Fluorescence: The Complete Tetralogy (82 page)

Officer Kenneth slammed the metal cell door closed behind her and scowled at me as the doctor walked past him.

“Damn it!” I slammed a fist against the metal bars and recoiled from the shooting pain ripping through my bones. A glimmer of gold beamed from beneath my shirt and I quickly turned away from the hall and brought my arms in close to my chest to shield the light from view.

My bracelet…

The heat of my light made the bangle warm around my wrist. Maybe, just maybe I could use it to escape.

I scooted over to the bars and looked out. No one was in the hall and the guard at the front wasn’t close enough to see what I was doing from his post. I returned to my bunk and shook out my hands.

“Okay. Come on,” I whispered. “You can do this again. You want to see Lucy, right?” I clenched my fists and tried to summon my light, using the pain from a moment ago as a
catalyst to aggravate the fluorescence. My hand came up and
I parted my fingers just as I’d seen Judas and Solus do. The light in me grew brighter. Hotter. It sparked and crackled
beneath my veins and skittered down my wrist until it crashed
into the bangle and…

“Ah! Shit!” I jolted and slammed my back into the concrete
wall. A line of black raised skin sizzled across my wrist. “Shit!” I tried to shake it off, but the searing pain wouldn’t fade. Damn. The energy burned the hell out of me.

It had worked earlier though. Maybe the taser had shorted
the thing out.

So that option was off the table.

For now.

I flopped onto my bunk and dropped my head back against
the cell wall. Would I be in for the long haul this time?

Once ballistic reports came back on my gun… I was screwed.
Guns and cars were a passion. I got my hands on a rare gun because I wanted something uniquely mine, but being
cocky like that only makes it easier to trace the bullet striations
when you end up having to use it.

Striations—rifling impressions—are tiny, scratches inside
the barrel of the gun that get imprinted on the bullet casing when it’s fired. Think of it as a kind of fingerprint. Every gun is unique due to manufacturing variations.

“Knock knock.”

I looked up. A new police officer was at the door of my cell, along with Officer Kenneth.

“Let’s go, Pyro.”

“Quit calling me that,” I muttered through gritted teeth.

“Hey, I know what I saw, and until Cortez or someone else at the lab finds out why you lit up like a damn firework, that’s what I’m calling you. Besides, the boys at Pembrook will come up with something else soon enough.”

They unlocked my cell door and entered with two pairs of cuffs. One for my hands and the other for my ankles.

“Where the hell is this Pembrook place anyway?” I asked
, putting my arms behind my back before they could force me to.

“All you need to know right now is that it’s where guys like you belong. You’ll be right at home with the others there.”

The last time I was in jail was when I was a teen. Got
caught stripping a car and had to do three months behind bars in juvie and another nine of community service. It sucked
, but it didn’t change who I was or keep me out of trouble for long.

They snapped the second pair of cuffs onto my ankles and walked me to the back exit where a police van waited. They
opened a door, gestured for me to get in the back, and then attached another chain to my cuffs, securing me to the seat so I couldn’t get away even if I had the chance. Not that I would have tried. I was no good to Lucy dead. As long as I was alive, I had a chance at getting out in one piece.

The ride to Pembrook was a bumpy one.

Once inside the jail, they made me change into ugly jail garb—
a conventional orange short-sleeve jumpsuit with buttons up the shirt.

“Orange, my favorite color,” I said sarcastically.

“Keep moving.” One of the guards pushed me in the back
with a baton and I took a breath of warm, stuffy air.

Damn it. This is really happening.

. . .

The cell was small, as expected. No more than about eight feet by eight feet. Ugly white brick walls. Two metal bunks with sad excuses for bed linens draped over top. Steel
toilet. A tiny writing desk in the corner and an even tinier TV perched on the wall above that. My cellmate, Herman
,
was a tall, hefty guy with a shiny bald head and a spider web tattoo up his neck and throat. He was slow in the head, a little punch drunk, maybe, and quiet. That was okay with me.

