Page 150 of X's and O's
And Dickson was acting a lot like a caged animal right now.
“The doors are locked, the windows high,
No way out, so don’t you try.
Two must die for one to go,
Who will strike the final blow?”
Dickson shoved his hands over his ears. “That needs to shut the fuck up!”
But there was nothing any of us could do about it. The speakers were somewhere over our heads, probably mounted in the exposed rafters, but it was hard for me to see past the lights that shined down on us.
I kept my voice neutral. “We all just need to stay calm. Right now, there’s no immediate danger.”
The gang outside had gone quiet, probably losing interest and moving on to terrorize someone else, or to deal some drugs on the corner, or to steal a car. I didn’t know what they did for fun, and right now, I didn’t care. As long as they did it nowhere near me.
There was no immediate threat to Dickson.
But that wasn’t the case for me and Toby.
“I can’t be in here, man,” Dickson said as he paced. “I can’t fucking breathe. I need to get out. Not going back to prison. Not going back to a cell.”
Toby stared at him. “Just our luck to get trapped with an ex-prisoner with claustrophobia.”
But I understood it, because I knew Levi didn’t like enclosed spaces either. Dickson, like Levi, had spent a long time locked up in a cell. If he’d not been a model prisoner, he’d have probably spent time in solitary confinement.
I could practically see it all flashing back behind his eyes. They were blank. Staring.
Dead.
“We need to get out of here, Vi,” Toby whispered. “We don’t know how long he’s been in here or what he’s capable of.”
Except I did know. Levi had called him dangerous. He’d dragged me out of that diner and told Dickson to forget my name. He’d made it so obvious this man was a threat.
We weren’t safe here with Dickson when he was level-headed.
And he definitely wasn’t that right now.
I cleared my throat, taking in his erratic behavior and the unpleasant smell in the factory unit. “How long have you been here?”
He shook his head, pulling at his hair. “I don’t know. Two days? I can’t remember.”
“Two days?” Toby hissed at me. “What the fuck, Vi? I can’t be here for two days!”
I stared at the empty water dispenser.
None of us were going to be here for another two days. Dickson had already drunk all the water. We’d be dead, or at least too dehydrated to escape if we just sat on our asses and waited for two days.
Or we’d be losing it mentally, like Dickson clearly was.
There was no way Levi had set any of this up. He might have hated Dickson, but he wasn’t cruel.
This was something that went well beyond anything I could make sense of in the moment.
All I could do was try to keep me and Toby alive.
I strode to the door we’d come in, the only one there was in the space. I tried the handle again, yanking it as hard as I could. Toby came up behind me, and we wrestled with the door together, while I silently prayed for it to buckle or give, just a tiny bit.
