He was a different person now. Not a better person, different. When he was transferred to Fishkill last year, he held his head up defiantly as he made the walk that first day. This time the hard cases chanted, Fresh Fish! Fresh Fish! Fresh Fish! Not the most original people in the world, prisoners. The young guy in front of him was crying. Danny didn’t even warn him to stop.

By now Danny felt like a hardened lifer, and what passed for famous behind these walls. He’d never seen the documentary. But he understood it had been a big deal. The prison library had newspapers. He also received letters, “fan mail,” and had visits from high-priced attorneys. His father said that the new lawyers were the real thing, not in over their heads, like Ponytail. More like Louise Lester, his post-verdict lawyer from the Institute for Wrongful Convictions. Celebrities were tweeting about his case, and virtually the entire country had turned against his hometown, particularly those two cops who’d interrogated him. Even the president’s daughter—that’s right, the president of the United States—announced she was on Team Danny. But slowly, the attention, like his hope, faded.

Now things had turned dangerous for him. Word spread that his parents had left him a fortune in life insurance. You did not want to be known as someone with a fortune in this place. Worse, he’d heard that Damian Wallace had a beef with him. He didn’t know why. But in here it could be anything.

The stretch of hall he was walking that morning was the most dangerous—narrow halls, crowded, only two cameras at each end, none in the middle—so he was on high alert. He walked the line, his eyes hunting for threats. Looking for Wally. The downtrodden line of blue shirts flowed past, no shoulder bumps, no hard looks, no scuffles to create a diversion for the guards.

After surviving the hall without a sharpened toothbrush in his ribs, he exhaled with relief. This place. This fucking place! Fishkill had once been a hospital for the criminally insane and Danny swore he was going mad. Would he ever roam outside its bleak walls?

His aunt was trying to get him approved to go to the funeral. Good luck with that. The warden wasn’t the most compassionate guy around. He’d once told Danny he’d started watching the documentary but had to shut it off. “I know bullshit when I see it,” he’d said.

As Danny clambered up the metal stairs, he wondered if he’d ever see the man again, the one who’d held his last hope of getting out. Of looking at the moon. Of sleeping in. Of getting a juicy fast-food burger.