She hurried towards me, scrambling over the backs of the chairs and using the heads of a couple of the restrained passengers to kick off of before pressing her cheek to the bars of my cage and looking in at me with something akin to fear in her eyes. But it was more vibrant than just that. A thrill along with her terror at the thought of us all drowning here in this place. I could tell she didn’t want to die here but the thought of it was exciting her more than terrifying her.
“I’ll get you out, Angry,” she said, giving me a serious look. “Birds of a feather gotta snack together, right? And I’m betting you’re real hungry, aren’t you, big man?”
“Rook,” I repeated, the simple word all I offered her, yet her brow pinched and she looked back to the guard like she understood fully. It had always been like that between us. No matter how little I gave her vocally, she still seemed to be on a level with me, understanding what I was struggling to communicate and making me feel seen in the anonymity of the facility where we’d been locked away to be forgotten by the rest of the world.
“You’re right,” she agreed as the bus tilted again, the rear levelling out with the first a little and allowing us to brace our feet against the floor once again. “I’ll get it.”
Brooklyn turned towards the guard just as he leaned down to unlock the chain securing Cannibal Carol, who had managed to get an arm free of her restraints and was grasping at the back of her head, struggling against the straps which secured the muzzle covering her mouth.
A cry of warning escaped Brooklyn’s lips a beat too late as the insane woman lunged at the man who had just freed her from the muzzle and she sank her teeth into his throat, knocking the two of them to the floor where they tumbled back towards the front of the bus and fell into the rapidly rising water.
I caught sight of the guard’s keys as they flew from his hand, my freedom spinning away in a flash of silver which was barely illuminated by the light outside the windows from the streetlamps on the bridge far above us.
Brooklyn cried out in dismay and dove headfirst into the water in pursuit of the keys, but with her arms secured by the straitjacket, I knew she had no chance of recovering them from the murky water now, that slim chance of escape eluding me and the reality of my fate closing in as I looked at the small cage I was locked in and found my death staring icily back.
I hadn’t lived a good life. Certainly not since I’d been locked up in that forsaken place. And now it seemed I wasn’t going to get a good death either. Honestly, I would have preferred to have met with the wrath of the Alonso brothers despite all of my work to evade them than this.
Almost all of the prisoners had been freed from their chains before Carol had attacked the guard and they were fighting to get past each other, a couple of them loosening straitjackets for the others but most of them just clamouring to get the doors open so that they could escape, though I had no idea how they expected to swim to freedom with their arms bound.
They slammed into the double doors at the far end of the bus where the water was deepest, lapping up to their chests and I gritted my jaw as I saw my death coming for me in their attempts.
With a bellow of effort, I braced my back against the wall of my cage and threw my booted foot against the door in front of me. I kicked it again and again, driving all of my energy into the blows and making my cage rattle with the force of my strength.
The nurses and doctors in that place had had a lot to say about me and my mental wellbeing. A whole lot of nothing and a whole lot of everything. I’d confused them in more ways than they ever would have admitted, but this one had always been my favourite. They never had been able to figure out why I worked so hard to train my body. They claimed I didn’t have the mental capacity to be doing it with any real intention. They assumed it was some kind of leftover routine from the life I’d had before my mental collapse. Of course, they didn’t know the truth. That I had been working my body so hard not only to give myself something to focus on in that hell, but also so that I could be ready when my fate finally came for me. And now that destiny had come knocking, that joke was very much on them. I was stronger now than I ever had been when I was free, and I fully intended to break out of this fucking cage before I drowned here like a rat.
A muffled voice made me pause in my assault on the door, my muscles burning with the energy it had taken me to attack it that way and my chest heaving despite the metal which remained as solid as ever before me.
“I-ga-eet,” Brooklyn said again and I hunted for her in the darkness of the sinking bus, leaning my head against the bars and looking down to find her on her knees amid the steadily rising water while she tried to get the key into the lock using her mouth alone.
I stared at her, unable to believe that she could manage such a task and yet unable to look away either. Over and over again she tried to fit the key in the lock while the other passengers kept trying to force the doors at the far end of the vehicle open.
That fucking snitch Norman was trying to kick one of the windows out like an idiot, the bars on the other side of the glass meaning he would only drown us faster if he succeeded in breaking it. I roared at him, pointing a finger his way and making him curse in fright as he whipped around to look at me from his position perched on one of the benches.
The light faded further as with a sudden dip, the rear of the vehicle sank beneath the surface of the river and the prisoners screamed as they realised death was inching closer to them. But as I looked down at the object of my obsession, I had a feeling salvation was coming for me.
With a jerk of her chin and a twist of her head, the lock to my cage snapped open and I sucked in a surprised breath as Brooklyn stood with a whoop of triumph, the keys still clasped between her teeth as she let the cage door swing wide. Her long hair was dripping wet and more droplets raced down her face but even in the darkness beneath the river’s surface, her blue eyes blazed so bright they seemed to pierce right through me and take stock of all I was. And the way she was looking at me now said she liked what she saw.
I pushed out of the door with a dark and wicked smile trying to creep across my face, only supressing it through sheer force of will after many years of practice at maintaining a blank mask across my features, and I moved into her breathing space.
“Nithe boy,” she breathed around the keys. “Ooo wouddun’t hurt me. I’m your fwend.”
Her words seemed out of place for this moment so close to oblivion and yet I heard them still, understanding what she wanted and eyeing her for a moment as I considered it. Yes. She had been my friend once. So far as people like us had friends. So far as I could trust her to be one without giving myself away. And unknown to her, she had been more than that to me. My secret obsession in the dark which I could never allow into the light. But here she was, offering me freedom and simply asking for the same in return. How could I deny her that? In fact, I fully intended to deliver her that wish plus however many more she asked of me from this moment on.
I gripped her arm and turned her around, my foot slipping on the uneven surface as gravity tried to make me fall into the water which was rising at the front of the bus and began to tilt further that way once more.
I pushed her against the bench closest to us, half bending her over it as my weight crushed her to it and I unhooked the buckles which secured her straitjacket in place while relishing the feeling of her body pressing to mine.