The Collected

CHAPTER 40

Slung between the guards’arms, the prisoners were returned to their cells one by one and dumped on their mattresses.

As the third one shocked, Nate was the third to be brought back. His body didn’t know if it should scream from the welts on his back, or the near electrocution the rest of his system had just received.

He lay on his side, wanting nothing more than for sleep to overtake him, but there was something he had to check first, something he was afraid he already knew the answer to.

He worked the pant leg over his right calf, and opened the seam so he could get into his prosthetic. He slipped his finger into the empty storage space, and immediately knew he’d been right to be concerned. The walls of the container, usually smooth, felt gritty. He pulled his hand out and examined his fingertip.

Black.

Dammit.

He stuck his finger into the compartment again, and hooked it up toward the previously damaged emergency beacon button. Not only was there more grit, but what was left of the button was now deformed, melted. He tried pushing it, but the button was frozen in place.

No! Dammit!

Though most of his carbon-fiber prosthetic was purely mechanical and undamaged by the electroshock, the excess electricity had gotten to the emergency beacon and destroyed it.

For the first time, Nate began to despair. Though he’d known there was a chance the beacon had already stopped working because of the bolt, he’d still been hopeful. Now he knew whatever help it might have brought wasn’t coming, and if he was going to get out of his situation alive, it would be up to him alone.

Given his current physical condition, he wasn’t a big fan of his odds.