LET HER GO!” Angus shouted, and the sheer terror in his voice brought Nat back from the brink. Her eyes flew open. Angus grabbed Buford by the neck and roared like a raging animal as he wrapped his hands around the inmate’s tattooed throat and squeezed, choking him. Nat punched and kicked, twisting this way and that, trying to squirm away.

“You little bitch!” Buford shouted, his spittle hot on her face.

“Get off!” Nat screamed in fury, then reached up and bit Buford hard on his unshaven cheek. The inmate howled and reared back, and Angus jumped in and punched him, then hit him again and again. Nat felt Buford’s grip loosen, and with one mighty heave, she pushed him away while Angus yanked him from above. Nat scooted backward like a crab as Buford turned to punch Angus, who hit him first, connecting squarely with the inmate’s temple.

“Natalie! Run!” Angus yelled, a split second before Buford recovered and hit him in the neck. Nat watched in horror as Angus’s eyes bulged and his face contorted in agony. His hand flew to his neck, and he staggered backward. “GO!” he managed to yell.

Nat scrambled to her feet as a bloodied Angus picked up a bucket chair and swung it at Buford, but by then she was bolting out of the classroom. She darted into the hallway. The prison had gone into battle mode. The sirens blared. The loudspeaker barked. She smelled smoke. A SWAT team in bulletproof vests and dark full-face visors poured into the hall and thundered in formation toward the RHU.

“Help!” Nat grabbed the sleeve of a SWAT guy running by, but he didn’t stop.

“Gotta go!” he shouted over his shoulder. Yelling and screams erupted from down the hall. There must be a riot in the RHU. It was every man for himself. Nat ran to the entrance door and yanked on the bars. They didn’t budge, locked.

No! She banged on the bulletproof glass of the command center. No one was inside. She couldn’t get out. She had to find help. She prayed that Angus was holding his own. Where the hell was help? She didn’t know the prison layout. She turned around wildly and screamed at the sight. A C.O. and an inmate were fighting in one of the other rooms.

Nat ran the other way in fear. Her blouse billowed open and she closed it on the run, spotting a hall of doors. She ran down it, shouting for help over the cacophony of sirens and alarms. She tried the first closed door, but it was locked, then the next and the next. All were locked. Her heart raced. She felt warm tears welling in her eyes. This was taking too long. Buford could kill Angus. She ran down the next corridor, amazed and relieved to see a door opening.

“Help!” Nat ran for it just as a stricken and bloodied C.O. came out of the room, leaving the door open on a horrifying scene.

“They’ve gone crazy, they’ve all gone crazy.” The C.O. was physically shaking, and behind him, another C.O. lay on the floor, a makeshift knife plunged into his chest. A muscle-bound African American inmate lay curled next to the C.O., blood soaking his T-shirt. Both men looked dead, and the C.O. at the door was in shock.

“You have to help me!” Nat grabbed his shoulders. “My friend’s being attacked!”

“What? Where?” the C.O. asked, his dark eyes focusing as he came to his senses.

“The classroom near the entrance.” Nat pointed behind her. “Angus Holt. We were teaching. And another C.O. needs help in the hallway.”

“Shit!” The C.O. took off running, just as Nat heard a moan from the room and looked toward the sound. The C.O. on the ground was still moving, the homemade metal knife protruding grotesquely from his chest. He turned his head toward the door and stretched his hand to her, across the floor.

He’s still alive. Nat ran into the room and knelt beside the man, horrified. She could barely look at his chest. She knew to leave the knife in place. She’d read it somewhere. He’d lose more blood if she pulled it out. Blood soaked the pocket of his blue uniform, but not from the knife. He had another stab wound.

Nat pressed her hand over the wound. Hot blood burbled through her fingers, and she felt sick to her stomach. The C.O.’s face had gone ashen. She had to stop the blood flow. She yanked her silk scarf off her neck, wadded it into a ball, and pressed it as hard as she could against his wound. If she could stop the blood, she could keep him alive until help came.

“It’s okay, it’s okay,” she said, over and over. Her heart hammered. She prayed that the other C.O. had found Angus. She couldn’t leave this one. He focused on her. Then his blue eyes rolled back into his eye sockets. In the next instant, she felt his hand squeezing her forearm as if in a death grip.

“Hang in, please, hang in.” Nat felt her tears welling again. She pressed harder with her scarf. Its silk ran red with fresh blood, warm under her cupped palm. The C.O.’s lips were moving. Blood bubbled from his mouth and leaked down the side of his face. He tugged on her arm. He was trying to say something.

“Tell…my wife,” he whispered. Blood hiccupped from his mouth, a sight so grisly Nat almost cried out. He said, “Please. Tell her.”

“I will, I will. I’ll tell her you love her,” Nat said, finishing his sentence, her words rushing out in a choked sob.

“No, no,” the C.O. moaned, shaking his head. “No. It’s…under the floor.”

What? Nat blinked, shaken. What did he say? Between the sirens and her shock, she could hardly hear him. She leaned over, her ear to his mouth. “What did you say?”

“Tell…her.” The C.O. struggled for breath. “Tell her it’s…under the floor.”

“Okay, I’ll tell her, I promise.” Nat pressed hard but blood soaked the scarf. In the next second, the C.O.’s eyelids stopped fluttering. His blue eyes fixed. The grip on her arm loosened abruptly. His hand fell back, the fingers still bent.

“No!” Nat knew CPR. She couldn’t let him die. She bent over, pinched his lips open, and huffed into his mouth, tasting salty, hot blood. Two breaths, then she straightened up and pressed with all her might on his chest.

One, two, three, four. “Please, come back!” Nat bore down, pressing hard. The scarf fell off him. Blood bubbled gruesomely from the other wound. She kept pressing and counting. The C.O.’s eyes didn’t move. He didn’t react to her shouts. She finished the count of chest palpitations and bent over again, trying to breathe life into him.

She kept pressing. She heard a sickening gurgling from his throat, and in the background, faraway shouts. Suddenly, an explosion resonated in her chest. What the hell was going on? Where had that come from? The RHU? What had blown up?

Nat struggled not to panic. She kept pressing, but the C.O. didn’t move. She bent over and huffed a short, powerful breath into his mouth, then stopped. The poor man was dead. She had to let him go. She had tried her best. She had to get to Angus. The explosion.

“I’m so sorry,” she whispered. She wiped her eyes, streaking warmth across her face. Blood. She scrambled to her feet and ran from the room and into the hallway. A siren blared a continuous state of emergency. The lockdown announcement blasted over and over. Smoke wafted down the corridor, layering the air with gray streaks.

She ran down the hall, veered around the corner, and sprinted for the classroom. Thick smoke billowed down the hall, singeing her eyes and filling her nostrils. She took a breath and felt herself gag. There was a fire in the prison, and she was locked inside. So was Angus. They would all burn to death.

Suddenly there came the deafening blast of a percussive explosion. Nat was thrown to the floor. The side of her face hit the concrete. Her knees slammed down hard. She rolled in shock and pain into the cinderblock wall.

“NATALIE!”

Nat opened her eyes to see Angus running through the smoke to her. He reached her, knelt down, and scooped her up in his arms.

“Your Grace.” He grinned, his forehead bleeding, and Nat felt a rush of relief that approached delirium. Behind him was the C.O. she’d sent to him.

“This way!” the C.O. shouted. “Move!” He hustled them to the barred door at the entrance, where another C.O. in black SWAT gear met them, unlocked the door, and hurried them all out of the prison and into the cold.