‘May-suun!’
One thing I’ve learned is that, channelled correctly, fear is good. It concentrates the mind, makes you physically stronger, and gives you new reserves of energy. The key is not to let it overcome you.
Pulsing with adrenalin, I ran to the top of the steps. The masked gang could only come up one at a time and the front guy was wielding a bloodied chair leg so, putting a hand on each of the rails, I launched a snap-kick at him as he came into range, putting all my force into it.
The kick was a good one. It caught him full in the chest before he could strike me with the chair leg, and he fell backwards into the guy behind him, dropping his weapon in the process.
But the guy behind pushed him out of the way and kept coming. He was ripped, hard, and a lot younger than me. Worse, he was carrying a homemade shiv with a short but wicked-looking blade, which was already bloodied. His face was partially concealed behind a mask made from a torn shirtsleeve but I could see the thick black beard poking up above it, the short curly hair and the dark eyes and, though we’d never met, I recognized him as a convicted gangland thug called Troy Ramone who was serving a life sentence for the murder of two rivals, one of whom he’d burned alive. I’ve got a good memory for killers, even ones I haven’t put away myself, and Ramone was one of the worst. He was serving a minimum term of at least thirty-five years, and he hadn’t been in here that long, so he had very little to lose if he killed a third time, and a lot to gain in terms of prestige and power.
I launched another kick as he came into range, but he was expecting it and retreated a step, so my foot fell short. He then threw himself at me, bringing up the shiv in an upward stabbing motion.
I jumped backwards out of the way, then swung my body forward into a bowing motion with arms crossed over the top of each other in front of me, slamming them down onto his forearm to block the blow. It’s an old martial arts trick that I’d practised plenty of times before, and if you do it right, it’s incredibly painful for the guy holding the knife.
It worked this time and Ramone yelped and dropped the knife as I twisted out of the way, elbowing him in the side of the head, before taking off down the corridor.
‘You fucker!’ he roared, picking up the blade and setting off after me.
I knew I hadn’t hurt him badly, not even dazed him, and had bought myself only a couple of seconds at best.
In front of me I could see two more inmates in makeshift masks racing up the wing’s central flight of steps, cutting off my escape. If there’d just been the two of them, I’d have risked taking them out, but I knew I’d never manage to get past them before Ramone and his friends caught up with me.
That only left me with one option.
I jumped over the guardrail and onto the safety netting that stretched between the balconies. As I half ran, half stumbled across it, I heard Ramone leap onto it behind me, the force of his landing causing a shockwave in the netting that sent me sprawling.
As I scrambled to my feet, I felt his presence only feet away and turned just in time to see his shiv arm sailing through the air. Instinctively I put an arm up to protect myself, and felt the searing white-hot pain as the knife cut through the flesh of my forearm. I stumbled backwards on the netting, trying to keep my balance. I could see some inmates watching from their cells – some of them cheering, as if this were a tussle in school rather than a life-and-death struggle – while the other masked inmates who were with Ramone climbed over the guardrail and came towards me like a pack of wolves.
I knew that Ramone was smiling at me behind the mask. His eyes gleamed. He had the advantage and he knew it. Blood seeped through my torn sweatshirt, dripping down onto the floor below.
Ramone lunged again and I stepped backwards out of range, conscious that the others were only feet away now, and lost my balance on the netting. I went down on my back and Ramone was on me like a puma, pinning me down. I managed to free my injured arm and grab him by the wrist of his knife arm as the shiv bore down towards my face, using all my strength to hold it at bay.
But he was stronger. He had the momentum too, and slowly the blade bore down until it was taking up my entire field of vision, although I was conscious of the other inmates gathered round in a tight circle so that no cameras could film what was happening. Someone stamped on my leg hard but I barely felt it. All I could think about was the blade.
It continued its descent bit by bit, the tip now through my skin, drawing blood. In a moment it would all be over.
And then I heard it. The sound of something ripping.
Ramone realized what was happening and hesitated, and I drove myself upwards, grabbing him round the neck and yanking him round, just as the net gave way and split. And then suddenly we were all hurtling through the air towards the next floor, except this time I was on top of Ramone.
We slammed straight into the communal area pool table which collapsed under our weight and we ended up entwined in each other’s arms on the floor while all around the bodies of the others on the net came crashing down, one missing me
