Page 108 of Craving Venom

“You do remember who you’re talking to, right?”

“Right. Photographic memory.”

Terry shakes his head and tips his chin toward the blueprints. “Alright, genius. Walk me through this.”

“This prison was built in phases. The original structure was small, just the main block and the east wing. The rest came later, including this section.” I press my hand flat against the wall, feeling the difference in temperature. “This wall was never part of the original blueprint. It was added on top of an existing section, meaning the foundation underneath isn’t as thick as the rest of the building.”

Terry watches me carefully. “So?”

“So.” I knock my knuckles against it again, “it’s hollow.” I glance back at him. “If we break through it, we don’t just land on dirt, we land in the basement.”

“There’s a basement?”

“There was.” I tap another marking on the blueprint, watching his gaze follow myfinger. “My grandfather built this place with underground storage, maintenance corridors, and access tunnels. But once the west wing was added, they abandoned the basement, sealed off the tunnels, and stopped using it.” I smirk. “Which means most of the guards don’t even know it exists.”

“Even if we get down there, how the fuck do we get out?”

I grin, dragging my finger across the sheet to a cluster of symbols that form a jagged pattern. “That’s the fun part.”

Terry crosses his arms. “And you think we can just crawl through them?”

“Not just crawl. We’ll have to break through a few barriers, maneuver through collapsed sections, and find the right tunnel.”

“And then?”

“And then,” I say, dragging the anticipation out, “we use the potholes.”

“What the fuck do potholes have to do with this?”

I tap on a series of tiny x markings along the perimeter of the blueprint. “Potholes are caused by water erosion. The way this prison was built, there are multiple weak points in the yard. The ground above the old tunnels isn’t stable, if we find the right spot, we can dig our way up and surface outside the walls.”

Terry lets out a slow breath, his hand finally reaching out, dragging a single finger across the paper. He follows the lines, the symbols, tracing our potential path to freedom.

“This tunnel.” He taps a faded red triangle etched into the blueprint. “It curves.”

“Part of the rerouting they did. But here—” I tap at an angular marking. “—is where the old system connects to the new. There’s a drainage outlet nearby, buried under years of dirt and shit, but it feeds into a service hole right outside the fence.”

“And if we can’t dig through in time?”

“We will.” I roll the blueprint halfway shut. “Because I know exactly where to dig. I know exactly how much time we have before

the next guard rotation. I know exactly how far we need to crawl.”

Terry is silent.

“Fuck.” He sighs. “Fuck it.”

I grin, folding up the sheet all the way through and tucking it away.

“That’s the spirit.”

Now all we have to do is dig.

I focus my gaze to the far corner of the cell, where the metal plates still sit, stacked neatly against the wall. The same plates we used to dig.

They look so innocent now. Just scraps of bent metal with their edges worn from the work we put them through. No one would ever look at them twice. No one would think that those pieces of nothing were responsible for getting us deeper into this prison than we ever should’ve gone.

It was perfect.

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