The "Bridge" was no longer just a walkway; it was the throne of a high-stakes standoff. Sarah stood at the center of the glass corridor, looking out. To her left, the North Block administration wing was a hive of panicked paper-shredding and locked doors. To her right, the South Block tiers were vibrating with the low, rhythmic hum of fifteen hundred men waiting for a signal.
And directly ahead, through the reinforced exterior windows, the world outside was closing in.
"Sergeant Miller," Mendoza said, his voice dropping as he stepped into her orbit. "The North Block captains are refusing to take orders from a 'Sergeant.' They're calling the capital, trying to get your mandate revoked."
Sarah didn't turn around. She watched a news helicopter circle the perimeter, its spotlight cutting through the dusk. "Let them call. By the time the capital answers, the neighborhood will have the gates off the hinges. My power doesn't come from the stripes, Mendoza. It comes from the fact that I'm the only one Sal and the boys outside will talk to."
She was, for all intents and purposes, the Warden. She controlled the movement of every soul in the facility, and more importantly, she controlled the narrative.
Outside the gates, the atmosphere had shifted from a protest to a military encampment. The "Gold" wasn't just a rumor anymore; it was the neighborhood's rallying cry. They knew the prison was rotting from the North down, and they knew Donny was the one paying the price.
Big Sal stood at the base of the main gate, his hand resting on the chain-link fence. He wasn't shouting anymore. The silence was more threatening.
"One hour," Sal said into his megaphone, his voice echoing off the concrete towers. "One hour for Miller to walk the King to that window. If we don't see him, we assume the North has finished what they started. And then we don't care about the 'No-Badge' rules. We're coming in to get our own."
The guards in the towers looked down at the sea of faces. They saw their neighbors, their cousins, their old high school teammates. The line between "Us" and "Them" was evaporating. The guards were looking at Sarah on the Bridge, waiting for her to give them a reason not to drop their rifles.
In the infirmary, the recovery was no longer just medical; it was tactical. Donny sat upright, the EEG leads still taped to his temples like a crown of wires. He could feel the vibrations of the thumping trays from South Block through the floorboards.
"They're loud today," Donny rasped.
The nurse checked his Mean Arterial Pressure (MAP). "They're not just loud, Donny. They're waiting. You're the only person who can stop this place from burning, but you can barely walk to the bathroom."
Donny looked at the Sergeant's cap Sarah had left on the chair. He understood the weight she was carrying. If he didn't show his face, the neighborhood would breach the walls, and the North Block guards—desperate and cornered—would open fire. It would be a massacre.
"Help me up," Donny ordered.
"You had an epidural hematoma forty-eight hours ago," the nurse protested. "If you stand up too fast, the pressure spike could kill you."
"If I don't stand up," Donny said, his voice regaining the gravelly authority of the King, "everyone in this zip code is dead. Give me the walker. And find me a shirt that doesn't smell like a hospital."
Sarah entered the infirmary, her face a mask of iron. She saw Donny standing, swaying slightly, his hand gripping the chrome rail of the bed.
"You shouldn't be out of bed," she said, though she didn't move to stop him.
"You're the Warden now, Sarah," Donny said, his eyes meeting hers. He didn't remember everything—the memories were still jagged shards—but he remembered her. He remembered that she was the one who had stayed. "And a Warden needs her King to show the people that the crown hasn't fallen."
"The North is looking for any excuse to call this a riot," Sarah warned. "If I take you to that window and you collapse, they'll say the inmates are using a 'corpse' to start a war. They'll send in the State Police with gas and live rounds."
"Then don't let me collapse," Donny said.
Sarah stepped forward, closing the "No-Badge" gap for the first time in public. She put her arm under his, supporting his weight.
"Mendoza," Sarah keyed her radio. "Clear the North corridor. I'm bringing 4492 to the observation deck. Anyone who gets in the way is to be detained for Obstruction of Justice. My authority, the Regional Director's signature. Let's show the world that Blackwood is under new management."
