Kyle fought when Cyrus pulled him from the closet where the nurse had been shoved while he was unconscious. Cyrus laughed and used the metal sheet to slice through Kyle’s Achilles tendons. Macmillan flipped Kyle onto his stomach and began the process again.
Startling him, he heard a loud whistle from the phone. Still staring at the bastard, he picked it up and listened. “Doc, we’re ready to breach. Distract him.”
Jeremiah stood away from the wall and walked to the door. He knocked on the window.
Cyrus popped up from his work and looked over his shoulder. He smiled widely. “Doctor! How wonderful of you to join me!” Cyrus stood and looked down at the blood that soaked his body. “A glorious day, isn’t it?”
Jeremiah crooked his finger in a beckoning motion. Cyrus damn near skipped to the door. “Do you want to see better? Should I pull him down here?”
Jeremiah shook his head.
Cyrus frowned in confusion. “What do you want then? I’m a busy man.”
“Nothing.” He spoke for the first time in ten hours, and the word grated as if the insignificance of its utterance lived at a cellular level.
The back hall door blew off its hinges and a storm of armored men flooded the hall. Cyrus gave them a cursory look before he turned around and stared directly at Jeremiah. “I didn’t want these two, but I want you and Agent Docker. You will be mine, Doctor. Remember what you see, what you will feel when I peel the skin off your body. I will bathe in your blood. Then I will pull your intestines out and choke you with them.”
Jeremiah watched as they hauled Cyrus through the flow of blood. The heavy doors muffled his maniacal laughter, but Jeremiah heard it. Several men swarmed in and placed Kyle and the woman on stretchers. A guard jogged to the door. “We’ve got to clear two more areas, Doc. We’ll be back for you.”
He nodded and turned around, going back to his office. With care, he picked up his phone and put the receiver back on the cradle and placed it on his desk. A sense of detachment settled on him. He sat down in his chair with the distinct purpose of looking up the woman’s name. Ellen Daily. He’d never forget her name or any of her screams. If he lived a thousand years, he’d be able to recall in finite detail what that bastard had done to her and to Kyle. He pulled out a few pages of paper and wrote exactly what had transpired. Every detail. When a guard knocked on his door, he lifted his eyes.
“Doc, we got to get you out of here now.”
Jeremiah nodded and lifted the paper. The first ten pages were his account of what happened. The last was his resignation. He signed them both. “You okay, Doc?” The guard asked as he approached his door.
Jeremiah blinked at the young man. “No. I am not.” Exiting his office, he and the guard walked to the main door which worked when he presented his ID. A police officer stopped him. Without missing a beat, he handed the ten-page statement to the officer along with his business card. “My contact information if you have any further questions.”
His boss, the deputy warden, rushed toward him. “Jeremiah, I don’t know how to apologize––”
He held up his hand, a weird sense of displacement still driving his actions. “I tender my resignation.” He handed the stunned woman his letter, ending his contract with the penitentiary.
“I’m not accepting it. Not right now. Call me in a few weeks. Take some time to consider this. Please.”
Jeremiah stared at the woman and nodded because he wasn’t capable of higher thinking. Now that he was out of his office, his one and only goal was leaving the prison and never, ever setting foot inside one again. He went through the motions of gathering his gear before he turned and handed his badge to the security checkpoint. “I won’t be needing these any longer.” He dropped his badges off and walked out of the door. The slap of hot air replaced the smell of the prison. The sound of an ambulance siren turned his head. He watched as not one but two ambulances tore out of the parking lot. How many had died or been injured today? What caused the riot? How had Cyrus roamed the prison without chains or shackles? Jeremiah’s eyes swept the thirty-foot fences and the strands of Constantia wire, the