A full day had passed since the battle in the ruins. Warden Holden stood beside a section of the collapsed prison with his hat held against his chest, while the surviving corrections officers gathered behind him in silence. "Let us observe a moment of silence for our missing colleagues."
Despite digging through the rubble for almost an entire day, five corrections officers were still unaccounted for. No bodies had been found, but neither had there been any sign that they were alive. Holden had already prepared himself for the worst, and losing five members of his staff clearly weighed heavily on him.
Just as Holden lowered his head and prepared to deliver an emotional speech, Axel Vance noticed something unusual in the crowd. One corrections officer was not grieving at all, and instead kept shifting his eyes from side to side with an awkward expression. The man looked like he desperately wanted to say something but lacked the courage.
Axel silently walked over and tapped Holden on the shoulder before gesturing toward the suspicious officer. Holden followed his gaze and immediately noticed the strange behavior. His grieving expression disappeared as he marched toward the man.
"Cage, what the hell is that look on your face?" Holden demanded. "If you know something, spit it out instead of standing there looking guilty."
The corrections officer named Cage flinched when Holden called him out. Under the warden’s increasingly dangerous stare, he finally gave up trying to remain silent. "Warden... the five missing officers aren’t actually dead."
Holden froze.
"What did you just say?"
"They’re alive."
Holden’s voice immediately rose. "Then where the hell are they? We’ve spent all day digging through concrete looking for those idiots!"
Cage’s face turned bright red. He lowered his voice and awkwardly explained, "They slipped out that morning to get coffee and donuts before everything happened. They were already outside the prison when the place collapsed."
The entire group went silent.
Holden’s grief-stricken expression remained frozen for several seconds. His face slowly changed from pale sadness to disbelief, then finally became bright red with fury. "Those sons of bitches!"
His roar echoed across the ruins.
"When I get my hands on them, I’m docking every damn cent I legally can!"
Nobody dared laugh where Holden could see them.
The rescue work quickly resumed, and the survivors began piling broken concrete and construction debris along one side of the crater. Their goal was to create a rough ramp large enough for people to climb out safely. With dozens of prisoners and guards working together, progress was slow but steady.
Holden, meanwhile, had lost all of his earlier energy. He squatted beside a broken section of wall and stared miserably across what remained of the prison, looking like someone had drained every ounce of strength from him. Axel eventually walked over and stopped beside him.
"Warden, we’re almost out of here," Axel said. "Why do you look like somebody just told you the world ended?"
Holden slowly raised his head. "Do you know how much money I had tied up in this place?"
Axel frowned.
"What?"
"This facility cost me a fortune."
Axel stared at him for several seconds. "Wait. You mean you actually own part of this prison?"
Holden gave him a confused look. "What did you think this was?"
"A government prison."
Holden almost laughed. "The government sends us inmates and pays under contract, but the company operating this facility is private. I put a very large amount of my own money into the operation and have a controlling interest here."
Axel looked around at the crater that had once been a functioning prison.
"So I’m an actual police officer who went undercover inside a privately operated prison?"
"Pretty much."
Axel suddenly understood why Holden seemed less concerned with public administration than with financial losses. Private corrections were still a relatively new business in America, but apparently Holden had gotten involved early enough to make serious money from it. Judging from the destroyed facility around them, that investment had just suffered a catastrophic setback.
Another thought immediately became more important.
Axel narrowed his eyes. "Wait a minute."
Holden looked at him.
"What about my hundred thousand dollars?"
Holden stared at him for half a second before bursting into laughter. "Axel, my friend, relax. You think this prison is the only business I own?"
Axel continued staring.
Holden waved dismissively. "Your hundred grand is safe. I don’t put every dollar I have into one operation."
That answer finally allowed Axel to relax.
"However..." Holden added.
Axel’s eyes immediately narrowed again. "However what?"
"The money I promised to contribute through the proper channels to help your department may have to wait." Holden looked painfully toward the ruins again. "I need some time to recover from this disaster first."
Axel considered the answer and decided he could live with it. His personal payment remained intact, and Holden still had the connections needed to help his career later. With the important issue settled, another question that had bothered Axel finally surfaced.
"I still don’t understand something," Axel said. "How does running a prison actually make enough money to justify buying into one?"
Holden’s mood immediately improved.
He glanced toward the prisoners working on the ramp, then quietly pulled Axel several steps away so nobody nearby could hear them clearly. A familiar businessman’s smile appeared on his face. "Now that is a much better question."
"The business is all about controlling costs," Holden explained. "The government pays for each inmate we house, so the less it costs to operate the facility, the better the margin. Food, staffing, maintenance, contracts—every dollar saved matters."
Axel raised an eyebrow. "That explains why the food tastes like drywall."
Holden ignored the insult. "And inmates can work. Agriculture, manufacturing contracts, maintenance, whatever programs the agreements allow."
He lowered his voice even further. "Prison labor costs almost nothing compared with ordinary employees. Once you combine that with government contracts and industrial work, there’s plenty of money to be made if the facility stays full and expenses stay low."
Holden’s grin became increasingly smug. "Of course, you need the right political and business connections to get those contracts in the first place. If I didn’t know the right people around Miami, I never would’ve gotten involved in this operation."
Axel stared at him in disbelief.
