Deeply immersed in the routine of recurring light and recurring sounds, drifting in and out, barely conscious this morning, at first he merely notices the clank and hum of the metal bars and their electric motor control. He assumes it’s a different cell on the corridor; it almost always is. In a moment, he realizes it’s his own cell door and figures it’s a meal being brought or a cell inspection.

But as he sits up, swings his feet to the floor and focuses, now there are several guards, and between them another prisoner.

A bunkmate. Fuck.

His peace is over.

“Meet your bunkie, Richter.”

He’d figured he was so high profile that they were leaving him alone. They didn’t want to risk any communication, any contamination.

Clearly he was wrong about that.

“Be cordial to one another. Respect each other’s space. Respect each other’s privacy wherever possible. Act civil.” The guard—Griggs—practically reading from a script, expressionlessly, as if to inject the words with all their ironic content. Then going off script. “Joey Richter, Will Shale. You two get acquainted. It’s a party.”

21.

21.

Zack Yellin awakens.

Lies staring at the cracks in the plaster ceiling above him. A riot of morning light streams in. He shifts a little and feels a responsive shifting beside him as Emily’s arm settles comfortably across his chest.

There are few pleasures more taken for granted, he is sure, than waking up next to someone. It’s still a new pleasure for him. When he’d slept with girls before, he rarely stayed, and they didn’t either. When he did stay, it was only to await a decent-seeming moment, anticipating escape, getting out of there, so it had no pleasure and comfort in it, only anxiety and careful plotting.

This simple pleasure. His parents spent a lifetime waking up next to each other and never said a word about it. Millions spend a lifetime the same way and seem to hardly notice it.

Emily shifts again beside him in bed.

“You awake?” he asks quietly.

“Mmmm, no,” she mumbles.

A minute later, she groans and grumbles and rolls out of bed.

Emily Lane is heading to work.

Zack is heading…nowhere. Again. Staying right here.

The crime drew them together, of course. Surviving it. They were drawn together anyway, and here, with the crime and all that followed, fate was only confirming it. On some level, he doesn’t know if they’ll ever be apart now. On some level, he knows Emily feels the same way.

All the “heroism” coverage afterward had been embarrassing. Foiling an assassin. Going toe to toe with a killer. He had pushed aside all the interview requests, and then—worn down, giving in—he accepted a couple, immediately regretted it and pushed aside the rest. Over the months, it had died down. As he hoped it would, it became yesterday’s story.