Seven hundred miles from there, the kid Tom White reached his third day in solitary, closing in on ninety hours, his body not used to such strain. The mattress thin like paper on a bed of steel. The smell burned his throat; the steady drip of brown water from the rusted pipe that speared the wall above loudened with each fall till he placed his fingers into his ears. His stomach ached with hunger. Till then he had thought he was tough. Tough like he’d been at school, where he could swing till the other boys couldn’t. Tough like when his foster father started in on him. Right then he knew he’d take a beating over Warden Riley’s open call to leave him there till he learned his mind was not his anymore.
He cried with the shame.
Then he stood and pressed his face to the bars and hollered till the guard did his check.
“I need to see the warden,” he said.
The guard just stared, waiting.
“I know where the pirate is.”