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It isn't sharp yet. It needs two more nights, and all I've got is as long as it takes Royce to finish his supper.

I pick it up in both fists behind my back. Then I push the drain grate back down with my heel. It lands crooked.

Before I can fix it, the bolt at the top of the stairs slides back. "Driver's backing into the tunnel," Dutch calls down. "Make it quick."

Boots come down the stairs fast. I know every man in this place by his boots. Royce takes the stairs like a boy late for supper, and he always skips the groaning step near the bottom. These boots skip it. It's Royce. Above him, I hear Dutch's wet smoker's cough at the top of the stairs. His boots don't come down.

I lie down on my back with my bound hands under me and the rod pressed flat between my wrists and the concrete. My body hides it.

His flashlight hits the corridor before he does. Keys rattle in the lock.

"Get up, preacher's girl. You're the whole load tonight. Lucky you."

I don't get up. I never do, because Royce likes dragging me up himself. He hauls my cell door open, and its hinges squeal. His flashlight beam slides across the floor and stops on the crooked drain grate.

"What have you been doing to my drain?"

He grabs my arm and yanks me up. The rod scrapes across the concrete. I clamp both fists around it behind my back before it can clatter, with the dull point sticking out past my right hip. But he hears the scrape.

"What the hell have you got there?"

He shoves me face-first toward the back wall and stops me a step short of it. Then he crouches at my right side, between me and the side wall, turned toward my hands. He grabs my right wrist with his left hand to pry my fingers off the rod. His head is level with my hip, a few inches from the point. The side wall is right behind his head.

I twist hard to the right with the rod locked in both fists. The dull point catches him in the soft spot under his left ear. It doesn't go in.

I throw my whole body sideways into him. The side wall stops his head, and my weight drives the rod. The point punches through, and the rod sinks deep. Something hot runs over my knuckles.

Royce makes a short wet sound. The flashlight drops out of his right hand and spins on the floor, throwing light around the walls. His hand slides off my wrist. He tries to stand, but his legs fold. He falls against me as heavy as a sack of feed and takes me down with him.

I don't look away. I hold on to that rod and watch his face until his boots stop scraping the concrete. I need to see it happen. For weeks he dragged me up and down that corridor, and tonight I'm the one who put him on the floor.

Then my hands start shaking so hard I can barely let go. If he'd turned his head one second sooner, I'd be on that truck. And I just killed Dutch's little brother.

"Royce!" Dutch yells down the stairs. "Driver's waiting!"

The tunnel at the end of the corridor runs out to the service road, and the driver and his truck are sitting at the far end of it. The only other way out is the stairs, and Dutch is standing at the top of them.

Up there, a phone rings. Dutch answers without coming down. "He's getting her now. Hold your damn horses." He goes quiet for a moment, then starts arguing with the driver, and his boots stay where they are.

I find Royce's folding knife in his front pocket by feel and work the blade open with my thumbs behind my back. I jam the handle between the bars of my cell door with the blade sticking up. Then I back up against it and saw the zip tie across the edge. It nicks my wrist once. It'd be a hell of a joke to bleed out now. The plastic snaps.

I yank off Royce's boots and drag his canvas jacket off his arms. The flashlight stays where it fell. At the top of the stairs, Dutch stops talking.

"Royce?" One slow boot lands on the top step.

I slip out through my open cell door barefoot, with the boots and jacket clutched to my chest and the knife in my fist. The cell next door is empty, and its barred door hangs open. I crouch in its back corner in the dark.

Dutch comes down one step at a time. At the bottom he stops. His lighter clicks, and the flame lights the corridor while he puffs his cigar back to life. Then his boots move to my cell door and stop.

"Royce." Then he bellows it. "Royce!"

He runs into my cell. I hear his knees hit the concrete.

I run. I take the stairs without a sound and step over the one that groans. At the top, the heavy door stands open on a barrel room. I swing it shut behind me and slam the bolt home.

Below me, Dutch roars. His boots pound up the stairs, and then his fists hit the door so hard the whole frame shakes.

I've never seen the barrel room before. Steel racks hold oak barrels stacked high in long aisles, and security lights burn at the end of every row. Every barrel head facing me has the same brand burned into the wood. It's a circle with a shepherd's crook standing up through it, the hook curled over the top. There are hundreds of them.