The news of Donny's "awakening" hit the South Block like a physical blow. Because Sarah had locked down the infirmary with her own trusted skeleton crew, the details were sparse, but in a prison, silence tells its own story.
Johnny was the first to hear. He was leaned against the cold stone of 401, his ear pressed to the vent.
"He's awake, Lou," Johnny whispered, his voice trembling. "But the word from the orderlies... they say he's looking at the walls like he's never seen 'em. They say he didn't even know his own digits when the nurse asked for his ID number."
In 403, Lou stopped his pacing. The massive man looked at his hands—the hands that had held the line while Donny rotted. "Amnesia? You're telling me the King is a ghost?"
"The Epidural Hematoma," Johnny said, reciting the words he'd overheard. "The pressure on the Temporal Lobe. The doctors are saying the memories are buried under the swelling. He might get 'em back, he might not. But right now? He doesn't know about the 'Gold.' He doesn't know about us."
Lou slammed a fist into his palm. "Then we're dead in the water. If he doesn't remember the deal, the North Block is going to chew us up and spit us into the hole."
"Not if Miller holds," Johnny hissed. "She's the only one with the keys to the kingdom now."
The Weight of the Badge
Across the prison, in a small, windowless room in the Administrative Wing, Sarah Miller sat at a bolted-down desk. In front of her was the Competitive Written Civil Service Examination.
Her heart was a lead weight in her chest. An hour ago, she had stood by Donny's bed. She had reached out to touch his hand, and he had flinched. He had looked at her with polite, terrifying curiosity—the way one looks at a stranger in a grocery store. The "Stay Gold" spark was gone, replaced by the flat, clinical confusion of a brain recovering from septic encephalopathy.
She was rattled. Every time she closed her eyes, she saw his blank stare. It would be so easy to let the pen drop. To go back to being a Senior Officer and just mourn the man she lost.
But if I fail, she thought, her grip tightening on the pen until her knuckles turned white, Valenti wins. The North Block continues the harvest. And Donny dies in a different way.
The Harassment
The door to the testing room creaked open. It wasn't the proctor. It was Captain Halloway, one of the North Block "Lifers" who had been on Valenti's payroll for a decade. He leaned against the doorframe, jingling his heavy ring of keys.
"Big day, Miller," Halloway drawled. "Heard your pet project in the infirmary woke up. Shame he doesn't know which end is up. Must be hard, putting all that effort into a man who's basically a vegetable with a pulse."
Sarah didn't look up from her paper. Question 14: Define the protocol for a Level 4 Security Breach.
"You know," Halloway continued, walking closer until he was looming over her desk, "the North Block doesn't like 'climbers.' Especially ones who think they can vet their own teams. You fail this written, and you're back on the night shift in the boiler room. No more infirmary visits. No more special treatment for 4492."
He reached out and tapped the corner of her exam paper with a thick, nicotine-stained finger. "Concentrate, Miller. Wouldn't want you to make a mistake."
The Resolve
Sarah looked at his finger, then slowly raised her eyes to his. The heartbreak was still there, a raw ache in her throat, but it was being rapidly covered by a cold, hardened layer of professional spite.
"Captain," she said, her voice like a sharpening stone. "Section 4, Paragraph 12 of the Employee Conduct Manual: 'Interfering with a promotional examination is grounds for immediate suspension without pay.' Would you like me to cite the penal code for 'Intimidation of a Public Official' next, or are you going to let me finish this test so I can take your job?"
Halloway's smirk vanished. He saw the fire in her eyes—the same fire that had kept Donny alive in the cell. He backed away, the keys jingling a frantic, nervous rhythm.
As the door slammed shut, Sarah looked back at the paper. She didn't just answer the questions; she tore through them. She cited the INR levels for medical neglect cases. She outlined the chain of command for reporting administrative corruption.
She wasn't just taking an exam. She was writing the warrant for the North Block's arrest.
The Oral Board: The Gauntlet
Sarah didn't wait to catch her breath after the written exam. She was escorted directly to the North Block's mahogany-paneled conference room for the Oral Board Interview.
Across the table sat the Deputy Commissioner, flanked by two grim-faced Wardens from the Regional Office. They didn't look like guards; they looked like judges.
"Officer Miller," the Deputy Commissioner began, tapping a pen against her file. "You've requested Vetting Authority. You've demanded to personally oversee South Block while simultaneously investigating the North Block administration. That isn't just a promotion; that's a coup. Why should we give a Sergeant the keys to the entire kingdom?"
Sarah sat perfectly straight, her hands folded. She didn't look like a heartbroken woman; she looked like a Major in the making.
"Because the 'Kingdom' is currently hemorrhaging money and lives," Sarah replied. "Inmate 4492 suffered an Epidural Hematoma and Grade 4 Sepsis because the North Block supervisors ignored every Red Tag request. If that goes to a federal court, the state loses millions. If you give me the rank and the team, I don't just stop the lawsuits—I stop the leak. I vet my own people because the current ones are on a payroll that doesn't belong to the state."
The room went silent. She had just called out the corruption to the faces of the people who oversaw it.
"And if we refuse?" one of the Wardens asked.
"Then you can explain to the Regional Director why a Senior Officer with a perfect record and a mountain of evidence regarding North Block's contraband routes was denied the chance to fix it."
The Deputy Commissioner leaned back, a small, dangerous smile tugging at his lips. "You have your stripes, Sergeant. Don't make me regret them."
The Spark in the Dark
Back in the infirmary, the world was a blur of white light and sharp, chemical smells for Donny. He sat up in bed, his head throbbing with a dull, rhythmic ache. The doctors called it Post-Traumatic Amnesia, but to him, it felt like being a ghost in someone else's body.
Suddenly, a sound drifted through the heavy, reinforced vents—a deep, vibrating rumble that didn't belong to the doctors. It was Lou's voice, echoing through the ductwork from the block. It wasn't the roar of the "Beast" of South Block; it was the warm, protective tone of a man who had stood watch for seventy-two hours.
"Stay Gold, Donny. You hear me? Stay Gold."
The word "Gold" vibrated in Donny's chest. It felt like a tether. On the other end of that vent, back in the darkness of 401, Johnny pressed his face against the metal grate. He held his breath as he heard a faint, raspy response struggle back through the pipe.
"Gold..." Donny rasped, the word thick and strange in his mouth.
He looked at the door just as Sarah walked in. She was wearing her new Sergeant's stripes, her face pale with exhaustion, but the moment her eyes met his, the monitors began to chirp.
"Miller..." he whispered, the name catching in his dry throat like a shard of glass.
He didn't have his memories back—not the dates, the names of the streets, or even his own age. But he had the feeling. He knew that the woman in the tan uniform and the voice in the vent were the only reasons the dark hadn't swallowed him whole.
Sarah froze at the foot of the bed. Her heart, which had been a block of ice all day, finally began to thaw. He didn't know who he was, but he knew who she was.
And back in his cell, Johnny pulled away from the vent, a wild, tearful grin breaking across his face. "He's in there, Lou," he hissed into the shadows. "The King is still in there."