Page 52 of One Step Sideways

After I had a sleepless night, Oliver Michaels confirmed he’d demanded the body-cam footage. I watched as Kane was compliant, even when they took off the balaclava and seeing his scar. And even when they pushed him down, he didn’t protest. I had to watch it a couple of times before I understood. It was the zip-ties. The cop was hardly careful, but it was like Kane lost it when they were tightened. Or, not lost it. He just froze, and my heart ached as the blank mask fell over him. Then he panicked. Nothing drastic, he just struggled like a million other people being arrested might do.

But the cops never gave him a chance. They zapped him and then stood grinning while he lay on the ground jerking, then dragged him up and threw him in the car.

If I hadn’t been convinced I was doing the right thing before I saw that, I was now. There was no way Kane was doing this alone. I just had to make sure I kept it together. Because wanting to help was one thing, but becoming a liability was something else altogether.

Chapter Twenty-two

Kane

Terrified didn’t even cover it as I was dragged into the police station. They stripped me naked, then one cop fastened a second set of zip-ties connecting his arm and mine before releasing my other, so I had one hand free to take a piss. Then the process was reversed while I dressed in a white jumpsuit. All this while another two cops pointed guns at me.

I didn’t remember much about this from the first time. I’d probably blocked it out. But I wasn’t giving them a chance to use their tasers or their guns, so I kept it together better, and just reminded myself this was temporary.

It didn’t feel like it, though.

I was asked over and over what I could do, was told it would be better for me if I said, and even when my lawyer tried to protest, they completely ignored him. I refused to speak, but then another cop came in and said it didn’t matter because my transport had arrived, and I was their problem now.

I didn’t recognize three of the four C.O.s that came to escort me. Two were silent, and clearly just doing their job. One was nervous, and one was a prick I knew from before. He started on me as soon as we drove away. “Diaz, buddy, you clearly missed us. You were out what, two fucking weeks?” He elbowed the nervous one. “Don’t turn your back on this fucker.” I tuned them out as best I could, but it was hard.

He leaned forward. “Bet you can’t wait to get there. Meet all your old friends.” He snickered.

“Cut the crap, Holroyd,” one of the others said, which shut him up, but the journey still seemed twice as long as it had when Rawlings came for me.

I could hear the sound of the gates closing over the noise of the engine idling and I focused on the bite of the zip-ties into my wrists. The pain seemed to ground me a little this time, rather than panic me, and I managed to keep it together while the van stopped and I was dragged out and into the holding room.

“Well, well, Diaz. You just made my fucking day.”

I turned around and looked right into the hate-filled stare of C.O. Gary O’Connell.

It wasn’t like I wasn’t expecting him, and it looked like my luck couldn’t hold out that it was his day off.

He smiled like all his fucking Christmases had come at once. It reminded me I’d never asked Danny to look into him. I should have, but this had happened kind of fast and I’d been determined to forget it all, anyway.

Not the first mistake I’d ever made and probably wouldn’t be the last. A bored-sounding C.O. came in to tell me how my day would go. I would eat in my cell—all meals—no exception, which meant I would have designated food. My worst nightmare.

Outside yard activity was a privilege based on my ability, which would be determined later. Apparently, they had a library that I had to earn behavior credits to access.

I didn’t react, but what the fuck did “based on my ability” mean? Apart from the obvious, that was.

No outside visitors were allowed at all. Real-time facial messenger apps would be used to communicate with my lawyer. Everything else had to be pre-recorded, and if found to contain restricted information would be deleted entirely. It was worse than the equivalent of redacted documents.

We had no privacy, not that I was surprised. The cell walls were made of one-way unbreakable glass. They could see our every breath, but we couldn’tsee them, and for an idiotic moment, I missed the open cells I’d been used to previously and wondered at the money that had been spent on this.

I was assigned a number.

It took a minute for me to work through that in my head. I was inmate seventy-three and addressed as such. Not that for one second I imagined there were another seventy-two enhanced somewhere here. It was just another way of dehumanizing us. Well, tough. I was used to that. They thought a number would make a difference?

I was led to a different corridor, eventually. I knew it wasn’t the cells, when as I was pushed into what was clearly an office, then zip-tied to the chair, it surprised me.

I gazed at the man sitting behind the desk. I would put him at fiftyish. Neatly trimmed gray hair and a matching beard. He wasn’t in a uniform of any sort, which again surprised me because I knew without being told that this was the warden. He wore a pinstripe navy suit, a lighter blue shirt, and a dark blue tie. He looked like he was about to enter a board meeting. Maybe he was.

“Inmate seventy-three,” he drawled and glanced at some sort of small computer, which reminded me of what Danny used. “My name is Mister Connaught. You may use that or simply say ‘Sir.’” He leaned forward and pressed a button on a panel on his desk, but nothing happened.

I didn’t respond, but he didn’t seem to care.

“The state has clearly failed you.” I frowned in confusion. “If all you can manage is two weeks in the unregulated world, then you clearly need a different sort of environment.” I had a second to process what unregulated meant before he continued. “In our new facility, you will learn to acclimate properly.”

Yeah, right.

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