Sarah checked her watch. Forty minutes left on Sal's clock. Outside, the low roar of the crowd was a physical vibration in the floor. Inside the infirmary, the only sound was the rhythmic hiss of the oxygen concentrator.
"You're not ready for this," Sarah said, her voice a low, steady anchor in the room.
Donny gripped the chrome rail of the bed, his knuckles white. The sepsis had left his muscles weak, and the brain trauma made the world tilt every time he turned his head too fast. But his eyes—those were the eyes of the man who had run the neighborhood before he'd ever seen the inside of a cell.
"I'm ready enough to stand," Donny rasped. He looked at the window, then back at her. "You've got the power now, Sarah. You're running the North and the South. But you know as well as I do—the minute the Warden comes out of that office with a legal injunction, your 'Shadow Mandate' vanishes."
Sarah knew he was right. Her power was a house of cards held together by the threat of the crowd outside. She had to use it before the bureaucracy caught up to her.
Sarah stepped closer, her hand hovering near Donny's arm, but not touching—not yet. The "No-Badge" rule was screaming in her head, but it was being drowned out by the weight of the people outside.
"I'm not just responsible for you anymore, Donny," she said, her voice dropping to a whisper. "I have fifteen hundred inmates in South Block who will tear this place down if they think you're dead. And I have three hundred guards in North who are terrified and looking for a reason to start shooting. My responsibility is to the lives outside those gates as much as the ones inside."
She turned to Mendoza, who was standing by the door with his hand on his holster.
"Mendoza, get me a wheelchair. We aren't walking him. If he stumbles, the crowd thinks he's been drugged. If he sits, he looks like a King on a throne."
"Sarge," Mendoza hesitated. "The Warden just sent a mass-comm to all North Block units. He's declaring your orders 'void' and calling for a lockdown."
Sarah didn't even flinch. "Tell the units that anyone who follows the Warden's order is participating in a cover-up of medical negligence and administrative corruption. Tell them my authority comes directly from the Regional Director and the Internal Affairs investigation into the North's payroll. They can choose to stand with a man hiding in his office, or the woman standing between them and a riot."
The nurse began to unhook the remaining leads from Donny's chest. The EEG showed his brain waves were stabilizing, but the emotional surge of his returning memories was a different kind of threat.
"You remember the 'Gold' now, don't you?" Sarah asked, her eyes searching his.
Donny looked at her, and for a second, the amnesia vanished completely. He saw the girl from the neighborhood, the one who had always been too good for the life they were born into.
"I remember the promise," Donny said. "The 'Gold' isn't the ledger, Sarah. It's the list of people the Warden promised to protect if the neighborhood kept the peace. It's a map of everyone he sold out."
Sarah felt the pieces click. This was why the Warden was hiding. He wasn't just corrupt; he was a traitor to both sides.
"Mendoza," Sarah barked, her command presence snapping the room to attention. "Forget the wheelchair. Get the transport gurney. We're taking the King to the Bridge. And we're doing it through the North Block lobby. I want every corrupt guard in this facility to see exactly what they couldn't kill."
As they wheeled Donny out of the infirmary, Sarah walked at the head of the procession. She wasn't just a Sergeant; she was the de facto Warden of Blackwood.
They hit the North Block corridor, and the tension was thick enough to choke on. Guards stood in the doorways, their hands on their batons, their eyes darting between Sarah's stripes and Donny's pale, determined face.
"Stand down," Sarah said to a group of North Block regulars blocking the path. Her voice wasn't a shout; it was a calm, lethal certainty.
"I am moving a high-priority witness to the observation deck under the authority of the Regional Director. Any interference will be treated as an act of insurrection."
The guards looked at Donny. They saw a man who should have been dead from sepsis and a brain bleed forty-eight hours ago. He looked like a ghost come to collect a debt.
One by one, they stepped aside.
Sarah reached the heavy steel doors of the Bridge. Through the glass, she could see the sea of flashlights and cell phones from the crowd outside. They were chanting now—a low, rhythmic pulse that matched the thumping of the trays in South Block.
"Give me the megaphone," Sarah said, stepping toward the glass.