Part 5
The gate rolled aside.
Garrison entered first, leaving the tactical officers in the corridor. Kline and Lieutenant Shaw followed him, though Shaw kept several feet between himself and the other captain.
The women stood beside their bunks. Ruth moved to the front without being asked.
“Water is being restored,” Garrison said. “Medical will examine anyone who submitted a request. You will now report to your assignments.”
Ruth did not move. “And the packets?”
“An internal review is underway.”
“Kline’s reviewing himself?”
“Captain Kline has been removed from the shop pending investigation.”
Kline’s face darkened. “Warden—”
“Quiet.”
The order struck him harder than a shout.
Garrison looked toward Mara. “Ms. Reed, step forward.”
She did.
“You have disrupted this institution since the hour you arrived.”
“The pipe was already broken. So was the wiring.”
“You encouraged an unauthorized work stoppage.”
“I didn’t ask anyone to stop.”
“You expect me to believe this happened around you by coincidence?”
“No. I expect you to ask why women serving long sentences decided they had less to lose by refusing you than by obeying your officers.”
A murmur traveled through the dorm.
Garrison’s gloved hand moved beneath his coat. “This is not a public debate.”
“Then stop making your private fear everyone else’s punishment.”
His eyes narrowed.
Ruth turned toward Mara slightly, but Mara kept her attention on the warden.
“You recognized my name,” she said. “You kept my pouch. You sent Kline to make me request isolation, and when that failed, someone tried to put drugs in my locker.”
“I ordered no such thing.”
Kline stared at him.
Mara saw the look pass between them.
Perhaps Garrison had not ordered the packet. Perhaps he had merely created a system where Kline knew what would please him. The difference mattered to policy and paperwork. It mattered less to the woman who would have received another sentence.
Garrison addressed Ruth. “Take your unit to work.”
“No.”
The word was quiet.
He seemed not to understand it at first. “What did you say?”
“I said no.”
“Your parole review is in four months.”
“That’s what Kline reminded me of before he asked me to cut her.”
Kline stepped forward. “She’s lying.”
Ruth turned, and the old authority returned to her face. “You want to say that closer?”
The tactical officers moved at the doorway.
Garrison raised his left hand. “Enough.”
He looked around the dorm at women who had once lowered their eyes when he entered. Some were frightened. Some were angry. None sat down.
“Ms. Reed will submit to a search,” he said. “If nothing is found, this unit will return to normal operations.”
“A search for what?” Mara asked.
“Contraband.”
“You searched my locker yesterday.”
“This will be a complete search.”
The meaning settled over the room. Several women shifted closer to Mara.
Kline smiled for the first time since entering. “I’ll escort her.”
“No,” Ruth said.
“It wasn’t a request.”
He reached for Mara’s upper arm with his uninjured hand.
Jasmine stepped between them.
She was twenty-three, thin enough that the state sweatshirt hung from her shoulders, and had spent most of Mara’s first night trying not to be noticed. Now she lifted her chin toward a man twice her size.
“You already planted something once.”
Kline shoved her aside.
The dorm changed.
Women moved from both rows of bunks, not rushing or striking, but closing the space around Mara. Ruth caught Jasmine before she fell. Lieutenant Shaw backed toward the door and touched his radio.
Garrison’s voice cut through the noise.
“Everyone stop.”
Nobody did.
Mara stepped out of the circle.
“Let them search me,” she said.
Ruth turned. “Mara—”
“But not Kline.”
Kline laughed. “You don’t choose.”
Mara crossed the room toward Garrison. He held his ground, but pain had gathered beneath his eyes. The black glove trembled against his coat.
She stopped in front of him.
“Take off the glove.”
His expression warned her not to continue.
“You want control of this room?” she asked. “Show them what your control has cost you.”
He spoke through his teeth. “Return to your bunk.”
Mara reached for his right hand.
The tactical officers surged at the doorway, but Garrison raised his left arm to stop them.
Mara closed both hands around the glove.
The leather was hot.
Beneath it, the bones felt rigid and wrong, the fingers pulled inward by an invisible cord. Pain traveled from his hand into hers—not as sensation alone but as memory: gasoline on winter soil, Rose shouting for children to run, an envelope folded inside a deputy’s coat.
Garrison’s knees weakened.
Mara held him upright.
The room went silent.
“What are you doing?” he whispered.
“Listening.”
The black glove creaked between their hands. Mara saw another image: Garrison at twenty-eight, staring into a burning doorway while Rose stood beyond the smoke. She had reached him before the roof fell. Her hand had closed around his wrist, pressing something into his palm.
A copper disk.
Garrison tried to pull away, but Mara tightened her hold.
“You carried part of it out,” she said.
His eyes widened.
“What?”
“The wheel. The missing piece.”
He glanced toward the corridor.
Mara lowered her voice so only he could hear. “You have my family’s copper seal in your safe.”
For one heartbeat, his pain vanished. She felt the hand loosen inside the glove, the fingers attempting to open for the first time in years.
Then Mara released him.
Garrison staggered backward.
Kline stared. “Warden?”
Garrison looked at his gloved hand. He flexed it once, and the smallest finger moved.
His face changed—not with gratitude, but with hunger.
He turned to Lieutenant Shaw. “Restore water to this unit immediately. Medical evaluations within the hour.”
“What about the search?”
“There will be no search.”
Kline stepped closer. “Sir, she just assaulted you.”
Garrison looked at him. “Report to administration and surrender your keys.”
The color drained from Kline’s face. “You can’t be serious.”
“Now.”
Kline’s gaze moved from the warden to Mara and then to the women filling the dorm. He seemed to understand that every arrangement he had relied upon had shifted while he was still standing inside it.
He walked out.
Garrison addressed Ruth. “Work assignments remain suspended until tomorrow morning. No disciplinary reports will be issued for today.”
Ruth folded her arms. “And the camera footage from the sewing shop?”
“It will be preserved.”
“You’ll put that in writing?”
“Yes.”
Ruth nodded once. It was not submission. It was acknowledgment of a term accepted.
Garrison looked at Mara. “Come with me.”
She followed him without restraints.
In his office, he locked the door and crossed directly to the safe. His right hand shook too badly for the combination, so he used his left.
The safe contained property envelopes, medication bottles, a handgun in a locked case, and a stack of files tied with cord. Garrison removed Mara’s sealed pouch and placed it on the desk.
Then he reached to the back and withdrew a smaller box.
Inside, wrapped in yellowed cloth, lay a blackened copper disk.
A broken wheel had been stamped into its center.
Three spokes pointed inward. The fourth had been torn away.
Mara’s breath caught.
Garrison sat heavily behind the desk.
“I found it in my glove the night Rose Reed died,” he said. “I have carried it for eighteen years.”
Mara looked at the copper, then at his ruined hand. The curse had never followed him. He had carried it with him…
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