The Ninth Hour / Season 1, Episode 6
Midnight Shadows Unleashed
Diane Kessler’s boots scuffed against the concrete floor of C-Block, the echo swallowed by the heavy stillness of 2:38 AM. Her flashlight beam sliced through the dim, catching the glint of steel bars and the dull sheen of painted cinderblock. The air hung thick, tasting of iron and disinfectant, with a faint undercurrent of something sour she couldn’t place. Her left hand hovered near the radio clipped to her belt, fingers twitching, while her right gripped the baton a little too tight. She’d walked these corridors for twenty years, knew every groan of the pipes, every flicker of the shitty overheads. But tonight, the silence pressed against her eardrums like a thumb, and her pulse wouldn’t settle. “Ramirez, you copy?” she muttered into the radio, voice low, not wanting to wake the block. Static hissed back, then a garbled grunt. “Yeah, I’m here, Kessler. What now?” Ramirez’s tone carried the weight of a man who’d rather be anywhere else. She could picture him slumped at the control desk, coffee going cold, eyes half-lidded. “Gonna do a sweep past C-18 again. You got eyes on the cams?” A pause, then a sigh crackled through. “Cams are up. Ain’t nothin’ there, like the last five times you asked. You’re jumpin’ at shadows, Di.” Her jaw tightened. Shadows didn’t make the hairs on...