Jamal shrugged. “I’m tough, he needs someone tough.”
“Yeah,” Orc said. “But he treats me like crap.”
“Yeah?”
“Should see how he’s living, man. You think he’s living like the rest of us? Get this: at night he doesn’t even go out to take a leak. He’s got, like, a jar he pees in.”
“I got a jar I pee in.”
“Yeah, well, he’s got a maid to take it out and dump it for him.”
Orc’s head was buzzing, not really paying attention, but Jamal was getting fired up, listing complaints about Albert, starting with the fact that Albert had meat every day and kids to clean up after him.
“See, man, he loves it like this, right?” Jamal said, already slurring his words. “Back in the world Albert was just some shrimpy little nothing. In here he’s a big man and I’m, like, his, you know . . .”
“Servant,” Orc supplied.
Jamal’s eyes flared angrily. “Yeah. Yeah. Like you, Orc, you’re Sam’s servant.”
“I ain’t anyone’s servant.”
“You’re babysitting Drake all day and night, man, what is it you think you are? You’re doing what the Sam Boss tells you.”
Orc didn’t have a ready answer. He wished Howard was home because Howard was smarter at talking.
Jamal pushed it. “Guys like you and me and Turk and Drake, right? We used to be in charge. Because we were tough and we weren’t afraid and didn’t take anyone’s crap, right?”
Orc shrugged. He was feeling very uncomfortable. “Where’s Howard?” he muttered.
Jamal made a rude noise. “Howard’s not the one stuck being a jailer, you are, Orc. Sam’s prison guard. Keeps you busy, right, and trapped here all the time. So it’s like Turk said.”
“What’d Turk say?”
“Said Sam got you and Drake locked up at the same time.”
“It’s not like that.”
Jamal laughed derisively. “Man, all you have to do is see who is top dog and who is bottom dog. See, that’s where Zil was wrong: it’s not about moofs and normals, freaks and non-freaks, it’s about top dog, bottom dog. You and me, Orc, we’re bottom dogs. Should be top dogs.”
Just then Brittney’s voice came up from below. “Is Sam there? Get Sam! You have to call Sam!”
Orc levered himself up off his bed and yelled, “Hey shut up. I already gotta listen to Drake all day and night.”
He swayed, tried to catch himself and couldn’t. He slipped and fell back on his rear. Jamal exploded in derisive laughter.
This time Orc leaped to his feet. “Stop laughing!”
“Orc, get Sam!”
“It was funny, man,” Jamal said through his own braying laughter.
“Orc, Drake is trying—”
Orc cursed loudly. He stomped on the floor. “Shut up, shut up!”
And suddenly, with a rending, ripping sound, the floor beneath Orc gave way.
He fell through wood and plaster. He landed hard and lay flat on his back, winded. Splinters and dust settled on him.
He blinked, too stunned to make sense of what had just happened. His first thought was that Howard would be pissed. His second thought was that Sam would be even more pissed.
Brittney was standing over him, looking down at him.
Flat on his back. Drunk and foolish. A monster. And from above came Jamal’s donkey laughter.
Orc reached to touch the skin that still stretched over a part of his face. He was bleeding. Not bad, not a lot, but bleeding.
In blind rage Orc got to his feet. He punched Brittney with all his strength. The girl went flying into the wall. Her head snapped against cinderblock, a hit that would have killed any real, living girl.
But Brittney couldn’t die.
Which was the final straw. Something in Orc’s brain snapped. He leaped, trying to grab the floor above and pull himself through, but he slipped and fell again and Jamal was pointing and laughing and Orc ran for the door, the barricaded door that had kept the Drake/Brittney thing locked up. He body-slammed the door. It held, but barely. He reared back and kicked and kicked and splinters flew.
“No! No!” Brittney screamed. “He’ll escape!”
Orc stepped back, raised both his gravel-skinned arms and ran straight at the door.
It didn’t fly open, it simply came apart. The frame shattered and splintered. The door itself split. And Orc tore through.
“Want to laugh at me?” he roared as he pounded up the stairs and emerged in the kitchen.
Jamal was still standing next to the hole, laughing.
“You wanna laugh?” Orc roared.
Jamal spun around, realizing too late the danger he was in. Orc was over six feet tall and almost as wide as he was tall. His legs were like tree trunks, his arms like bridge cable.
Jamal fumbled for his gun, but Orc wasn’t having any of that. He grabbed Jamal by the neck, lifted him off the floor, and threw him down the hole.
Jamal hit hard. The gun flew, scraping across the floor.
Orc was panting, sweating, heart pounding in his chest. Now reality was starting to penetrate the alcohol-fueled rage and he saw what he had done.
Howard. He should . . . Or Sam . . . Someone, he should tell someone, get someone . . .
It was all over now for Charles Merriman. He had redeemed himself, he had been given something important to do. But now all that was gone. And he was just Orc again.
He wanted to cry. He couldn’t face it. He couldn’t face Howard’s disappointment and pity. Sam’s cold anger.