“Richie finally got off his fat ass and sounded the alarm. The response team arrived, all geared up for business. But Shana wouldn’t retreat. She stood over Frankie’s body and bared her teeth at them.” Christi turned unexpectedly toward Adeline. “You gotta understand. The whole place is going nuts. Sirens are going off. Women are freaking out. The corridor is filled with pumped-up guards wielding mattress shields and heavy batons. They’re screaming at Shana to stand down, drop her weapon, fucking face plant. But Shana won’t give it up. She was like some lioness, I don’t know, protecting her kill. Then, while they’re all yelling at her, she licked the blood dripping down her wrist. I thought two of the guards were gonna pass out cold.

“They took her down hard. And she fought them. To the bitter end, she was slashing and kicking and punching. I thought they might kill her. I almost yelled at them to stop. But I couldn’t. Even after what she’d done for me . . . I couldn’t.

“When they finally dragged her from the cell, she was barely recognizable. Nose smashed, eyes already swelling shut. But she turned toward me. As they carted her down the hall, she gazed straight at me and said, ‘I’m sorry, Adeline.’ That’s what she said. ‘I’m sorry, Adeline.’

“Two weeks later, she was out of medical. They moved her to solitary, where ironically enough, I gotta live across the hall from her again. Apparently, when I’d reported that Frankie had raped and sodomized me, the powers that be took that to mean I’d been consorting with a guard, so I needed reprimanding. I got sent to solitary, where Richie had also arranged to work. Mostly to keep his eye on Shana, of course. The things she knew about him . . .

“‘Gotta sleep sometime,’ he’d whisper through the slot in the door. And she’d just laugh and say, ‘Back at you, fucker.’

“I don’t know how she did it. But one night, I woke up to the sound of whispering. A low, urgent mutter, almost like a chant. Shana was murmuring softly to Richie, something like, really important, over and over again. He didn’t talk back, but he also didn’t walk away. He kind of just stood there, right outside her cell, shaking his head, no, no, no. . . . Then she stopped. The place fell silent, and let me tell you, prison ain’t ever silent. It’s like everyone was listening. More we couldn’t hear, the more we wanted to know. But Shana didn’t speak again.