What Gareth Knew
The next seconds changed the balance of the yard.
Not because of the weapon.
Because Gareth stepped between them.
The entire circle seemed to recoil at once.
Briggs froze. “Move, Crowe.”
Gareth did not.
He stood with his broad back to Nina, facing the lieutenant, and for the first time since he had entered prison, the power in his body was not being rented out to the administration, the gangs or the yard economy. It belonged to his own decision.
“She’s telling the truth,” Gareth said.
A ripple moved through the inmates.
Briggs’s face emptied. “Think carefully.”
Gareth let out a slow breath. “I’ve been thinking for four years.”
He touched the scar on his lip with the back of one hand, as if some old injury had just begun speaking again.
“I drove one of the transfer legs,” he said, his voice carrying across the concrete. “Didn’t know what was in the case. Didn’t ask. Was told it was clean work. Then the convoy got hit. Heard later two officers were dead. Heard later the witness disappeared. Heard later the lieutenant here got promoted.”
Nina said nothing.
Gareth kept going, the words roughening as they came. “Six months after I landed in this place, one of Briggs’s men came to me. Said there was a woman who might show up someday. If she did, I was to break her before she could speak to Internal Affairs. Said if I handled it, my brother on the outside would keep receiving money.”
The inmates around them exchanged looks. This was no longer a spectacle. It was evidence.
Briggs’s voice sharpened. “Shut your mouth.”
Gareth ignored him. “Last week I got a letter. No return address. Three words. She is alive.” He swallowed. “I knew it had to be her.”
He turned slightly, not enough to lose sight of Briggs. “That’s why I pushed this in the yard. I wanted to see if you were what they claimed.”
Nina’s answer came low. “And?”
Gareth gave one hard, bitter smile. “You’re worse.”
A few inmates almost laughed from nerves, but the sound died quickly.
Nina stepped beside him now, small against his size, though the scale between them mattered less with each passing second.
“You told Officer Marlowe the other day prison was no place for someone like her,” she said.
Gareth frowned, thrown by the change.
Nina continued, “You were right. It isn’t. Not for anyone decent. That’s why men like him survive here.” She nodded toward Briggs. “Because decent people keep thinking silence is the safer choice.”
Briggs drew his taser.
The yard erupted.
Guards shouted. Inmates surged toward the fence line, then away again. The electric crack of armed authority split the air.
But before Briggs could raise the weapon fully, a voice boomed from the tower loudspeaker.
“Lieutenant Briggs, stand down. Drop it. Now.”
May you like
Every head snapped upward.
In the tower window stood the warden.
