Beyond The Shadow

Chapter 7

Chapter 7

I woke up to the sound of keys rattling. The cell door opened before my eyes were even fully open. The same guard from yesterday stood there, tapping his flashlight on his palm.

“On your feet, Hale.”

I swung my legs off the bunk, chains clinking as I stood. My back cracked. I hadn’t slept just drifted in and out, staring at the walls while my mind ran circles around old ghosts.

The guard cuffed my wrists again, tighter this time. He pushed me out into the hallway. Cold concrete, the stink of bleach and piss, the hum of the lights overhead. I kept my eyes forward.

“Where now?” I asked. My voice sounded worse than it felt, like gravel.

He didn’t answer. They never did. Just shoved me along until the hallway opened into that same side door by the courtroom.

Another guard waited there, holding a file. My file. He didn’t look at me, just spoke into the radio clipped to his shoulder.

“Hale’s here.”

A buzz. Then the door clicked open. They pushed me through.

I expected the same courtroom stink. The same people. But this wasn’t the main room. This was smaller. A side hearing room. No cameras. No reporters. Just four walls, a table, a chair bolted to the floor.

They sat me down and locked my cuffs to a metal ring on the table. I flexed my wrists. Nothing I could do but wait.

Ten minutes passed. Maybe more. I counted the cracks in the ceiling tile. Seventeen. Eighteen.

Then the door opened. She walked in like she was made of glass. Careful steps, coat still buttoned up, hair pulled back. Hannah.

She didn’t sit at first. She stood by the door, eyes flicking to the guard in the corner, then to me. I didn’t say anything. I didn’t trust my voice yet.

When she finally moved closer, she pulled out the chair across from me. Sat down. Rested her hands on the table. She looked smaller than I remembered. Or maybe it was me who felt too big for the room.

“Alister,” she said.

I swallowed. “Hannah.”

She glanced at the guard again, then leaned in just enough so I could smell her shampoo. Something clean. Something that didn’t belong here.

“I shouldn’t be here,” she whispered.

“Yet here you are.”

She flinched. Maybe at my tone. Maybe at the truth of it. She took a breath. “You’re not safe in here.”

I barked out a laugh. The guard shifted at the sound. I didn’t care. “Safe? You think I was safer out there? Edmund made sure I’d land in here if I ever grew a spine.”

She shook her head. “You don’t understand. They’re going to pin everything on you. Everything. Francis… Francis has been telling people you wanted to blackmail the family. That you killed Miguel because he knew too much.”

I felt the vein in my neck twitch. “Francis is a snake. Nothing new there.”

She pulled something from her coat pocket. A folded scrap of paper. She slid it across the table, slow, like she thought it might burn her.

I looked at it but didn’t touch it. “What’s this?”

“It’s a name. And an address. The man who handles the real ledgers. The offshore accounts. I found it in Francis’s desk drawer.”

My eyes met hers. For a second I almost forgot about the cuffs, the cameras, the guard in the corner. For a second it was just me and her in a dark hallway, whispering plans like kids.

“You came all the way here for this?” I asked.

She nodded. Her hands trembled as she pulled them back. “I can’t do more. They’re watching me too. But if you get out… if you can get someone to this man…”

I cut her off. “Hannah. Stop.” I forced my voice to be calm. “I’m not getting out. Bail’s gone. The trial’s next week. Edmund wants me buried. Francis wants me dead. Ricardo wants me forgotten.”

Her eyes shone. She blinked fast, like she could will the tears back inside. “I’m sorry.”

I hated hearing that. I leaned forward, chain tugging my wrist. “Don’t be sorry. Be careful. If they smell you sniffing around…”

Too late. The door opened again. The guard in the corner straightened up. Edmund stepped in. He didn’t need an introduction. His cane tapped the floor, slow and steady, announcing him like a drumbeat.

Hannah shrank back in her chair. I didn’t move. I met his eyes. Cold. Dry. Empty as the courtroom ceiling.

“Out,” Edmund said to Hannah. His voice didn’t rise. He didn’t have to.

She stood, gathering her coat like she could hide inside it. She didn’t look at me when she left. The door shut behind her with a soft click that felt like a gunshot.

Edmund didn’t sit. He stood behind the chair Hannah had used, resting both hands on the back of it. His cane leaned against the wall. He didn’t need it when he was like this full of pride, full of power.

“I hear you had a visitor,” he said.

I didn’t answer. I watched a fly crawl along the edge of the table instead.

“I won’t waste time,” he went on. “You’re finished, Alister. But you can decide how it ends.”

I forced myself to meet his eyes again. “How generous.”

He smiled. Small. Dead. “I can make sure you die quickly. Or slow. Quiet or loud. You know how this works you’ve seen this many times.”

He leaned closer over the chair. His breath smelled like mint and whiskey. “All you have to do is keep your mouth shut. Sign what they put in front of you. Plead guilty. Take the blame. And when the time comes, you go peacefully.”

“And if I don’t?”

His smile vanished. “If you don’t, I'll bury every friend you have left. Do you even have any friends?.

I felt the chain cut into my wrist as I clenched my fist. “You always were a coward, Edmund.”

He didn’t flinch. He just picked up his cane and tapped the floor twice. The guard came forward. Edmund turned without another word, walking out like he’d just checked on the weather.

The guard unlocked my wrist and yanked me to my feet. I didn’t fight him. The piece of paper Hannah left was gone. Edmund must’ve pocketed it when he walked in. Maybe she knew he would. Maybe she slipped another somewhere safe. I had to believe that.

They dragged me back down the hall. Same floor. Same smell. Same eyes in the corners, waiting to watch me break.

Not yet.

When they locked me back in my cell, I sat on the bunk, staring at the wall. I pressed my palm flat against the cold concrete and pictured Hannah’s face. She still believed there was a way out. Maybe that was enough to keep me breathing.

The trial was in seven days. Seven days for Edmund to tighten the noose. Seven days for me to find a crack big enough to slip through.

I didn’t pray. God didn’t live in places like this. But I made a promise to the walls, to the pipes rattling overhead, to the filthy floor under my boots

I wouldn’t go quiet.