You know how, stereotypically, the guy people end up bunking with in jail is an asshole? Well, that wasn’t the case.

The guy in the cell across from me was.

They called him Splitter. He was in for, allegedly, cracking some guy’s skull clean open after he found the guy messing around with his wife. Then he did the same thing to her.

Technically, he belonged in a high-security prison, but someone slipped up on his paperwork and he ended up here, with guys like me who weren’t out for blood.

He was still awaiting his sentence, and from what I’d overheard, it was going to be a while before that day came. Splitter had been behind bars for a year and a half, but the courts were taking their sweet time getting to his case.

When were they going to get to mine?

Why hadn’t the Prism made any attempts to free me? They were quick to coerce me into saving Kareena when Taylor
attacked, but now that I needed help—nothing.

“Hey, pretty boy!”
Splitter
. His voice was an awkwardly
higher pitch than I’d suspect to hear coming from such a husky guy.

I ignored him.

“You got a girl back home?” he asked, pressing his face between the bars. “I’m talking to you, Mexico.”

“No. I don’t.” I looked up at him and sneered. “Leave me
alone.” I turned away and went back to shuffling a worn deck of playing cards Herman had lent me. There were “water
stains” on the edges, but those were the least of my worries.

“You might think you’re smart, Mexico, but I run the show here!”

I laid a card down face up and six more in a row face down, setting up a game of solitaire.

“You’re in jail. You don’t run shit,” I replied, not looking up from the cards.

Herman grimaced. “Careful, bro,” he mumbled. “You don’t wanna get Splitter pissed.”

I smirked. “He already is, isn’t he?”

I knew guys like Splitter. They were all talk and when that didn’t work, they were all jabs and punches. Ignore them
—you’re a dead man. Confront them—you’re a dead man. I wasn’t about to end up on the bottom of the pecking order.

Once you hit bottom, you’re everyone’s bitch.

And I am nobody’s bitch.

Chapter 22

5
:30AM. “Chow time” they called it.

I rolled over on my bunk and groaned. A headache
pounded in my forehead. My shoulders ached and there was a tightness in my chest from tossing all night. Sleeping on the ground would have been more comfortable.

I sat up and put my feet on the floor.

Herman poked his head out over the side of his bunk above me. “If I were you, I’d go back to sleep,” he said.

“Why?” My stomach grumbled. “I’m really hungry.”

“One thing you’ll learn here, David, is sleep is more
valuable than food.”

I thought on it a moment. “Hmm.” It made sense. Sort of. I rubbed my tired eyes with my palms and blinked a few times to bring everything back into focus. Splitter was shuffling his way out of his cell and heading off to breakfast. With him gone, maybe I could get some rest. He was a noisy night owl and the place didn’t have a lights out policy.

“Thanks, Herman.”

He lay back down and I did the same.

About an hour and a half later, I awoke to a hand waving something around in front of my face.

“Hey! What!?” I sat up and snatched the thing from Herman.

A croissant?
A quick sniff and a gentle squeeze. It was fresh.

“It ain’t poisoned, I swear,” he said, smiling, though he had few teeth to do so with.

“I believe you, actually.” I chuckled. “Thanks. What do I owe you for this?”

“Complimentary. Today only.” He laughed and tore his
teeth into another croissant he was holding. “When you get your job, you can pay me back,” he said, crumbs escaping his mouth.

I was supposed to be given a job to do soon. A whopping $0.36 an hour, but meals—aside from specialties from the commissary (like the croissant)—were provided.

“You alright?” Herman asked, motioning to my knee while I chewed the last bite of breakfast.

I couldn’t stop twitching. Nicotine withdrawal.

“Yeah. I’ll be fine.”

“So what do they got you for?” Herman hopped down from his bunk and bent over to touch his toes in a stretch.

“Everything and nothing at the same time.”

“Oh?” He lifted both arms over his head and bent to one side and then came back and bent to the other.

