Page 19 of The Fall Guy

I’m almost nodding off to sleep when Rio is dragged into the room by the scruff of his neck. It’s hard not to react so I shift in my chair to sit up rather than being slouched down. Two guys leave him at Ernie’s feet, and Max comes across the room to tower over him.

“Well, well, well, what do we have here?” Max asks.

“Looks like a snitch to me,” one of the guys who brought him in says.

Rio puts his hands up. “You have the wrong guy.”

“What’s going on?” I ask.

“Some cocksucker is trying to take Ernie’s shower privileges.”

“What’s that got to do with Rio?” I ask.

There was no hint of trouble when I asked about my roommate earlier. I’m struggling to catch up with what’s going down. Maybe I should’ve paid more attention to what Max was doing at the back of the room.

“He was seen leaving the governor’s office this morning.” Max tightens his fist like he’s thinking about punching him.

I should leave him to fight his own battles, but what I know isn’t going to harm my relationship with anyone. “That’s probably because the governor’s suspicious of him.”

“And you know this how?” Max asks, finally moving his gaze from Rio to me.

“She pulled me into her office a couple of days ago. She thought maybe I’d know something.”

“Have you considered the guards are nervous about people being alone in the bathroom after what happened to Jono?” Rio adds.

“Are you uneasy about what happened to him?” Max asks Rio, giving him a pointed look.

“He had it coming,” Rio says with a shrug. He doesn’t sound even a little upset that someone got murdered. Jono might’ve been a bad guy, but he was still a person. “Can I get up now that we’ve established that Ernie’s bathroom routine has nothing to do with me?” Max looks to Ernie, and he gestures to get him up. Rio slumps into the chair next to me. “I’m sure you can re-persuade the guards once they realise no one else is going to get murdered.”

“How can you be so sure?” Max asks, and Rio shrugs.

“Call it a hunch.”

Rio is allowed to leave, but he has me thinking. How could he know the bathroom incident was a one-off? Already, I’vewitnessed more violent outbreaks than I’d like. Prison is full of criminals, and maybe nobody is safe.

“Lights out,” one of the guards shouts, and we plummet into darkness. The moon’s glow through my tiny cell window is all that illuminates the room.

“How did you become a Cyclone?” Rio asks after a beat.

“What did you do to get yourself thrown in jail?” I ask, ignoring his questions.

“Okay, I see how this is going to work. You do realise you told your people the governor has eyes on me earlier? That was uncool. But if you want to play games, I’ll give you something if you give me something. I’m in jail because I got caught with a gun in a public space. That gun was used to kill someone.”

“But you didn’t do it?” I ask.

“A question for a question. How did you become a Cyclone?”

“My dad died, and I needed an outlet. They gave me what I needed.” That’s the easy answer. The truth is more complicated. Nobody wakes up and chooses to join a gang for shits and giggles.

“Like what?”

“Have you intentionally killed anyone?”

“Yes.”

Wow. He said that so casually. I’ve never killed anyone, not even the boy that sent me here.

“What kind of outlet did they give you?”

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