who could say that and not blush. He’d never thought he’d need it, but as a lifelong geek, he’d sort of enjoyed it. Now all he had to do was remember it.
Each door required a lengthy series of keystrokes, beginning with the individual door identifier, followed by command codes. His fingers flew as he tried to enter the number for the air lock between the central security area and A-Wing, the men’s cell block, but when he hit ENTER and saw the RECEIVING AREA icon go green, he realized that he’d fat-fingered the door identifier and opened the wrong one. He spat a curse under his breath.
He settled himself. At least it was one door open. He started on the next.
And then the RECEIVING icon went red again.
Jesus, he was fighting an active enemy live! Someone was undoing every command.
Venice typed in the code to lock all the doors simultaneously. It would undo the progress that the guard was making and also buy time for her to find her cheat sheet with the doorway codes on it.
From the way the guard cursed when the lock turned green, she knew he’d made a mistake, and that now he’d be working on a more useful door. If he got his guards loose before she got her boss loose, this was going to get very ugly.
She found the crib notes on the far right-hand side of her desk and snatched them up. But she’d fallen too far behind in the race. The guard had such a head start that she’d never win without cheating. She once again entered the code to lock all the doors, but she waited to push the ENTER key until she saw the icon for the main administrative office shift to green.
The instant it did, she made it turn red again.
The guard slammed his fist. “Who the hell are you?”
CHAPTER SEVEN
Jeremy Schuler squinted against the light, bright enough to backlight the tiny blood vessels through his closed eyelids. He tried to roll away, but the light followed. “Quit it,” he tried to say, but his vocal cords were still sleeping, so it came out as a meaningless groan.
A thick hand clenched itself over his mouth. “Make a sound and I’ll cut out your eyes,” a hoarse voice growled from very close to his face. The man smelled of garlic and cigarette smoke. “Do you understand me?”
The pressure from the hand cut off all air, making it impossible for him to answer. He must have nodded, because the pressure eased.
“What’s your name?” the man hissed.
“Jeremy,” he wheezed. He coughed to clear the block in his throat and tried it again. “Jeremy Schuler.” There was a sound of tearing fabric to his right, and a quick glimpse revealed three men clustered by his roommate Anthony’s bed. The other boy was bucking and trying to yell, but it sounded like his mouth was full. After the sound of a hard smack, the kicking and the noise stopped.
“Look at me,” the voice said.
Jeremy squinted back into the light.
“Don’t you look at them. Keep your eyes front. How old are you?”
Jeremy felt himself trembling, his whole body vibrating with an involuntary tremor that wouldn’t stop. “Th- thirteen,” he stammered.
“Well, Jeremy Schuler, if you want to see thirteen and a half, you do everything we say, understand?”
Jeremy nodded.
“Say it.”
“I’ll do everything you say.”
“You’re a smart boy.”
The ripping sound from Anthony’s side of the room stopped, and the men left that bed to surround Jeremy’s. “We’re set,” one of them said.
The flashlight shifted from Jeremy’s eyes to Anthony’s bed. It looked like they’d mummified him with strips of duct tape. The light returned, once again gouging Jeremy’s retinas. “Stand up,” his attacker said, stripping off the sheet and blanket. “Get out of bed.”
It was only a couple layers of fabric, but somehow that cover felt like protection. Now he was so terribly exposed. He drew himself up into a ball.
The hesitation pissed off the attacker, who grabbed Jeremy’s arm and pulled him off the bed and dumped him in a heap on the floor. “I said get up.”
Jeremy found his feet and rose to his full height, adjusting his pajamas as he stood. At Resurrection House, everyone wore the same light blue pajamas with dark blue piping-like something out of a Leave It to Beaver rerun.
“Don’t cross me, kid,” the attacker said. “Killing you wouldn’t bother me a bit.”
Jeremy nodded. And trembled harder. His head still felt fuzzy from sleep, giving him hope that maybe this was just a very real, very bad nightmare that would set a new standard for nightmares everywhere.
“Do you know Evan Guinn?” Garlic Breath asked.
Jeremy nodded again. “Yes.” Then as a self-preserving afterthought: “Sir.”
“Do you know where his room is?”
“What did he do?” A lightbulb popped behind his eyes when a slap he never saw connected with his cheek. He smelled blood inside his head. A moment later, it was trickling down his lip onto his chin. “Yes,” he said. “I know where his room is.”
His upper arm disappeared into Garlic Breath’s fist as he was nearly lifted off the floor. “Take us there,” the man said. He stuck out a finger so close that the boy couldn’t focus on it. “And don’t make a sound.”
Jeremy sniffed and nodded emphatically. The sniff brought a mouthful of blood.
Evan Guinn lived with Zaiem Ahmed, six or seven doors down the hall to the right, on the opposite side from Jeremy and Anthony’s room. Both of them were losers. Between the two of them, they had no friends other than each other. Too damn smart, and too ready to let everybody else know it.
Jeremy led the way into the hall. It was shocking how quietly they moved as a group. No one’s shoes even squeaked on the gleaming tiles, though Jeremy was keenly aware of his own blood trail. He could hear Mr. Stewart grumbling already as he had to wipe it up in the morning.
One of the men darted ahead and used a key to open Evan’s door-just a crack at first, and then wide enough for two men to slip into the darkness on the other side. Jeremy briefly heard a bed skid along the floor, and then the sounds of a struggle. Before he could figure out the details, Garlic Breath lifted him by his biceps and pulled him away from the door.
When they got to the fire door at the end of the hall, they stopped abruptly. “What’s through this door?” Garlic Breath asked, pointing toward the far end.
Jeremy answered quickly. He was learning. “The girls’ wing. But it’s alarmed.”
What was he doing? Why did he warn them? If they set off the alarm, maybe these guys would run. But the reaction to warn was instinctive-visceral.
“Does it lead outside?”
Jeremy shook his head. “I don’t know. I’ve never been there.”
A man boomed from behind them, “What’s going on here?”
Without looking, Jeremy recognized the deep rumble of Mr. Stewart’s voice. They turned together and there he was, a blue-black mountain of a man. The face that normally radiated with cheer-especially when he saw Jeremy-was twisted into a frightening scowl that warned of danger to anyone within reach. Jeremy was surprised to see that Mr. Stewart wore the same dorky blue pajamas as the boys did.
One of the men who had wrapped Anthony in duct tape produced a pistol from someplace. “Mind your own business,” he warned.
If the gun frightened Mr. Stewart, his face didn’t show it. If anything, his eyes set even harder. “None of you belong here,” he growled.
“Yet here we are,” Garlic Breath said. Then, in the same tone you’d expect from someone asking to pass the salt, he added, “Shoot him.”
