She was dressed differently, in a white jumpsuit, her hair carefully braided. I knew she had done that for her pride. She seemed calm.

‘Stay back, honey,’ she said.

Sure enough, the guards had their hands on their guns.

‘Adams, step away from the bars!’

I couldn’t. I stretched out my hand to her, trying to touch her, just for one second. I couldn’t reach.

‘Rhonda! I can’t – they can’t do this!’ I was weeping, incoherent. Like the child I still was.

‘Honey, they can do anything. Be strong. You get out.’ She lowered her voice. ‘Remember what I taught you. When there’s no hope left, you fight. To your last drop of blood.’

Then she was yanked away and my last sight of her was her back, clad in white, the way her legs moved forward. The way she was breathing, thinking, feeling, until she was gone.

I sat back on my bunk, shivering violently, trying not to be sick. I knew I would pay later for going up to the bars, but I didn’t care. This was barbaric. Just feet away from us, Rhonda was being murdered in the execution chamber. I couldn’t hear anything, just the usual hum of the ventilation and the vague murmur of people outside. I cried for a few minutes, and then I heard a roar. Cheers.

I looked at the clock, which I could see by squinting down the hallway: 9.43 a.m. Rhonda was dead. They were cheering her death. Over the choke of my own sobs, I could hear something else. The chink of metal dishes against bars. The women were commemorating her, our friend Rhonda, and so although I wanted to lie down and never get up, I picked up my bowl, dragged myself back to the bars and did it too. Bang, bang, bang. A requiem. A protest. Proof that we were still alive. And as I banged and called and the prison guards yelled at us, I swore to myself I wouldn’t let them kill me like they had Rhonda. Somehow, I would save myself. When there’s no hope left, you fight. To your last drop of blood.

Rachel

Rachel