Total pages in book: 154
Estimated words: 148220 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 741(@200wpm)___ 593(@250wpm)___ 494(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 148220 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 741(@200wpm)___ 593(@250wpm)___ 494(@300wpm)
“Was she?”
“No.”
Victor’s lean face hardens. His gaze shoots to Tango, who emerges from Lissa’s stall and announces, “She’s not in there.”
I only have a second to catch Matt’s gaze and see a gleam of realization, because he knows all about Lissa’s hookups with Bravo and the escape plan. Then Victor grabs my elbow and marches away from Matt’s stall, hauling me along with him.
The abrupt movement jostles the tray in my hands. Fighting for balance, I manage to keep the pills from spilling—then realize I’m not being steered toward my room. I assumed that I’d be tossed in there and Victor would put the entire compound on lockdown while they search for Lissa. Instead he heads down the aisle toward the barn’s entrance, and I struggle to keep up with his pace, my heels clicking rapidly on the concrete.
Through clenched teeth, he tells me, “If something like this happens again, Cherry, you damn well better tell me straight away.”
I’m not sure if “something like this” refers to Lissa going missing or Bravo entering my stall, but either way, I have no intention of following that order. Sometimes it seems as if the guards believe we’re on the same team. Maybe because I take such good care of the fighters, getting them ready for the Cage, which helps Papa succeed. But none of it is for Papa’s sake. The healthier my brother is, the stronger he is, the more likely he is to survive the Cage—and the more likely all the fighters I look after will survive. At least until we’re found or until we break out of here. And if the only way to escape is by killing every last guard, I’d help them do it.
So I’m not on the guards’ side. I never will be. By threatening Matt’s life, Papa might be able to force obedience from me, but he can’t force loyalty.
I’m not stupid, though, so that’s not what I tell Victor. Instead I say, “I assumed Bravo already reported it to you.”
Because Bravo should have. And that reminder puts Victor’s anger where it belongs. His lips thin into a white line before he orders Tango to take another guard with him and to locate Bravo.
We pass Handlebar’s stall. The bearded biker hasn’t yet moved to the center of his cell. Instead he’s still sitting on the edge of his bunk and slowly pulling on his sweats, his tattooed torso mottled by bruises from his last round in the Cage. His head jerks up as we go by, and I catch a glimpse of his frown—his eyebrows drawing low and shadowing his eyes, as if he’s thinking there can’t be any good reason that Victor is hurrying me past the fighters without stopping to give them their morning health check. But if Lissa’s free, it’s a very good reason. I flash him a reassuring smile before Victor drags me out of his sight, and then there’s nothing ahead but Tusk’s stall and the guards’ break room with its mini-kitchen. So I’ll probably be locked in there, performing Lissa’s usual task of heating up the fighters’ breakfasts while the guards search the compound.
But I’m wrong again. Instead of dragging me into the break room, Victor pulls me into the converted stall across the aisle from it.
The control booth. Lissa and I are never allowed in here...probably to prevent exactly what I’m doing now. My gaze skitters around the room, trying to take in everything—the security station’s layout, the bank of monitors, the door-release panel—before I slow down and really look, just as Matt said I should if this opportunity ever came.
No weapons are lying around, unsecured. And I don’t see any gun lockers that can be broken into. Which means stealing a stun gun off a guard is the best bet if the fighters ever try to arm themselves.
Instead of steel bars, a solid wall separates the control booth from the corridor that runs through the center of the barn, with a reinforced door as the entrance—probably so the attending guard can secure himself inside if the fighters break out. But that also means the guard in the control booth doesn’t have a view into the barn and the fighters’ stalls, except on the video monitors.
Oh, and there are so many blind spots. A half dozen cameras are mounted on each side of the aisle, and the way the camera angles crisscrossed, I thought for certain that they could see inside the stalls. But they can’t. The aisle is covered from all angles. A fighter couldn’t leave his stall without being seen. Yet within the stalls, the corners and the entire floor are hidden from the cameras’ sights.
That’s good to know. That’s so good to know. If the attending guard can’t see a fighter in his stall, it won’t raise an alarm—because the guards can’t see most of the fighters on the monitors, even now. Only the ones who are standing near the bars are visible.