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In a way, it wasn't even a lie.
Maybe he hadn't killed Lynn with his own hands, but she was dead because of him. Not only because he had failed to protect her, but Roederer got her murdered in cold blood to get him. So telling Odell he was the one who killed her was maybe a little bit closer to the truth than he would like to admit.
Doubts have been waltzing around in his head ever since he'd said those words out loud.
He had killed Lynn.
His mind in a whirl, blame spreading through his brain dangerously, Steve was taken back to the cell after his meeting with Odell.
He walked on, conscious of the guard behind him, and wondered whether his friend would be able to tell something was off. He realized that he was relying on that and on Aydan. If his fellow inmate didn't manage to deliver the message, the team might not even consider Roederer being behind this. And there would be very little that he would be able to do. He knew that he stood no chance of winning his freedom at trial – Roederer had made it very clear that the deck was stacked against him. He couldn't even say with certainty that he would make it as far as the trial. He was at Savage's mercy. The beatings were taking it out of him. He wasn't twenty anymore, and his body was still weakened after the last encounter with a man like Roederer.
Aydan was waiting for him. He was brushing his teeth with a toothbrush he kept in a cloth washbag with a cake of old soap.
"They came for you again while you were gone," Aydan said. "The four of them."
"I'm sure they'll be back."
"You can't carry on like this."
"No," Steve said. He looked at the toothbrush and had an idea. "Could I borrow that?"
Wordlessly, Aydan threw it across the hall.
Steve took it and held it in his hand, the brush in his palm. It was just long enough. "You don't have a lighter, by any chance, do you?"
"I do have one." Aydan walked over to his bed and reached into a tiny hole hidden on the bottom of the mattress. He held the lighter up in his hand. "I think I know what you're thinking of. It's dangerous."
"I have to do something, you said it yourself."
"They might beat you in solitary, too."
"They might. But Savage is definitely going to keep working me over if I stay where I am. It's worth trying. What do I have to lose?"
Aydan nodded and threw him the lighter, too.
"Thanks."
Steve rolled over so that he was facing the wall and, with Aydan keeping watch, he took the lighter and thumbed flame. He used the fire to soften the plastic, waiting until it was blackened and soft. Once he was happy with it, he started to rub the edges back and forward against the abrasive surface of the concrete wall. He worked at it for an hour, turning the brush halfway through so that he could concentrate on the opposite side. He scrubbed, peeling away the plastic and then heating it again so that it stayed soft. By the time he was done, he had rubbed away enough of the plastic so that the shaft ended in a point.
He touched the end. It was sharp. It was a poor substitute for a metal shank, but it was the best he could do on short notice. The plastic was easy to grip. He would have liked some duct tape to roll around it so that he had something more substantial to grip onto, but he doubted that would be possible to get.
He would make do with what he had.
The guards unlocked his cell door in the afternoon under an excuse for time outside. Steve took the sharpened toothbrush and slid it inside his sleeve, the point prodding his forearm as he followed them down the stairs and out into the yard.
Steve tensed as he saw a group of four inmates walking out to intercept them. He reached down and plucked out the toothbrush, sliding it up his arm so that the handle was pressed against the inside of his wrist and the sharp point rested against his cupped fingers. The men wouldn't be able to see it until he wanted them to and, by then, it would be too late for them.
He stopped. The men were closing in. He recognized them: two of them had been in the group that had attacked him the first day in the canteen, and the remaining pair had been part of the group who had beaten him before delivering him to Roederer. Beyond them, Steve saw a pair of guards with shotguns waiting by the entrance to the exercise yard. There were another four guards scattered around the periphery of the space, and two watchtowers loomed at either end.
"You," the nearest man said. "You come with us."
"Again?"
"Come."
"Not today, guys. Tell Savage I'll see him tomorrow."
"We don't ask," the man said. He took a pace ahead, stepping in front of Steve, less than an arm's length away. "We tell you, you come—"
Steve readied himself.
Decided he couldn't let them beat him again, he dropped the shank into his hand and slashed out with it. He backhanded the guy with an upward diagonal, the point slicing through the man's cheek and continuing up across his face and up his forehead. He shrieked with pain, his hands automatically flying up to his face.
He wasn't a threat any longer, so Steve ignored him and turned to the next man. Steve's arm was still raised from the first swipe, and he brought it back down and across in a forehand hack that found the side of the man's side and then tracked down. It was a deep incision, and bright red blood frothed out.
The man fell to his knees as Steve pivoted. The third and fourth men were frozen to the spot, agog at the sudden detonation of violence.
Steve closed the distance to the nearest inmate with two quick steps and flashed the blade across his torso. The man managed to raise his hands, and the point of the shank sliced across both outward-facing palms.
The fourth man backed away.
There came the unmistakable boom as a shotgun was discharged.
Steve heard the sound of a raised voice. He couldn't even recognize the words in a rush of adrenaline, but the meaning was clear.
