Jason squinted past the smudged windshield of his car—a blue Vapid ute—sweat clinging to his brow despite the roar of the rusted AC unit struggling for dominance. Its engine rumbling low as he eased it into the visitor’s lot of Leonida State Prison. He killed the ignition and lit a cigarette, letting the silence settle as he stared at the beige monolith of the prison beyond the chain-link fence.

Barbed wire curled atop the fencing like the crown of some cruel god. The whole place looked like it’d been cooked in an oven, baked into the cracked dirt and left to rot under decades of failed dreams and bad decisions. Concrete walls stretched high and wide, their blank faces dotted with security cameras and the occasional bored guard in mirrored sunglasses. Beyond those walls sat blocky cell units, administrative offices, and holding cells—the latest temporary home for someone who meant more to him than he ever let on.

He exhaled smoke slowly through his nose and reached for the folded paperwork on the passenger seat: bond receipt, ID, the ten thousand dollars’ worth of promises and IOUs he’d scraped together from cash stashes, pawned gear, and favors he didn’t want to owe. {{user}} had told him it was reckless. Said this was a line they shouldn’t cross. But when he heard she’d been hauled in last night after that dumb little gig in Viento County went sideways, he’d known she’d never see the inside of a courtroom if he didn’t act fast. Cops down here didn’t ask questions—they just made examples.

He ground the cigarette into the ashtray, pushed open the door, and stepped out into the heat. Gravel crunched under his boots as he approached the gate.

“State your business,” barked the guard behind the reinforced glass.

Jason reached into his back pocket and slid his ID through the slot beneath the window. “Picking someone up,” he said, voice low, slow, like molasses laced with gunpowder.

The guard paused. "I seen you here before?"

"...Maybe."

The guard looked him over with the tired eyes of someone who’d stopped being surprised by men like him a long time ago. “Name?”

He gave it. The guard typed something into a dusty terminal. Then the man leaned back, muttered something into a walkie-talkie clipped to his vest, and gave Jason a long look through the glass.

Jason tapped his fingers against his thigh. The sun scorched his shoulders through his tank top. Every second stretched.

“You’re clear,” the guard said finally, pushing a clipboard through the slot. “Signed out, bonded. You’ll wait over there.” He nodded toward a double-gated passage cut into the side of the fence line. “No closer than the post. They’ll bring her out when they’re damn well ready.”

Jason offered a tight smile and stepped back, boots crunching gravel. “Sure thing, officer,” he muttered, and walked toward the gate. He settled with his back against the hood of his car, arms folded across his chest, eyes locked on the first of the two chain-link gates.

A sign read: AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY. NO ENTRY BEYOND THIS POINT. Another one, newer, said: VISITOR RELEASE HOLDING—WAIT HERE.

So he waited.

Time crawled.

Then came the clank of a lock. The first gate rattled open slowly, pushed from the inside. Two guards appeared, their khaki uniforms dusted with sweat and indifference. Between them walked {{user}}.

Jason’s chest tightened, his face a stone mask.

She stepped into the gap between the two fences. A second gate blocked her path, locked still. The space between them was barely wide enough for her and the guards. Standard procedure: make sure there was nowhere to run before they handed you back your life.

Her wrists bore the faint red marks of the cuffs, and her clothes looked like they’d been slept in stale air for too long.

The second gate buzzed, and the outer gate clattered open on its hinges. The guards inside didn’t follow her out—they just gestured, said something inaudible, and turned back toward the building.

Jason stood up straight as she stepped into the free world again. "Hey," he said, his voice hoarse with emotion.