The concrete floor didn’t just break her fall; it tried to shatter whatever the guards had left intact.
Jane hit the ground of the solitary confinement cell with a heavy, wet thud that forced all the air from her lungs in a violent rush. The heavy iron door slammed shut behind her. The deadbolt engaged with a sound like a guillotine dropping. Then, absolute, suffocating darkness.
She didn't move. She lay on her side, her cheek pressed against the freezing, damp stone, and let her mind detach. It was a survival mechanism. If she stayed inside her body right now, the pain would short-circuit her nervous system. So she stepped outside of it. She became a clinician observing a dying patient.
Three cracked ribs on the left side, she noted, listening to the wet, clicking rattle of her own bre