What Holden described sounded less like a correctional facility and more like an industrial operation built around a captive workforce. The warden’s obsession with minimizing the investigation suddenly made far more sense. Every scandal, inspection, and structural problem threatened the profitability of his business.
Axel finally understood why Holden had sent an undercover officer instead of immediately calling in a huge outside investigation team. He had wanted the mysterious deaths solved quietly, cheaply, and without attracting anyone who might start examining the rest of the operation. The supernatural disaster had destroyed that plan along with nearly everything else.
Holden was still explaining prison economics when a loud cheer suddenly interrupted him.
"We made it!"
One prisoner had reached the top of the newly completed rubble ramp. He threw both arms into the air and stared toward open ground beyond the crater. "Freedom, baby!"
Holden’s expression instantly changed.
He rushed toward the ramp and shouted, "Nobody runs! You idiots still have sentences to finish!"
Several prisoners had already started climbing faster.
Holden pointed furiously at them. "Think about this for five damn seconds! Escaping custody will add more charges and more time!"
"Let me worry about that when I’m outside!" one inmate shouted back.
The promise of freedom proved far stronger than Holden’s authority. Several prisoners scrambled up the ramp as quickly as they could and immediately ran once they reached the top. More followed despite the warden’s threats.
"Morons!" Holden shouted after them. "You’re turning months into years!"
By the time Axel and the remaining group climbed out, none of them had enough energy to chase anyone. Then they saw what was waiting outside and stopped in surprise.
Hundreds of civilians had gathered around the destroyed prison.
People stood behind makeshift barriers, pointed toward the enormous crater, and shouted questions at anyone wearing a corrections uniform. Some had apparently come after hearing the collapse, while others had simply followed the growing crowd. The moment prisoners began appearing among them, confusion spread everywhere.
The inmates who planned to escape immediately rushed into the civilians.
Axel watched one prisoner sprint toward a parked motorcycle and try to yank its owner away from it. The startled man resisted, the two struggled for a moment, and the civilian suddenly pulled a handgun from beneath his jacket. A gunshot cracked through the crowd, and the escaping inmate collapsed beside the motorcycle.
Axel stared at the fallen prisoner.
If he remembered correctly, the idiot had only about six months remaining on his sentence.
If he survived the gunshot, those six months had probably just become several more years after an escape attempt and attempted robbery. Axel could only shake his head at the man’s spectacular ability to destroy his own future.
Holden had no intention of chasing every escaped inmate. Inside the facility they had been his responsibility, but now that fugitives were scattering into public streets, local law enforcement would have to deal with them. His immediate concern was moving the remaining prisoners and injured survivors somewhere secure.
With the help of surviving officers and emergency personnel gathering outside, Holden arranged several buses to transport the remaining group toward the nearest police station. Prisoners who had chosen not to escape were loaded aboard under guard, while injured survivors were given priority. Axel boarded with Holden and finally left the ruins behind.
During the ride, Axel looked through the window at civilians crowding the roads around the disaster area. Emergency vehicles were beginning to arrive, but the official response seemed strangely late considering an entire prison had just collapsed. "Where was everyone while we were digging ourselves out?"
Holden gave a humorless laugh.
"Government bureaucracy."
Axel glanced toward him.
"By the time five different offices figure out who has authority, fill out their paperwork, and decide what resources to send, we could’ve built another prison ourselves." Holden folded his arms and leaned back against the seat. "We were better off getting ourselves out."
The police station was even more chaotic.
Phones rang continuously throughout the building as dispatchers and officers handled one emergency call after another. Citizens were reporting escaped prisoners from every direction, and descriptions of fugitives were being written down almost faster than officers could process them.
The arrival of dozens of prisoners, corrections officers, and injured survivors only made matters worse. There were not enough officers immediately available to properly process everyone, so Holden’s group was temporarily kept together while the department tried to organize itself. Axel had barely found somewhere to stand when several familiar corrections officers suddenly rushed toward them.
"Warden!"
Five men in prison uniforms came running through the station.
Holden slowly turned.
They were the missing officers.
"Thank God you’re alive!" one of them shouted. "We’ve been here waiting for emergency support all day!"
Another looked genuinely emotional. "When we heard the prison collapsed, we thought everyone was dead."
Several of them actually appeared close to tears.
Whether those tears came from relief that Holden had survived or relief that they might still have jobs was difficult to determine.
Holden stared at the five men who had vanished for coffee and donuts on the exact morning the prison collapsed. For a moment, genuine relief crossed his face. Then his expression slowly darkened again.
"Wonderful."
The five officers smiled nervously.
Holden’s eye twitched. "Absolutely wonderful."
Before he could begin the punishment he had undoubtedly been planning since Cage’s confession, the front doors of the station suddenly opened.
Several sharply dressed officials entered together.
The busy police station gradually quieted as the group crossed the room. Walking at the front was the police chief, whose serious expression made it clear that this was not a social visit.
He stopped directly in front of Holden.
"Warden Holden, congratulations on making it out alive."
Holden straightened slightly.
The chief continued, "I’m sorry to drag you away immediately after everything that happened, but city officials need to speak with you right now."
Holden frowned but nodded.
Then the police chief looked past him.
His eyes settled on Axel Vance.
"You come too."
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