20. ♞ A BIGGER FISH TO FRY

       LATER THAT DREADFUL DAY, Michael was finally out of the infirmary, his wound had been properly bandaged, cleaned, and taken care of by Sara and all the pain medication he was on left him calm and collected. On the other hand, Phoebe was fuming, her stomach ached from how pissed off she was, but she decided against saying anything, knowing Michael had a plan and she had to trust in him, no matter how badly she wanted to do something about it.

       The partners in crime were walking around outside next to the area where the officers usually let Lincoln out for fresh air and exercise, the trio having a conversation about what had just happened earlier that day. Lincoln was just as angry as Phoebe was, if not more, and he had no issue expressing his anger.

       "I'm gonna kill that scum." Lincoln sneered through clenched teeth as his grip angrily tightened on the fence between him and his siblings, his knuckles turning white from how tightly he was clenching his hands.

       "I'll more than gladly join and help you, Linc." Phoebe offered sarcastically yet with a serious tone and scoffed afterwards. Michael groaned and shook his head at them.

       "You won't. You guys kill him, you kill our express ticket out of here." Michael explained calmly. Phoebe clenched her jaw, knowing he was right.

       "Look what he did to you." Lincoln pointed out as Michael limped a few steps away from them. "You're not gonna last a second in this place unless I do something about it." Lincoln said, pointing to himself as he made it very clear he wanted Phoebe to stay out of any trouble. Phoebe crossed her arms.

       "You need to be very careful Michael, and you need to stop trusting everyone here. We can all do this together, but we need to stay focused and be extremely careful. Plans are honestly very easy to follow, but people, humans, they are very unpredictable creatures, you know that, we all know that. Things won't always go our way and they definitely won't work out if we're not careful enough." Phoebe added on. Michael sighed and turned to face Phoebe, staring at her in deep thought for a second before looking back at Lincoln.

"You ever hear of Top Flight Charters?" Michael asked seriously, his blue eyes squinted to keep the harsh sunlight out of them. Phoebe cocked a brow at the question, as Lincoln also seemed somewhat confused.

"Yeah..." Lincoln responded with squinted eyes and a small nod. Phoebe tilted her head slightly as she looked between the brothers.

"They operate flights from small airfields across the Midwest, like the one ten miles from here." Michael began to explain, to which Phoebe then realized where Michael was headed with this. He was going to explain to Lincoln why they needed Abruzzi, "They're run by a shell corporation Abruzzi owns." Lincoln cocked a brow.

"Yeah... So?" He asked, still not catching on to what Michael was trying to say. Phoebe rolled her eyes and sighed.

"So, my dear Lincoln, if we get Abruzzi on board, then there's going to be a midnight flight waiting for us on the very night we manage to get out of this fuckin' hellhole." Phoebe added on, to which Michael proudly nodded at. He usually found it amusing how Phoebe expressed herself around them. Around others, she usually only spoke, walked, and acted in very mature, responsable, and sophisticated ways, but around them, she slumped around, swore, made dumb jokes, and acted all around like a completely different person. She could really be herself around them, even in prison.

Lincoln scoffed, "You're willing to risk the entire escape on a guy you don't even know?" Lincoln asked in disbelief, shaking his head. Michael looked down at his feet for a second before looking back at Lincoln.

"Preparation can only take you so far." Michael said, looking up at the guard tower closest to them. "After that, you gotta take a few leaps of faith." Lincoln angrily released his grip on the fence and pushed himself away from it, storming back and forth in his small pen as the fence continued to shake slightly back and forth from Lincoln's aggressive grip earlier.

"Abruzzi's a huge leap of faith, Michael." Lincoln sneered, his back facing the duo. Michael sniffled slightly, while Phoebe nibbled on her bottom lip nervously. She loathed when the brothers argued, and she hated seeing Lincoln angry. It was one of the things in life that truly bothered her.

"I'm not talking about Abruzzi." Michael corrected. "There's someone else who holds the key to this entire thing." Michael explained. Phoebe sighed and nodded as her mind raced and she thought back to their plan and a talk Michael and her had had a couple days prior about their other cellmate.

"Yeah, a bigger fish to fry, you could say. With him, it either works, or it doesn't. Everything could go sideways if he's not in." Phoebe explained as she sighed stressfully. As if on cue, the bigger fish was being lead through the courtyard by two officers, unaware that the trio were talking about him and staring him down.

"Yeah... problem is, we couldn't know who that was until we got in here." Michael said, his eyes landing on the inmate being lead away by the officers. Lincoln rushed back to the fence, taking a tight grip on it again as he squinted his eyes and looked at the inmate.

"Sucre?" Lincoln asked in a breathy sigh, "You can't be serious. The guy's a thief, Michael. He can't be trusted." Lincoln spat as he rushed to the end of the pen and then back to where they were, obviously stressed. Michael and Phoebe shrugged.

"Gonna have to trust him... because he's our cellmate." Michael explained. Lincoln released his grip on the fence once more moved farther down the fence in order to get a better at look at Sucre before gripping onto the fencing again.

"How well do you guys know him?" Lincoln questioned in a lower tone of voice, as if Sucre had super enhanced hearing and would hear him from his place yards away.

"About as well as a man can in a week." Michael said. Phoebe shrugged.

"I don't know, I like him. He gives me a good vibe. I don't think he's a bad guy. I mean yeah, he stole stuff, but that doesn't necessarily make him a bad person. Maybe he can be trustworthy." Phoebe explained with a small shrug. Lincoln shook his head.

"You can't plan a prison break based on a good vibe or a gut feeling that you get from someone, Bee. Specially not from someone you meet in prison!" Lincoln stressed. "You two tell him, he tells everyone, we're done. You two know that, right?!" Michael clenched his jaw, slightly stressed with Lincoln's lack of faith in them.

"We don't get him on board, there's not gonna be any digging in that cell." Michael snapped, his tone surprising Phoebe, although she didn't mention it, instead she just nodded along.

"Yeah, and you know what that means, Linc?" Phoebe asked as she turned to face said man, "If there's no digging in the cell, then there's no goddamn escape!" She wailed quietly in annoyance with him. She knew Lincoln was just worried and afraid of what might happen if the plan went sideways, but she was also annoyed by the lack of trust and faith he had in them and their lengthy plan.

       After all, it was Michael who had mostly planned the whole escape, and both Lincoln and Phoebe knew damn well that Michael was a special kind of intelligent. If anyone could get them out of there, it was him.