Free HL 04-The Final Hour by Andrew Klavan Page A

close to his angry eyes. “You listen to me, West. You open your mouth one time—one time—and so help me, they will find your broken body . . .”
    “I said, get off me!”
    I was too angry to stop myself. I knocked his hand away again. I staggered backward as he let me go.
    Dunbar looked surprised—surprised I dared to stand up to him, surprised that any prisoner would dare. But he smiled as I glared at him.
    “Careful, West,” he said, very softly, very dangerously.
    “Listen,” I told him. “The next time you have me in your lousy Outbuilding, with your guards waiting out in the yard to help you so I can’t fight back—then you can beat on me all you want. But you lay your hand on me in here again and so help me, you’ll be in the infirmary with me.”
    The bully’s eyes widened in shock, then narrowed in rage. I was pretty sure no prisoner had ever talked to him like that before.
    “Oh, you’re gonna be sorry you mouthed off to me, garbage,” he said. “Remember I told you I’m gonna make teaching you a lesson my hobby?”
    “I remember.”
    “Well, forget that. I’m gonna make it my profession. You think you have some kind of protection against me. You got no protection against me. When I decide to come for you, no one’ll see, no one’ll know, no one’ll say a word. You’ll just be gone.”
    With that, he grinned—and turned to walk away.
    I was glad to see him go. But before he reached the door, something happened.
    It was like another memory attack—that harsh, that sudden, that real—but it only lasted a single second. One flash. One memory. That moment, out in the darkness, out in the shadows of the Homelander compound as I listened to the voices inside the building. I remembered Prince’s voice . . .
    The Great Death!
    “Dunbar!” I called out. The word sprang from my mouth before I even had time to think about it.
    The Yard King stopped about two steps away from the infirmary door. Slowly, he turned back to face me.
    “You say something, garbage?”
    I was about to answer when there it was again. The flash of memory. The night. The compound. The voices inside. The images and words rushed in on me too quickly for me to understand them all. But one thought stood out from all the others like phrases written in fire in a paragraph of faded print.
    The Great Death will not be stopped . . . It will ring in the devil’s New Year .
    “I have to see the warden,” I said softly, more to myself than to Dunbar. “I have to talk to the warden right away, right now.”
    Dunbar narrowed his eyes. He pointed a finger at me. “Just how short a life are you looking to have, you dumb—”
    “No,” I said, “no, it’s not about you. It has nothing to do with you. Listen to me, Dunbar. Something terrible is going to happen.”
    I stood and stared down at the floor as the thoughts, the images, the memories kept flashing around me, engulfing me.
    The Great Death will not be stopped . . . Even if I have to do it on my own, the Great Death will not be stopped .
    It was hard to think straight, but I knew I had to. I had to put the pieces together. Prince had escaped. Rose had told me that. Most of the Homelanders had been rounded up, but Prince and some of his accomplices were still at large.
    Even if I have to do it on my own . . .
    Rose’s bosses in Washington were wrong. Prince hadn’t left the country. The threat of the Homelanders wasn’t over. As long as Prince was alive, as long as he was free . . .
    The Great Death will not be stopped .
    He would somehow make sure the Great Death would happen. Whatever the Great Death was, Prince would see it through, even if he had to do it alone.
    I had to tell someone, warn someone. But who could I tell? Who could I warn? How could I get the word out? In here. Stuck in here. Rose was gone. He said I wouldn’t be able to get in touch with him anymore. Who else would believe me? My parents—my friends—maybe even my lawyers—sure. But none of them