‘What?’
‘We need another decoy.’ I ran to the giggling patient’s room and went to work on the lock. Now that I knew the model it was easier to spring the catch. As soon as I opened the door a bone-skinny white guy ran out and started making circles in the middle of the corridor, singing at the top of his lungs, his shoulders heaving up and down with the effort.
‘Hey!’ I grabbed the can out of Lucas’s shaking hands and tossed it to the guy. ‘We did this hall, but you have to get the rest. Can you paint the basement?’
I opened the emergency exit and he ran through it on pale, quivering legs, tottering down the stairs and spraying a trail of paint all over the walls and himself. There was no time for the stab of regret that lanced through me. Voices came from the other direction, getting closer.
‘Get into bed.’ I pulled Lucas into his room, shutting the door behind us.
‘No!’ He struggled against the straitjacket as I tried to cover him with it.
‘Shut up! Do it now.’ I forced him back to a lying position and was tucking the handcuffs up so they didn’t dangle off the sides, just as we heard the dull thud of the main ward door opening.
‘Oh, Jesus H Christ.’ A man’s voice came from the end of the corridor. Someone else replied, but I couldn’t hear what they said. I crouched against the wall next to the door, fighting the panic that swelled in my throat.
Lucas’s breathing had sped up, which meant the NoDoz was starting to kick in and counteract the sleeping pills, but other than the quick rise and fall of his chest, he lay motionless on the bed with his eyes closed.
The guards ran past us to the end of the corridor.
‘Spray paint? Are you fucking kidding me?’
‘Radio the desk. Check the rooms. Now.’
One of them called the central monitoring station while the other’s footsteps came closer and closer, pausing at each room. Stride. Pause. Stride.
I held my breath as the feet stopped outside Lucas’s room. A flashlight’s beam shone through the window and bounced off the bed; I could see the glare of the handcuffs clearly open, the straitjacket straps hanging loosely. As noiselessly as possible, I pulled a utility knife out of my jacket pocket, waiting for the shout, for the door to spring open.
‘Here!’ The yell made me jerk and the flashlight beam disappeared as quickly as it had come, but the door didn’t open. Footsteps ran across the corridor, in the opposite direction of Lucas’s room.
‘How the hell could he have gotten out?’
‘Crazy people, man. They do crazy shit.’
‘He must have gone this way. Come on.’
They hurried back to the emergency exit and into the stairwell. As soon as the door slammed shut, I sprang up and ran to the window, opening the casement and cranking it up as high as it would go. There was enough room to fit through and barely reach the bars.
‘The bed.’
Lucas and I dragged it under the window and I jumped on top, retrieving the hacksaw from the bag and starting to saw the middle bar, putting every ounce of muscle into my dad’s diamond tipped blade. Before I’d finished four strokes, Lucas’s arms appeared on either side of me and he gripped the handle, adding his strength to mine. I felt him brace his feet wide as he leaned against me for support.
‘Is this . . . going . . . to work?’ he asked in my ear as we frantically sawed through the bar.
‘Diamond . . . beats . . . rebar.’ I puffed as we broke through the other side. I repositioned the saw at the top of the bar – a harder angle because of the window – but we barely got halfway through before more footsteps thundered through the stairwell.
‘Shhh.’ I stilled our arms and we waited, catching our breath while more guards burst into the ward and examined the spray paint damage not thirty feet away from us. All they had to do was shine a flashlight into this room and it would be over. Hear a noise. Take ten steps this way and send up an alarm that would condemn Lucas to this cell and send me to jail. I felt Lucas’s heart race against my back as we stood, frozen.
Just as one of them started to come closer, they got a call over the radio. It was too muffled to hear, but they immediately headed back into the stairwell and the ward was quiet again. Lucas and I whipped back to the window and sawed as hard and as fast as we could. We hadn’t taken more than a few strokes when a light hit the side of my mask.
‘Hey!’ A guard – who must have stayed behind when the rest of them left – pointed a flashlight through the door. He tried the knob, but I’d shut it fully, engaging the lock again.
‘Central station, I’ve got an escape attempt in ward four. I repeat, ward four, room six. Need immediate backup both inside and out.’ His shouted instructions grew disjointed as he ran down the corridor toward the main desk, probably to unlock some emergency keys.
There wasn’t time to saw through the whole thing. I tossed the blade and pushed the partially detached bar as hard as I could to one side. The metal screeched as it slowly opened a hole large enough to squeeze through. The guard returned, still yelling for backup as he stuffed key after key in the lock.
I shrugged off the backpack and shoved it through the opening, hearing it drop on the ground below. Then I turned to Lucas.
‘You first.’
His glance shot to the door. ‘Maya—’
‘Go! Now! There’s a rope on the fence straight ahead through the trees.’ I braced my stance and lifted his leg.
He started to climb up, pulling himself to the ledge. ‘But, Maya—’
‘Watch your landing.’
I pushed him forward until he fell, vanishing from the window so suddenly and completely that for a second I couldn’t move. He was out. I had gotten him out.
The doorknob turned and footsteps rushed into the room. I pivoted on top of the bed and kicked instinctually, catching the guard straight in the throat. He stumbled and I grabbed one of the window bars, hiking myself up and through as a flood of victory, of total confidence, coursed through my body. I had almost cleared the sawed-off bar – could see Lucas’s shadow hunched below, waiting for me – when two hands grabbed my boot and pulled me sharply back and down.
I screamed as the jagged stump of rebar tore through my jacket and gouged deep.
‘Where do you think you’re going, you—’
He didn’t get any farther before my other foot smashed into his face, sending him toppling off the bed, into the desk, and landing hard on the floor. Ignoring the pain, I pulled myself through the opening and dangled from the ledge before dropping to the ground. At least this time I didn’t sprain my ankle. I didn’t see any flashlights in the grounds yet, but voices shouted near the front of the building. Lucas’s hand reached through the darkness, finding mine. He pulled me up and we moved as fast as we could toward the rows of evergreens. His gait was unsure and I began slowing as pain wrapped my middle in a wicked vise grip, hobbling me. Suddenly a light illuminated us from behind and I looked back to see it was coming from Lucas’s window. The same guard I’d just kicked in the face yelled, ‘Over here! Into the woods!’
More lights bounced around the side of the building, followed by three guards sprinting toward us as the flashlight beam stayed trained on our backs. We disappeared into the trees fifty yards ahead of them and darted through the rows, running on pure adrenaline, breath pumping and feet driving hard into the shadows.
‘There,’ I whispered, stumbling out of the far side of the woods at the exact spot where the rope was tied to the fence. ‘You first. Don’t argue.’
He hoisted himself easily. He was becoming more lucid by the second, temporarily winning the drug war I’d waged in his veins. He dropped lightly to the ground on the other side, wearing the backpack. I grabbed the highest knot I could reach and tried to lift myself up, which made pain shriek through my body and tore a groan from my throat.
‘What is it? What’s wrong?’
He reached through the fence, searching for the wound.