news. I know you and Laura Caxton are old friends, and I thought you’d like to know I just ran into her.”

Clara’s heart sped up. She made a point of not staring at the phone with wide eyes, not wanting to give away her excitement.

“She didn’t kill you, I see,” Guilty Jen replied. “I knew she was weak.”

“She might have, but I’m more slick than you give me credit for. Anyway, I left her heading down to the Hub. You know where the Hub is, don’t you, Jen? It can be reached easily from anywhere in the prison. Wherever you’re holed up, for instance, can’t be more than a few minutes away from there. All the doors between you and the Hub are open, by the way. Not that you have any reason to go down there, of course.”

“That’s right,” Jen said. “You’re not going to catch me out like a sucker. I’m not going down there just so you can ambush us and get your hostage back. What do you take me for, an idiot? Anyway, Caxton’ll be dead in an hour. When the vampire wakes up, she’ll suck her blood.”

“Are you so sure of that, Jen? You’ve never actually met Miss Malvern, have you? I have. I’ve spent quite a bit of time with her, actually. Enough to know she appreciates a nice ironic turn of events. She doesn’t want to kill Caxton. She wants to turn her out. You know, make her a vampire.”

“Bullshit.”

The warden was silent for a moment. “You can believe what you want. But I want to remind you of something. The first time you met Caxton, when you jumped her in the kitchens— she didn’t kill any of your set in that fight. She didn’t want a murder rap on her jacket. Even pulling her punches, though, she managed to make mincemeat out of every one of your girls.”

“If your hogs hadn’t come in before I had a chance, I would have—”

“You might have taken her, I know. You’re a real hard case, I get it. But when she’s a vampire, she’ll be ten times as strong and tougher than you can imagine. And she won’t have a single compunction left when it comes to killing worthless scum like you and yours. Just a thought I wanted to share.”

Every pair of eyes in the room was staring at the phone. Slowly, as each brain worked through what had just happened, the eyes turned toward Guilty Jen.

Clara knew what the sociopath was thinking. It might as well be written on her face. Laura Caxton had made a fool of her. She had disrespected Jen in a way that could not be forgiven. Under the very strange code of ethics that Jen followed, that meant Laura Caxton had to die. It would be preferable if she could die at Guilty Jen’s hands, but if Malvern wanted to shred her to pieces in a very painful way, that would have been enough.

If Malvern had different plans for her, though—if she wanted to make her stronger, more dangerous, and nearly bulletproof—

At the best, Guilty Jen would never get her revenge. At the worst, she would have a merciless bloodsucker dogging her trail for the rest of her life, which wouldn’t be a very long time.

“Stop looking at me, Featherwood,” Jen said. She chewed on her lower lip.

“Sorry, Jen,” Featherwood stammered, looking away.

“I don’t like being stared at.”

Featherwood shook her head. Clara wasn’t sure, but she thought the burned girl looked scared of something. “I’m not, I swear I’m not looking at—”

Guilty Jen hit the white girl hard enough to knock her halfway across the room. Featherwood’s head bounced off the wall and she slid down into a heap, but Guilty Jen was already on top of her, punching her again and again in the stomach.

Queenie and Maricon grabbed at her shoulders and tried to haul her away. For a while Guilty Jen fought them off, still punching her underling over and over, but eventually she let them pull her clear.

Featherwood sat up very slowly. She was bleeding from her mouth and she couldn’t seem to catch her breath. She looked down at the floor and wouldn’t lift her head, even when Guilty Jen said, “You got something to say?”

With a clearly painful effort, Featherwood gathered herself together enough to wheeze, “I’m sorry, Jen. I shouldn’t have looked at you like that, I—I’m sorry.”

“It’s alright,” Guilty Jen said. “Don’t do it again.”

“That’s good, keep your people in line,” the warden said, and Clara jumped at the sound of her voice. She hadn’t realized the BlackBerry was still transmitting. “You’ll need them all if you’re going to take down Caxton.”

“Shut up, bitch,” Jen said, and grabbed up the PDA. “Did I not tell you, I’m not dealing with you?”

“Fine. Be that way. I have to go now, Jen. Good luck.” The warden ended the call abruptly.

Guilty Jen growled and shoved the BlackBerry into her pocket. “I’ve made my decision,” she said, “but it’s got nothing to do with what that dried-up old twat wants. This is about what I want, and that’s what—”

A sudden noise interrupted her. The sound of a gunshot, coming from quite nearby.

“What the hell was that?” Marty asked. Then he turned his face away as Guilty Jen stormed toward him. She didn’t bother to hit him—maybe all she’d wanted was to see him flinch.

“It don’t matter what that was,” Guilty Jen said. She glanced around the room, staring long and hard at Marty and at Clara. “Alright,” she said, “pack up. We’re moving out.”

46.

For a while it was all Clara could do to stay on her feet. Queenie was dragging her along by one arm and didn’t mind twisting it whenever Clara stumbled or slowed down, even for a second.

Guilty Jen’s set moved quickly and silently. She’d trained them well. They had their marching orders—follow Jen—and they didn’t need additional supervision. Clara shuddered to think what they would be capable of if they did manage to escape from the prison. She was a cop, of sorts. Enough to know that a cop’s worst nightmare is not some raving killer on the loose or a drugged-out maniac with a machine gun. It was a well-organized group of criminals with a leader smart enough to know exactly how to operate on the wrong side of the law and get away with it. A killer on a rampage could do a lot of damage in one night before he was inevitably gunned down, but a smart gang could do immeasurable amounts of harm over a period of years before they were caught.

When she managed to get her feet properly under her and match her stride with Queenie’s, she knew what her next duty was. “You’re making a mistake,” she said, calling out to Guilty Jen, knowing she was asking for trouble. She needed to do something, though, needed to make a case for Laura no matter how pointless it seemed. “You’re letting the warden lead you around by the nose. Do you really think she has your best interests at heart? And killing Caxton won’t gain you anything right now. It won’t get you out of here any—”

The set stopped instantly as Guilty Jen froze in front of a doorway. Slowly she turned and glared at Clara. “I’m the only thing keeping you alive right now,” she said. “It would be easier, and safer, to kill you, got it? I’m about ninety-eight percent ready to do it with my bare hands. I’m not at one hundred percent because there just might come a time in the next couple of minutes when you’ll be useful to me alive. The thing of it is, it don’t matter much if you’re alive and able to walk, or just alive. I know exactly how to kick you in the back so that your spinal cord would snap. You believe me?”

Clara nodded. She couldn’t have spoken at that moment if her life had depended on it. She was pretty sure her life depended on not speaking, which was fortunate.

“I can leave you in a wheelchair for the rest of your life, and it’ll only take me about ten seconds to do it. Queenie, Feather-wood, and Maricon could carry you from here—you ain’t that heavy. Caxton would still want you, even if you were a useless cripple. Now, we’ll move a little faster with you on your own feet, so I’m giving you one more chance. But you say another word and we’ll take a nice little ten-second pit stop. Okay?”

Clara nodded again.

“Good. Move, now.” Guilty Jen pulled open the door in front of her and they flowed out into the yard. Clara was shocked by how dark it seemed. The sun was still above the horizon, but it was below the level of the prison’s

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