Officer MacArthur appears outside my door with a scowl on his leathery face and the scent of cheap whiskey emanating from his pores.
“Parker,” he snaps, addressing me like I’m one of his soldiers.
But I don’t fucking salute.
“That’s me,” I deadpan, tucking my hands behind my head.
“I’m here to take you to the showers. The governor insists on the accused looking decent for the Green Mile.”
“Did you pull the short straw or somethin’?” I ask. “Why isn’t Elliott or Hoyt takin’ me?”
“That’s Officer Elliott and Officer Hoyt to you, son,” he growls. “And I’ll be taking you because the accused tend to get a little aggressive at this point in their sentence.”
“Ah,” I say, sitting up with a stretch. “So you’re the muscle, huh?”
“Step over to the door and place your hands through the bars.”
I do as he said, my movements as slow and despondent as a caged lion’s.
He clamps a pair of handcuffs around my wrists as tight as they’ll go before saying, “Now, stick your feet out, one at a time.”
I do that, too, watching for signs of intimidation or fear. He’s not shaking, not nervous. But he’s shackling me just as tightly as he cuffed me, which tells me I haven’t fully convinced him of my apathy.
I wait for him to unlock my door and marvel at how clear-eyed he seems for somebody who smells like the bottom of a bottle of Jim Beam.
“You former military?” I ask as he guides me by the bicep into the hall.
He grumbles in response but eventually spits out, “Army. Special Forces.”
“No shit? That’s pretty badass, man. Were you, like, a paratrooper or something?”
“Sniper,” he mutters under his breath.
Sniper. My fists flex, and blood surges to my extremities. There’s only one thing they need a sniper for around here.
We walk past an open office door, and the image of my own face stops me in my tracks. There’s a monitor above the desk broadcasting the interview Rain did earlier. I watch myself lean against the bars, orange polyester from the neck down, poorly masked shock and awe from the neck up. The back of Rain’s head and a sliver of the side of her face are visible on the screen. I want to reach out and run my fingers through her slicked-back black hair as she stutters and stumbles over her first question to me.
“Mr. Parker—”
“Please, call me Wes.”
“Wes … how are you? I mean, in here. How are you holding up in here?”
My throat tightens at the sound of her shaky voice. On camera, she looks fucking amazing, but from where I was standing, she was all teary eyes and trembling hands.
And red fucking lips.
“How am I? I’m … I’m better than I was a few minutes ago.”
Mac coughs out a laugh and claps me on the shoulder. “Pretty smooth, boy. That replacement they got for Michelle Ling was a stone-cold fox, wasn’t she?” He tugs me by the arm down the hall, coughing and chuckling and coughing some more.
I grind my teeth and try to concentrate on keeping my breathing even. I want to put my fist through the guy’s face, but I can’t let him see me sweat.
I try to figure out an angle as we turn down the next hallway and stop in front of the cabinet where they keep the soap and towels. I can’t play on his guilty conscience like Hoyt because this dude is literally a trained killer. I can’t play to his vanity like Elliott because … fucking look at him. But maybe, since he’s a military guy, I can appeal to his sense of justice. Make him see that what they’re doing here is wrong.
That what he’s doing is wrong.
“Michelle Ling looked pretty roughed up, huh? I wonder what happened to her.”
“Probably got jumped by a meth-head or a Bony.” Mac shrugs, pulling a towel out of the cabinet and draping it over his arm.
“That has to be hard for a guy like you … seeing all that crime happening right outside your door and not being able to do anything about it.”
Mac grabs a nondescript white bottle, which I assume has some kind of shampoo in it, and closes the cabinet. “It’s not a crime if it’s legal,” he mutters, but there’s no conviction in his voice. It sounds rehearsed, like it’s just something he tells himself so he can sleep at night.
Mac pulls open the shower room door without looking at me, and I walk in without being asked.
After setting the towel on a hook next to one of the open shower stalls, Mac puts the shampoo bottle on a shelf inside and turns on the faucet. The pipes are rusty and exposed, and they rattle and hiss louder than an oncoming earthquake.
Good.
“Just because it’s legal doesn’t make it right,” I say as Mac bends down to take off my shackles. “Attacking an innocent woman? Robbery? Rape? Isn’t that why you got into this job in the first place? To protect the good guys and punish the bad guys?”
“I don’t make the rules,” Mac snaps, obviously annoyed with my line of questioning. “I just enforce ’em.”
The shackles clatter to the ground as Mac stands, pressing a hand to the small of his back as his knees and random other joints snap, crackle, and pop.
“That’s apparent.” I snort, holding my wrists out for him to uncuff next. “The bad guys are literally getting away with murder while you’re busy shooting good guys in the head on live TV.”
Mac’s eyes slam up to mine the moment the second cuff falls free.
“Yeah, I know you’re the executioner. I figured it out as soon as you said you were a sniper. But it’s cool, man. You’re just doing what you gotta do, right?” I unzip my jumpsuit, pausing when I get to the sharpened toothbrush stashed in the waistband of my boxers. “And so am I.”
Grabbing the shiv, I catch Mac completely off guard as I plunge it into the side of his neck, using my left arm to block him from going for his gun. He yells in pain, but the thumps and rattles and hissing and splashing from the shower muffle his cry.
Mac goes for his gun with his left hand as I struggle with his right, but the awkward cross-body reach doesn’t allow him to flip the snap to unlock the weapon from his holster. Doing some kind of spin move, he twists out of my hold, but I grab his billy club and duck the second he gets a hand on his gun. When Mac spins around to shoot, I bash him in the kneecap with it, sending him to the floor. I grab the hand holding the gun on his way down and try to pry his fingers off by pulling his trigger finger back as far as it will go. He yells in pain and punches me in the side of the head with his free hand. Repeatedly. I feel his arthritic knuckles crunch against my skull. I shift my weight and curl around the hand holding the gun so that he can only punch me in the back now. Then, I bite his thumb and pull backward on his finger as hard as I fucking can until the gun falls free. We both scramble for it, sending it sliding across the tile floor.
“Shit,” I hiss right before Mac rears back and clocks me right in the jaw.
I see spots as I reach into the shower for the dropped billy club and crack him over the head with it. Instead of knocking him out, Mac’s eyes glaze over with rage, and he attacks me with everything he’s got.
Fists rain down on me as I back up into the scalding hot spray of the shower. I try to block his swings with one hand while using the other one to swing and stab at him with the club. I can’t connect with anything other than his sides and shoulders, so I change tactics and shove the club up under his chin, pushing until he can’t breathe and is forced to let go of me. The second he does, we both scramble for the gun again, and again it turns into a bloodbath. My ribs crack under his fists. His nose breaks against my palm. My elbow drops into his gut. His knee comes up to meet mine. What I have on Mac by way of youth and agility, he more than makes up for with skill. We are nothing but sopping wet fists and teeth and adrenaline and fear. But I have something Mac doesn’t have.