The silence that followed the electronic clack of the Bridge locks wasn't localized. It ripple-effected through the entire skeleton of Blackwood.
On the Bridge, Sarah heard it—a secondary, more hollow sound. It was the sound of three hundred cell doors in the North and fifteen hundred in the South losing their magnetic seal simultaneously. The "Blackout Protocol" had bypassed the standard security servers, hitting the emergency breakers.
"The cells," Mendoza whispered, his tactical light trembling as he pointed it toward the North Block entrance. "Sarge, the magnetic locks just dumped. He didn't just lock us in. He let everyone out."
Sarah's heart hammered against her ribs. She looked at Donny, who was struggling to sit up on the gurney, his face ashen in the strobing light of the helicopters. "The Warden didn't think this through," she said, her voice dropping to a lethal calm. "He wanted to kill the lights to hide a murder, but he just turned the whole prison into a free-fire zone."
The Floodgates Open
In the North Block, the "Lifers"—the guards who had been the Warden's hands—suddenly found themselves facing the very men they had been shaking down for years. But the North wasn't moving for revenge; they were moving for the exit. The "Ghost" guards, realizing the administration had lost control, began to shed their uniforms, desperate to blend in or get to the armory.
But in the South, the movement was different. It wasn't a scramble; it was a march.
Lou stepped out of 403, the heavy steel door swinging open with a ghostly groan. He didn't run. He stood on the catwalk, his massive presence illuminated by the orange glow of the fires outside the gates.
"THE GATES ARE DOWN!" Lou's voice was a tectonic event. "SOUTH BLOCK, TO THE BRIDGE! THE KING IS IN THE DARK!"
The sound of fifteen hundred men hitting the floor at once sounded like a landslide. They didn't have the North's tactical gear, but they had the "Silence" that had now turned into a roar. Johnny was at Lou's side, a sharpened piece of rebar in his hand.
"If the North gets to him first, he's dead, Lou," Johnny hissed. "The Warden opened the doors because he wants the chaos to swallow the evidence. He wants a massacre so he can call in the National Guard to 'clean up' the mess."
"Then we get there first," Lou growled.
The Standoff in the Void
On the Bridge, the first assassin Sarah had shot lay motionless, but the others were repositioning. With the power out, the only light came from the erratic sweeps of the helicopters and the muzzle flashes that lit up the glass like lightning.
"Sarge, we're pinned!" Jenkins yelled, ducking as a round sparked off the metal frame of the gurney. "We can't stay in the center of the Bridge. We're in a fishbowl!"
Sarah looked at the North doors, then the South. She could hear the thunder of feet coming from both directions. The North Block hit-squad was behind them, and an army of inmates was coming from the front.
"Donny, can you stand?" Sarah gripped his shoulder, her fingers digging into the thin fabric of his hospital gown.
"I'll stand," Donny rasped, his eyes fixed on the spiderwebbed glass. "But Sarah... if those doors open, you're a guard in a hallway full of men who have every reason to hate that uniform."
"I'm not a guard tonight," Sarah said, reaching down and ripping the Sergeant's stripes off her shoulder. She didn't need the badge to lead; she needed the truth. "I'm the one who kept you alive. And if they want you, they have to go through the Warden's payroll first."
The Collision
The North doors of the Bridge groaned. The "Clean-Up Crew" wasn't alone anymore. A group of North Block guards, led by Captain Halloway, had reached the Bridge. They were armed with riot shotguns and tear gas, looking to finish what Valenti started.
"Miller!" Halloway's voice boomed through the dark. "Step away from the inmate! This is a Code Red. We have authorization to use lethal force to suppress the riot!"
"The only riot here is the one you started, Halloway!" Sarah fired a warning shot that pinged off the doorframe. "Stay back! I have the payroll manifests! I know whose names are on the 'Gold' list!"
Halloway paused, his face twisting in the shadows. He didn't care about the riot. He cared about the paper. "Kill them all," he whispered to his men. "No witnesses."
But as the North Block guards raised their weapons, the South Block doors—the ones leading to the "well"—shuddered under a massive blow.
BOOM.
The emergency bars on the South doors didn't just open; they were sheared off. Lou and Johnny burst onto the Bridge, followed by a wave of men in orange and denim.
It was a nightmare of optics. On one end, the North: tactical vests, shotguns, and corruption. On the other end, the South: shivs, rage, and the King. And in the middle, Sarah Miller—standing over a gurney, holding a service weapon, the only thing keeping the two sides from a total bloodbath.
"LOU! STAND DOWN!" Donny's voice cracked through the tension, surprisingly loud for a man with a healing brain.
The South Block inmates froze. Lou looked at Donny, then at Sarah, then at the North Block guards with their shotguns leveled.
"They're trying to kill him, Lou!" Sarah shouted, her gun still trained on Halloway.
"The Warden opened the cells so you'd kill each other and burn the evidence! Don't give him what he wants!"
For a heartbeat, the Bridge was a stalemate. The helicopters outside hovered, their spotlights catching the three distinct groups in a bizarre, frozen tableau.
"You're outnumbered, Halloway," Lou said, stepping forward, his shadow looming over the guards. "You might get a few of us, but we'll tear this Bridge down with our bare hands before you touch him."
Halloway's finger twitched on the trigger. He looked at the sea of inmates behind Lou, then at the news cameras he knew were filming every second from the sky. He was a murderer, but he wasn't a martyr.
"The Warden... he's gone," a voice crackled over Halloway's radio. It was the mailroom clerk. "He took the emergency transport. He's heading for the perimeter gate."
Sarah saw the shift in Halloway's eyes. The boss had bailed. The ship was sinking.
"Mendoza, Jenkins," Sarah said, never taking her eyes off the North guards. "Take the King. We're going to the gate. If the Warden wants to flee, he's going to have to drive through the neighborhood to do it."