He glanced to his right. One of the guards at the gate had fired into the air, and his partner was coming forward with his own shotgun aimed squarely at Steve.
He dropped to his knees and raised his hands.
"Lie down!" they bellowed.
He did, covering his head with his arms.
He heard the sound of the guards' boots as they ran across to him. He tensed, anticipating that he was going to take another beating, and they didn't disappoint him. They jammed the butts of their shotguns down onto his torso, working up his shoulders to his folded arms. He couldn't protect all of his head, and they jabbed down with the shotguns and struck him with kicks and punches, so many of them that he dimly assumed that others had come over to join in.
He felt consciousness retreating and, once more, the familiar curtain of blackness twitched at the edges of his vision. The blackness grew bigger and swollen and rushed over him, sweeping him away again.
This was it.
Was this really how it would end?
"You've crossed the line, Detective." Danny recalled the Governor's words, his head still in a daze from his visit at her office. "I've warned you about what would happen if you disobeyed my orders. And you did that times and times again. You did more than that, didn't you? The stunt you've pulled in the FBI office?"
Danny wrapped his fingers about the steering wheel a little tighter, barely noticing the light turning green. He had tried to explain. He really did. But there was nothing he could say to make the Governor listen to his reasoning. There was nothing, really, except his words, that would prove it wasn't what it looked like.
If he didn't know better, he'd smash something in order to vent his anger and frustration. It wouldn't help, though. Nothing would. Not even sure how he would deliver the news to the team, he returned to the headquarters right after the visit to her office.
It was still hard to believe it. It felt… unreal. Like a really bad dream, maybe? His mind was now almost blank despite all the things going on.
Not aware of how he even got there, Danny strolled into the HQ, where all of his teammates were gathered up, patiently waiting in silence for Danny to speak up.
"So?" Lou prompted when Danny didn't say a word. "How did it go?"
Danny opened his mouth, but his throat was dry and he struggled to find his voice. It was hard to miss the worry in his friends' faces grow exponentially. Slowly, he shook his head and tried again. "It's over," he said, struggling to keep his voice from cracking.
"What?" Tani said. "What's over? What are you talking about?"
"This." Danny exhaled a sigh, gesturing around with his hand. "Five-0."
Steve awoke. It felt as if he had been drugged. He could hear the sound of voices, but they were a distance away from him and he was too groggy to understand them. He waited until he came around a little more. Raucous laughter punctuated the conversations. He couldn't make out a word of what was being said, though.
His body ached and his head throbbed. He opened his eyes and wished that he hadn't. It seemed to trigger a fresh wave of pain, a surge that pulsed from his head and all the way up and down his body. He felt nauseous and weak.
He was lying on a hard surface. There was no bed, just a thin and filthy bedroll that took half of the room's space.
He was in a cell. Just like in his previous one, there was no natural light and, as he tilted his head as far as he could without intensifying the pounding in his skull, he confirmed that there were no windows. The walls, floor, and ceiling were all fashioned from slabs of bare concrete. The only way in and out of the cell was a metal door with a blocked-off slit at head height. The light was from a single fixture overhead. Steve would have preferred it to be dark, but it was not. The light was bright and merciless, intensifying his throbbing headache.
Solitary confinement. That, at least, was what he had hoped for. He remembered Roederer's four henchmen ready to haul him out of the prison yard so that Savage could beat him again. He knew that he had hurt all four of them. The guards had subdued him, beaten him until he was unconscious, and then brought him here.
That was good. It was what he had wanted. He had been battered yet again, but he hoped that it would be more difficult for Roederer's people to reach him here.
He tried to work out what time it was, but that was impossible. He usually had an instinctive feel for day or night, but not now. He would make it a priority to find out the time. He had been kept in such places before, and having a rough idea of the time was a crucial part of hanging onto sanity. The passing of hours and days was a constant around which he could balance out the loss of his liberty.
He heard the sound of footsteps. He gingerly rolled over and tried to sit. His muscles had locked up, and the effort of raising himself up was excruciating. He pushed himself to a sitting position as the slot in the door scraped open.
"You are awake," a man's voice said.
"What time is it?"
"Doesn't matter. You will stay here now."
"Where am I?"
The man didn't answer. "You nearly killed another inmate. And got another two to the infirmary. You will be kept here for your own safety until you can be tried. After that…" The man let the words peter out. "Well," he began again, "after that, you will return to the main compound and I doubt you will last very long after this stunt of yours. But we must keep you safe until your sentence is passed."
The slide scraped back again without a warning and Steve heard the footsteps retreating.
He sucked in a breath, trying not to concentrate on how long waiting for a trial could be. He wished he didn't know that, because he couldn't imagine how he would stay sane locked up in a tiny concrete box all alone and with nothing to do for such a period of time.
He shook that thought off his mind. There was nothing he could do about it now anyway.
It was progress, he told himself. It was what he had wanted.
So why didn't he feel any more optimistic?
*to be continued*
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