“They think I kidnapped my own daughter and six witnesses are claiming they saw yellow light coming out of my chest during a police confrontation.”

“Well, damn, and I thought having a glowing reputation was only an expression.”

Herman made me laugh. I liked that.

After a friendly game of poker, we watched the news from
the tiny television in our cell and talked about nothing for a while. Turns out Herman had a daughter, too, but she had graduated from college and moved to another state a long
time ago. He hadn’t seen her since he and his wife separated seven years back. I didn’t ask him what he was in for. I didn’t want to know. He was the only ally I had at the moment
and I didn’t need a reason to question that.

Pembrook had open door hours during the day, which allowed select inmates (including Herman and me) to leave the confines of their tiny cells and access designated areas of the facility.

I got up to stretch my legs and took a walk out into the main courtyard. It was about the size of a little league baseball field, and there was a concrete wall wrapping around the entire yard that stood about ten feet tall. There were guard outposts on both ends and electrified, barbed wire strung across the top like Christmas lights.

Some jails had gyms, but this place… all it had
was a flat of concrete with some benches and a small basketball court set up on the other side. Guys on the benches
were smoking and talking. Seeing puffs of cigarette smoke made me antsy.

Ripped guys were playing basketball at the court and a few dozen others were jogging around the perimeter. They had the right idea.

If there was something I learned on the streets, it was to
maintain your body. Work hard. Fight harder. Staying in good shape was the only way to stay alive on the streets. And in
a place like this.

I found a quiet corner near the wall, rolled up my sleeves and flexed my hands a few times, cracking my knuckles
. Then
I dropped down and started doing pushups. Fifteen. Twenty-five. I
rested a minute and then finished with a second set. My hands ached from grains of concrete pressing into them, so I stood and brushed them off.

Exercise would help with the nicotine cravings, too. I’d kept myself in decent condition over the years—sometimes by choice, other times by necessity. You don’t need to throw a strong punch to put someone in their place, you just need to throw a good one. One that makes contact, and to do that, you have to be quick.

To survive, I had to be faster. Stronger. I had to keep myself on the tip of my toes and at the top of my game. These guys were thieves and cutthroats. And if I didn’t give them a reason not to mess with me, I could be dead before trial day—whenever that was gonna be. I hadn’t gotten a date set yet. It had barely been forty-eight hours since I’d been taken in.

I
wiped
sweat from my
forehead
with the back of my sleeve
and began jogging along with the rest of the group already doing laps.

What were the others doing without me? Were they trying
to find me?

Of course, I—the Tracker—had to get my ass thrown in jail. A whole lot of good I was doing tracking myself.

I passed a few inmates and sped up, pushing the air from
my lungs and sucking it in as my feet pounded against the ground.

I used to jog every morning back home. Gave me time to think.

I was tired of running from the law. I just wanted to settle
down somewhere and—

“You!” Someone grabbed a hold of the back of my shirt as I passed. They jerked me back and I lost my balance and slammed into the ground.

I shook my head, disoriented.

“This is a no passing zone,” Splitter said, leaning over me with a crooked grin on his face.

Crap.

“I’m not bothering you,” I grumbled, pushing back onto my elbows and scrambling to get back on my feet.

He shoved me in the chest with a massive elbow and knocked me back down before I could stand. “I didn’t say you could get up!”

Two other heavily-built men surrounded me and my adrenaline went into overdrive. I rolled over and pushed myself up off the ground as fast as I could and made a few feet of space between us.

“I don’t want trouble,” I said, bringing clenched fists up
to my chin. “I don’t want to fight any of you guys, but I will if I have to.” I adjusted my stance so I was steadier on my feet.

Splitter laughed and his two henchmen boxed me in.

Damn it.

“
Why are you harassing me?” I hissed. “I don’t want
anything to do with you.”

“I’m just putting you in your place, Mexico,” Splitter sneered. “You disrespect me, you pay the price.”