“What do you mean, getting worse?”
She shook her head. “This thing, this devil, some of the inmates I’ve talked to say it’s always been here; hiding, lurking, feeding on our dreams. The deaths haven’t been frequent enough to cause a panic, though. This? This shit is real. It’s coming every fucking night, Six. It comes for all of us at once, and it always finds someone weak enough to kill.”
I shuddered at the thought. “Why aren’t the guards talking about it?”
“Because they want to pretend like it’s not real. If they did, I guess they’d have to do something about it. Some prisoners tried begging for something to help them stay awake, but all the guards did was decide they’d keep the lights on at night. I’ve tried staying awake for as long as I can, but it’s not easy. Maybe with magic, I’d have a shot.” She rubbed her eyes again. “Every time I shut them, it’s there…”
“I should’ve been here.”
“Damn fucking straight, but I doubt there’s anything you could’ve done to help. You need sleep just like anyone else.” She paused. “Haven’t you been dreaming about it too?”
I wanted to lie to her, to tell her the devil had come for me every night just as it had come for all the other inmates—and the guards, too. The truth was, it hadn’t. I hadn’t felt it, or sensed it, not until Sanchez opened the door to the hole. That didn’t make me feel any better, though. If anything, I felt worse.
But I couldn’t lie to her.
“No,” I shook my head, “Besides that one time, I haven’t felt it since. But if it changes anything, I wasn’t really sure whether I was asleep or awake down in the hole, so maybe that’s something.” I paused, then ventured. “Did Azlu tell you…?”
Alexa took a deep breath and nodded. “She did. She wasn’t sure if you’d have wanted her to, but I got it out of her. I can’t imagine what you’ve been through. I’m sorry.”
“I don’t need to talk about it. I just wanted to make sure you were up to speed.”
“What are you gonna do?”
“I don’t know. Someone fucked with my mind, implanted a whole bunch of fake memories into my head, and threw me in here.”
“To kill the Horseman…”
“To kill the Horseman,” I echoed. “Now that person is gone, just up and vanished one day, so the only one I could get answers from, I can’t reach.”
“What about the Horseman?”
“I haven’t seen him in a week, but I think I need to.”
“Is that a good idea?”
“I don’t know what is and what isn’t anymore. I don’t know… anything, Alexa.” I stood and paced around the room. “I don’t even know who I am.”
Alexa stood with me. “Yes, you do. Someone screwed with your head, but that doesn’t take away who you are, and you know who you are.”
“I want to believe that. I really do. But I need to find answers first. I need to find the guy that did this to me and figure out why.”
“Fat chance from in here. We aren’t getting out of D-Block, let alone out of the prison.”
“Maybe we don’t have to. I need to go and find Azlu.”
Alexa walked over to the door to the cell and scanned the cellblock. “She should be in her cell. Want me to come with you?”
“No. Wait here, and watch my back—just in case Knives decides to take advantage of the situation.”
“I doubt it. Knives has been suffering like the rest of us. Nothing like a shared crisis to bring enemies together.”
I followed Alexa to the door to the cell. “I’ll keep that in mind.”
I was about to step out of the cell when Alexa placed her hand on my shoulder, stopping me. “It’s good to have you back. We need you around here.”
“We’ll get through this,” I said with a slight nod. Then I headed out of my cell and went in search of Azlu’s, crossing once more through the quiet cellblock.
Tired eyes stared at me from behind open archways into brightly lit cells. Nobody was asleep, not a soul, despite how much they may have wanted to. This, whatever it was, was real. They had figured out that sleeping put them at risk of attack from the devil, and they were trying with every fiber of their beings to stay awake.
Most of them, I felt sorry for. The ones who were here purely because they had taken a bad turn down a street and run into a bunch of Coalition goons; the ones who had been framed for a crime they didn’t commit; the ones who were just different and thus worthy of incarceration.
They didn’t deserve to be here, trapped in this place, to begin with. The fact that they were suffering, and their lives were now in imminent mortal danger, only made things worse. I wanted to help them, but short of somehow getting them out of Harrowgate, I didn’t know what I could do for them.
I could barely help myself, let alone anyone else.
I found Azlu in her cell, laying stiffly on the bottom bunk of her bed, her eyes open, her arms crossed in front of her chest. Her cellmate was missing, and considering there was no one freely walking around D-Block, the only explanation for that I could think of was that he’d been one of the devil’s victims.
As soon as I appeared at the door to her room, she sat up and skittered out of bed. Unlike the others, the spiderling looked fresh, and awake. Her skin was pale—though that wasn’t particularly strange—and her black hair looked a little frazzled, but her eyes weren’t red and there were no bags under them, either.
“Hello,” she said, looking up at me with her dark, wide-set eyes.
“Hi,” I said, rubbing the back of my neck. “You got your cell to yourself?”
“I did. Although I don’t know how long it will last.”
I paused. “How have you been?”
“Better than most, it seems, as I don’t need nearly as much sleep as anyone else. I was also in the hole, like you. It looks like I missed most of what has been happening up here.”
I took a tentative step into her cell. “Me too… do you have any idea why that is?”
“None, but we are looking into it. How was your time in the hole?”
“I guess we can say I understand you a lot better, now. It is safer down there, if you aren’t scared of a little dirt. It was good to be alone with my thoughts.”
“I can’t imagine any of this has been easy on you.”
“It hasn’t. All I want to do is go back inside.”
“But you cannot. The hole is off limits, now. We are exposed.”
I nodded. “Right. Have you had more contact with… Ezree and the Order?”
“Our contact has been limited. I asked him to go back to them with the message you asked me to give them, but he hasn’t returned yet.”
“Are you worried?”
“No. Mother tells me I shouldn’t be, and I trust mother. When I hear from him, I will tell you.”
“Thank you, Azlu. I think you saved my life.”
“Do not thank me yet. You are still trapped in this place, and the devil is on the prowl, and it is hungry.”
“What do you know about it?”