“Fuck,” Grady whimpers into his pillows, praying to God that his tankmates don’t hear him.

He doesn’t know when it started, but he broke one day, and now, when the moon rises high in the sky and the stars shed their light atop the rolling hills, he starts to cry. He shakes and shivers into himself, grasping sheets as if they were the only things keeping him alive.

In here, in his makeshift bed, he searches for warmth that he never finds.