The silence of the protective custody wing was a living, breathing entity. It wasn't the hollow, suffocating silence of the initial holding cell; this was a watchful, pressurized quiet, the calm at the eye of a hurricane.
It pressed in on my eardrums, a high-pitched hum of nothingness broken only by the distant, rhythmic echo of a guard's footsteps on polished concrete—a sound that only emphasized the isolation.
I sat on the edge of the thin, plastic-covered mattress, Leo's note clutched in my hand like a holy text. The tide is turning.
The words were a flame in the dark, but they illuminated just how treacherous the shores were.
Public support was a wave that could crest in a roar of fury and then recede into apathy just as quickly, leaving me stranded. We needed to build a fortress before the water pulled back.
The soft, precise click of the lock was a sound I was coming to recognize.
