Cole clutched the keys in his fist. He sweated through the next sixty seconds, then bolted. Giggling and play fighting, Maxine and the girls lured the deputies away from the building as Cole dashed into the station.

He stepped through the double doors unseen. The recent bustle had left the main room in disarray, but for the moment it was empty. A male voice droned at the dispatch desk off the connecting hallway. Cole heard curses, questions, commands, and patrol units being ordered in various directions. It sounded like all hell had broken loose across town. Good.

He moved farther into the room and got a narrow view into Curtis’s office. The room was dark, Curtis nowhere in sight. He weaved through the grid of cluttered desks, file cabinets, and water coolers until he reached the cast-iron door that led down to the cell blocks—a door through which he had passed more than once over the years.

He tried six different keys before finally hearing the desired click. The door opened without a creak. He was halfway inside when a ringing phone suddenly broke the silence.

Cole’s heart stopped. His eyes darted around the room until he realized the phone was on his person. He cursed his carelessness, having forgotten to switch off Hickham’s cell phone. The phone rang again. He reached frantically into his pocket, pulled it out, and switched it off.

There was a pause in the dispatcher’s chatter.

“That you, Smitty?” The dispatcher called.

Cole looked toward the hall and grunted.

“Say ’gain?”

Another grunt.

“Christ, Smitty, it’s about time. You said two minutes. Come on, it’s my turn. Take over the lines so I can go see those pom-pom girls.”

“Lemme piss,” Cole mumbled through a cough.

“Well, hurry it up, will ya? I got the numb-ass. Been sittin’ here all damn night. I’m five hours into overtime as it is.”

Cole shut the door behind him and started down the darkened stairs.

The smell of the cell block hit him instantly—a rancid mixture of sweat and body odor. Grunts, groans, and curses echoed off the sterile walls. There was also the unmistakable sound of skin slapping skin and heavy bodies slamming into concrete and steel.

It sounded like … football.

He moved into the dim corridor at the bottom of the stairs. A numbing sight greeted him. It seemed the Jackrabbits weren’t the only football team that had transformed into something less than human over the last twenty-four hours.

The improvised scrimmage ceased the instant Cole stepped in front of the bars. The cell block fell quiet. Heavy breathing was the only sound as the forty Elmwood Badgers turned and fixed predatory eyes on Cole.

Their fury was evident.

If the Jackrabbits were merely lost souls in search of heaven, then the Badgers had unquestionably become something destined for hell.