The Ninth Hour / Season 1, Episode 5
Midnight in C-Block
The flashlight beam cut through the dark of C-Block like a blade, jagged and unsteady in Diane Kessler’s grip. Her boots scuffed the polished concrete, the sound swallowed by the oppressive quiet of 2:52 AM. She was alone again, Ramirez having grumbled his way back to the control room after another fruitless sweep of the new wing. Her breath fogged faintly in the chilled air—too cold for a Texas summer, even with the AC cranked. The walls, fresh-painted and sterile, seemed to press in tighter tonight, the fluorescent strips overhead flickering just enough to make her squint. She stopped at cell C-18, the empty one, and aimed the light through the reinforced glass. Nothing. Just the bare cot, the sink, the toilet. But her gut twisted anyway, a slow knot she couldn’t shake. “You feelin’ it too, ain’t ya?” Marcus Webb’s voice rasped from down the corridor, low and rough, like he’d been chewing gravel. Cell C-12, death row isolation. She turned the flashlight toward him, catching the glint of his eyes through the narrow window. His face was half-shadow, half-sickly yellow from the hallway light, but those eyes—sharp, knowing—pinned her in place. “Feel what, Webb?” Diane kept her tone flat, professional, though her free hand hovered near the pepper spray on her belt. Twenty years on the job, she...