water—is taken hostage, I have no choice but to step in. Either that or live with myself, and God knows that’s hard enough as it is.

I step out to see three men dragging O’Connell, the guard, toward the control room. He’s bleeding at the temple and mouth and struggling for air. Partly because of his injuries and partly because of the pepper balls that have been shot into the dayroom. Tears are streaming down all their faces, and I’m starting to feel the effects of the pepper spray as well.

One inmate holds a shiv at O’Connell’s throat. The second is wielding a wrench he stole when the rioters invaded the shop. And the third is telling him how he is going to decapitate him and use his dismembered body as a toilet. Only his words are, “I’m going to saw your head off and shit down your throat.” I was paraphrasing.

O’Connell is terrified, and for good reason. These things rarely end well. I cross the catwalk through a ticker tape parade of toilet paper, trash, shredded bedding, and the occasional mattress.

The inmates at the end of the walk grow wary. The closer I get, the more nervous they become, but adrenaline has flooded every cell in their bodies. They’ll be hard to stop. Well, harder than normal.

I lower my head as I walk forward. Glare from underneath my lashes.

They get more fidgety. The one with the shiv turns, positioning O’Connell between him and me. I curse under my breath when I realize O’Connell’s been stabbed. At least twice. Nothing that can’t be fixed, but he needs medical attention fast. I’ve learned that human bodies are much more fragile than my own. While his wounds would hardly faze me, they could be fatal to a mere mortal.

“Back off, Farrow,” the shiv wielder says, holding it out proudly like a peacock displaying his feathers.

I smile and the guy resigns himself to fighting me. But what he wants is the guard. That particular guard, and I wonder why.

He rushes me, dropping the guard in the process. O’Connell crumbles to the ground while the other two join their comrade. It takes me longer to incapacitate them than I thought it would. The adrenaline keeps them moving despite broken bones and possible skull fractures. I slam one’s head into the rail of the catwalk. He’ll live. The other I toss over it. His future is more iffy.

Now that I’ve gotten them out of the way, I dodge the leader’s shiv, grab him around the throat, look into his eyes, and search for why he hates the guard so much. It’s not a pleasant process when I scour the minds of the living. I don’t do it often.

Since he has O’Connell on the brain anyway, I find the memory easily. He’s being strip-searched, and the guard eyes him with blatant disgust. Not that I can blame him, but he tells the testy inmate that he smells like fish.

O’Connell was standing back, observing. He laughed when the guard spoke. But what Shiv failed to see was that O’Connell was not laughing at him. He was laughing at the other guard. The idiot that none of the guards liked. He was fired months ago, but Shiv never forgot the insults that were thrown at him. Some guys can hold a grudge.

Shiv’s going to hell for his malicious treatment of the elderly in his neighborhood. Clearly he never got the whole do-unto-others thing. I figure I’ll be doing the world a favor by sending him on his way a few years early.

As he pushes forward, I use his own momentum to snap his neck and send him over the catwalk as well.

I grab O’Connell and head for the control room. No one else comes after me. They know better. Even as I’m shouldering a guard, an enemy player in the game, they leave me alone.

When we get to the control room, there is a group trying to get through the glass barrier. They see me coming and part, their faces a mixture of fury and shock.

One of them itches to take me out. I can feel it. He doesn’t want to give up the game yet, but most of the men have been put in lockdown already. Those who are still roaming have absolutely zero chance of getting out. Not that they all want out. Some just want revenge. They go after other inmates who have “wronged them,” according to their demented, drug-scarred minds.

“Open the door,” I say to the guards in the booth.

They glance at each other, trying to decide what to do.

“He needs medical attention.” O’Connell slumps lower and lower at my side.

Holding him up is not a problem. Holding him up while fighting off the men who have gathered might be.

I turn to them. They all know what I’m capable of. Or they think they do. I lower the guard to the floor, then give them my full attention. I’ve decided to see this as an opportunity to make my name even more influential. Even more powerful.

Most of the inmates in Level 5 are in for murder and other violent crimes. Nobody will miss them. I take a deep breath as they close the circle around me, gaining courage from the numbers they have.

The world around me goes silent. Alarms stop blaring. Inmates stop yelling. Doors stop banging.

There are eleven. Two are almost as tall as I am. I start with the men on my left and work my way around, deciding in the span between a single heartbeat who lives and who dies. Their crimes are numerous and plentiful.

The trick is to keep them from rushing me long enough to incapacitate the majority. And like all tricks, sometimes there is a technical glitch. I throw a quick jab at the first one, hard enough to shatter every bone in his face and fracture the third and fourth vertebrae of his spine. I step in and elbow the next one, causing pretty much the same amount of damage. The third inmate wins a broken kneecap and dislocated shoulder. The fourth loses several teeth, the contents of his stomach, and a fair amount of blood. I do all that before the mob takes a single step. Trying to thin out the herd.

It doesn’t work. They jump me en masse, kicking and punching and stabbing. But the icing on the cake is inmate number 5447. He’s pulling my hair. He’s pulling my fucking hair. I snap his wrist along with a couple of necks, crack a few ribs, and relocate several noses.

