CHAPTER 5 — The Judge's Ring Was Never Meant to Be Seen
Emily didn't think.
She ran.
The moment Brutus collapsed, two guards lunged toward her with stun batons raised.
Before they could grab her, a tattooed inmate slammed into them, sending both men crashing into the concrete.
"GO!" he shouted.
"We'll hold them!"
Emily hesitated for only a second before sprinting across the prison yard.
Behind her, chaos erupted.
Sirens screamed.
Prisoners overturned metal tables, smoke filled the air, and alarms echoed from every building.
But Emily wasn't running to escape.
She was running toward Cell Block C.
Toward Locker 17.
The prison warden stood on the administration balcony, gripping the railing so tightly his knuckles turned white.
"Seal every exit!"
"Don't let her reach that locker!"
Judge Rebecca Lawson remained strangely calm.
She watched Emily disappear into the prison corridor before speaking softly.
"It's already too late."
The warden looked at her.
"What do you mean?"
Rebecca smiled.
"If she opens Locker 17..."
"...everyone in this prison dies."
Emily burst through the steel doors of Cell Block C.
The hallway was dark.
Emergency lights flashed red every few seconds.
Every empty cell looked like a giant cage waiting to swallow her.
She finally reached the old storage room.
A rusty sign hung above the entrance.
LOCKERS 1–20
Her hands shook as she searched.
Locker 12...
Locker 13...
Locker 16...
Then...
Locker 17.
The old rusted key fit perfectly.
Click.
The door slowly creaked open.
Emily expected files.
Maybe photographs.
Maybe a hard drive.
Instead...
There was only a small black metal box.
And taped to it...
A faded photograph.
Emily's heart stopped.
The picture showed three smiling children standing in front of an orphanage twenty-five years earlier.
One was Emily.
One was Daniel...
before he became Brutus.
The third child...
made Emily drop the photograph.
It was Judge Rebecca Lawson.
"No..."
Emily whispered.
"She grew up with us?"
A folded letter slipped from behind the photograph.
On the front were only six handwritten words.
"Read this before trusting anyone."
Emily opened it.
The handwriting belonged to Brutus.
Emily... if you're reading this, it means they finally found us.
The fire wasn't started to kill children.
It was started to erase names.
Rebecca wasn't one of them.
She was one of us... until she betrayed everyone.
Emily turned the page.
Her breathing stopped.
Attached was a list.
Thirty-seven names.
Every child who survived the orphanage fire.
Beside nearly every name...
One word had been stamped in red ink.
DECEASED.
But Emily recognized several names.
People she had met.
People who were still alive.
Which meant...
Someone had spent decades hunting every survivor.
Suddenly—
BEEP... BEEP... BEEP...
A tiny red light began flashing beneath the metal box.
Emily frowned.
It wasn't a storage box.
It was a timer.
00:29...
00:28...
00:27...
Her blood froze.
The locker had never been hiding evidence.
It had been hiding a bomb.
A voice echoed from the hallway behind her.
"You were never supposed to make it this far."
Emily slowly turned around.
Standing in the doorway...
Judge Rebecca Lawson held a pistol pointed directly at her head.
Smiling.
May you like
"You should've let your brother die alone."
To Be Continued...
