The noise of the prison hit different during the night. The whole block was alive with it. Voices bouncing off walls, the heavy sound of boots hitting the floor every few seconds, arguments erupting behind bars between men who had never physically met but had been shouting at each other long enough that they felt like enemies anyway. Nelson stood at the bars of his cell and watched everything in front of him slowly and carefully. Every corner he looked at was filled with men who had stopped caring about living or dying a long time ago. You could see it in the way they moved. The way they looked at new faces. The way they looked at nothing. Then a voice came from across the corridor. “Hey. Is it you again right? You think you just walked away from what happened back there?” A short laugh followed it. “Today was your lucky day new guy. But luck does not come around here too often so I would not get comfortable with it.” Nelson looked across at the face behind the bars. He said not

The guy moved closer and the look on his face got harder with every step. Behind him, a group of men followed his every move like he had a remote control on all of them. Nobody broke formation. Nobody looked sideways. They just moved exactly when he moved and stopped exactly when he stopped. “I asked a question. Nobody keeps me waiting for an answer.” Nelson looked around the yard slowly. What he saw on Scorpion’s face was something he had not seen on it since he arrived in this prison. All that energy. All that authority. All that chest. Gone. Completely. Scorpion stood there looking like a different person from the one who had been shoving Nelson around seconds ago. Even Ken’s jaw was hanging open. His eyes were fixed on the guy and he could not seem to pull them away. Nelson leaned slightly toward Ken without turning his head fully. “Who is this guy that has Scorpion looking like that?” Ken turned to him slowly. The shock was still fresh on his face. “You told me you were

“Scorpion. Out of your cell. You have a visitor.”The guard’s voice hit the block loud enough to pull most of the inmates out of whatever sleep they had managed to find. It bounced off the walls and ceiling and settled into the silence that followed it, as if it belonged there.Scorpion sat up in his bunk slowly.He swung his legs over the side and sat there for a moment before standing. The confidence that usually came off him the moment he moved through any space in this prison was not there this morning. Nathan’s words from the yard were still sitting on him and everyone in the block knew it even if nobody said it out loud.The guards were waiting outside his cell when the door opened. Two of them. Walking behind him as they moved through the corridors toward the visitation room. He kept his eyes forward and said nothing.When he walked into the visitation room his eyes found the man sitting at the table immediately.Detective Cole.His Legs were crossed, and he wore dark glasses.

Karlus slammed the paper hard on his desk. He stared at it, having read it over and over again, but the words stayed the same no matter how many times his eyes moved across them. Written in thick black ink that pressed into the paper like it had no intention of going anywhere. He wished it could change. He tapped his fingers on the desk slowly. “How did I not see this coming? I had every opportunity to stop Nelson before he even left the city and I just let it happen right in front of me.” He moved to the edge of the room and drove his fist into the wall. The impact left a small crack in the surface. He stood there looking at it for a moment then turned back to the room. Cole and Kyler were standing behind the desk. Neither of them had moved since he started talking. Karlus looked between them both and the frustration on his face had nowhere to go so it just sat there burning. “How did none of you think fast enough to predict this? At least one of you should have seen what Nels

“Why are you here Emily?” Emily raised her head slowly. Her face still carried everything the last few weeks had done to her. “Nelson I know there is nothing I can say right now that will make you forgive me. I know that. But I also know that somewhere in you there is still something that wants me here. Otherwise, you would have walked back out that door the moment you saw me.” Nelson rolled his eyes and looked away for a second. “What did you come here to say, Emily. Just say it.” The small attempt at a smile that had been sitting on her face when he walked in faded completely. “Is this really how you are going to treat me? After everything we have been through together you are going to sit there and talk to me like I am a stranger?” “You did what you thought you had to do Emily. You made your choice and you stood by it. So why are you feeling guilty about it now?” Emily shifted closer to the glass between them. Her eyes were not going anywhere else. They were fixed on his f