The isolation block didn't operate on the prison’s official timeline; it operated on the whims of the men who wore the badges. Somewhere far above the concrete ceiling, the world was likely adjusting to the early morning hours, but thirty feet beneath the earth, the darkness remained absolute, broken only by the intermittent, dying flicker of the single fluorescent tube in the corridor.
Leo lay flat on his back, staring up at the stained concrete. His muscles ached from the damp cold that seeped out of the stone floor, but his mind was far too loud for sleep. Every breath he took felt like it was laced with the metallic tang of his own dried blood and the suffocating scent of the industrial bleach the guards used to scrub away the despair of the men before him. Marco’s revelation about Da
