Caxton swiveled her head from side to side. “No. Please. Just give me a chance to explain. They’re not going to stop trying to get through that door. They’ll bring down cutting equipment and they’ll get through. On your own you might stop the first wave, but they’ll send more of those things. And if that doesn’t work, Malvern will come herself. She’s weak, for a vampire, but that doesn’t mean much. She’ll have fed—a lot—and regained enough strength that you won’t stand a chance against her. I know how to kill her, but it’s not something I can teach you in the time we have. We—”
She stopped speaking, because suddenly the floor was moving underneath her. Or—no. That wasn’t it. She was moving along the floor. She was being dragged by her heels across the rough cement. Her head bounced painfully and she tried to hold it up. She could just see Harelip pulling her along. Then the female CO bent down and picked Caxton up and slung her over one shoulder. Harelip grunted with the effort, but she managed to get Caxton inside her cell. She dumped Caxton on Gert’s bunk—Caxton saw the pictures of Gert’s babies directly across from her face.
She struggled to get back full control of her body, but it was still fighting her. She managed to flop off of the bunk and get up on one knee—-just in time to see the cell door close in front of her, and hear the metallic thunk as the mechanical lock was engaged.
No, she screamed, inside her head. No!
She grabbed at the padding on the door and pulled and tugged at it, but it was designed to resist tearing and she could barely get a handhold. She slammed herself against the door, over and over again, knowing full well she would never manage to get through it.
Eventually she calmed down. There had to be something she could do. There had to be a way to communicate with Harelip. She stared out through the window in the door, but there was nothing to see out there except for the bodies of the dead prisoners and the crushed arm of the half-dead. Harelip was nowhere in sight.
She could hear something, though.
It sounded like someone was having trouble swallowing.
Like they were gagging on a piece of gristly food. Caxton couldn’t quite figure it out. She pressed her face up against the glass, trying to get a better view, but she couldn’t see anything. Eventually she gave up and started pacing back and forth in the cell. The sound went away. It had never been very loud—maybe it wasn’t even something happening in the SHU, she decided. Maybe it was just water flowing through pipes in the walls.
She was still pacing, clutching herself for comfort, when the door opened again.
Caxton whirled around in shock. She hadn’t had a chance to prepare herself. What if someone was coming to kill her?
The figure that appeared in the doorway was covered in blood. It was clutching the serrated hunting knife, and it was wearing a blue stab-proof vest. But the vest had been strapped on over the orange jumpsuit of a prisoner.
The face was wracked by a grimace of pure madness. It took Caxton a long time to realize that she recognized it. First she had to consider a fact that hadn’t yet gripped her: Gert wasn’t in the cell. She hadn’t been inside when Harelip dragged Caxton in.
Gert had been busy, apparently. She must have sneaked out of the cell while Caxton and Harelip were wrestling with the SHU’s main door. She must have found her way to the cell where Caxton had fought the half-dead, and found the knife there.
Now—she had found a use for it.
“Where’s the CO?” Caxton demanded, even though she knew perfectly well.
“I told you I could be useful,” Gert said, and stepped inside.
18.
Oh God, no,” Caxton said, and put a hand over her mouth. Gert had—had killed Harelip. She stepped outside of the cell and saw the CO’s body shoved up against one wall. A pool of blood glistened around her, staining her blue uniform and slicking across her throat and lower face.
“You shouldn’t have done this,” she moaned. “This was the last thing you should have done!”
Gert came up behind Caxton and grabbed her shoulders. She started to knead them until Caxton jumped away from her.
“She was jamming you up,” Gert said. “Even after you saved her ass. Don’t tell me you ain’t grateful. I could have let you rot in that cell, girl! I could have kept my head down, played nice. Instead I gave you a chance to survive, right?”