By the time I’m finished, only three are dead. The worst of the worst. They deserved to die long ago, in my humble opinion. Not that either me or my opinion has ever been humble.

The rest I leave rolling on the ground in agony, their bones broken or their skulls a little shattered. All in all, it takes me seven seconds to take them down. I counted.

The guards behind the glass are standing with mouths agape.

I rest my hands on the glass, my chest heaving from exertion. “I trust you’ll have my back on this?”

They nod, too astonished to speak.

“Then open the fucking door.”

They scramble to get the control room door open and drag their downed man inside.

“Farrow,” O’Connell says through gritted teeth, “get in here. If they find out—”

I laugh softly. “If they find out, I’ll be more of a freak?”

“More of a legend,” one of the other guards says.

I tilt my head. “That works, too.”

The appreciation on O’Connell’s face is almost more than I can bear. I’m not used to such blatant gratitude. Even Dutch doesn’t show gratitude so much as bone-chilling fear when I save her life. Repeatedly. I bristle under his scrutiny. Step back as the door slides shut.

A small group of inmates wanders up and look at the carnage. They want no part of the riot, but they’ve been locked out of their cells. When they question me with a combination of wide eyes and gaping mouths, I say, “Don’t look at me,” and point to the guards behind the glass.

They turn their astonished gazes to the guards, buying me time to get back to my cell, which I inadvertently broke to save O’Connell’s ass, before the cavalry rides in.

21

I’ve been inside for almost ten years. I’ve gone through twelve cellmates. I’ve accrued enough money to buy a small country. I’ve earned another degree. No idea why other than because it was something to do.

Amador and Bianca have a great life that I’m only a little jealous of. They have two kids they bring to see me. His daughter, Ashlee, is almost five now. She has asked me to marry her when I get out. It feels kind of weird since she calls me Uncle Reyes and incest is frowned upon, but who am I to argue with true love? Stephen is still in diapers and giving them a run for their money.

Amador is worried about Kim. She doesn’t look well. I agree. Then again, she’s never looked well. I go see her often. I just don’t let her know I’m there. She barely eats enough to keep a chipmunk alive. She has become a recluse. Rarely going out. Rarely talking to anyone.

He tells me that there are Web sites dedicated to me. “You making those up yourself?”

I scowl and shake my head.

“There’s some crazy bitches out there,
cabrón
. Watch your ass.”

As much as I’m online, I’d never even thought to look, so the next time I’m on a computer, supposedly taking an online class on how to write your memoirs, I check it out. He’s right. There are fan pages dedicated to me. I shut them down in disgust. It’s like all those women who fill out applications to visit me. What the fuck for? They don’t even know me, and it’s not like we can date. I refuse them all.

But I got another postcard today. It’s the fourth one, I think. I didn’t really pay attention to them at first, but the last one I got caught my eye. They’re never signed, and they’re sent from all over New Mexico. But the last one had the words
Wish you were here
written on it. It wasn’t the writing that got my attention. It was the scent. Familiar. Sweet. Cheap. It set my mind racing.

But one thing is a given: I have to get out of prison, and I have to do it soon.

22

My new cellmate has Asperger’s. Not bad. Just enough to make him a little slower than the usual suspects. Then again, we’re in prison. Most of this population is slower than the usual suspects. The guy is huge, strong, and easily manipulated. I suspect that his cousin, who is inside as well, is the ringleader of their particular circus act. At first, they spend every second they can together. The dynamics are typical. Beau tells Jerry Lee what to do. Where to stand. Whom to hurt. And Jerry Lee follows him blindly.

Normally I stay out of that shit, but I have to put a stop to it this time. Only because I don’t need an adversary of Beau’s coming into the cell to off his cousin. I’ve been lucky so far, but I have a whole new appreciation for life and the living. Besides, Beau is a piece of shit who doesn’t deserve the air he breathes. He was slated for hell by the time he was six years old, if that tells you anything about him.

“He’ll be fine,” I tell Jerry Lee as they wheel his cousin out. “He won’t be running any marathons, but…”

Odd thing is, Jerry Lee isn’t all that upset. If I had to pinpoint his exact emotion, I’d say he was more relieved than anything.

My plan involves the shot callers of a couple gangs for whom I’ve done enough favors to warrant a favor of my own. Not that they’ll realize I’m collecting. It’ll all be over before they even know what hit them.

That night, I visit each one in their cells while they’re sleeping. I basically talk shit. Tell them the other shot callers are planning a war, and they need to get their armies ready. I do that every night for a week, until the tension in the prison is so high, you could bounce a quarter off it.

I give it one more day, one more night to plant the seeds of my plan, then instead of preventing war, I incite it. Humans are so easily manipulated. A whisper into the right ear while I’m in ghost mode, a perceived attack, and all hell breaks loose.

We’re out in the yard when it goes down. Men are glaring. Guards are watching. And then, in a split second, it begins. One group starts across the yard. They are trying to look nonchalant, but anytime a group of violent, dangerous men moves en masse, it raises a few flags.

Sirens blare from loudspeakers. Guards on the ground rush for their riot gear. Guards in the towers aim their rifles.