“Should we get going?” Kristy asked, changing the subject, hoping to avoid the warden’s enthusiastic stories about this week’s playoff game and her son’s skills on the field.

Flanked by Bruce, they headed through the labyrinthine halls of the prison, the two women chatting about the upcoming cold front. Weather was a popular topic for prison staff, everyone longing to be outside and away from these dark and depressing cells. They turned down a long corridor and the mechanized gates buzzed open. This was death row.

Kristy regarded the sign posted at the entrance to the cell-block: NOTICE. NO HOSTAGES WILL EXIT THROUGH THIS GATE. This sign served as a reminder that these inmates were not to be trusted, that in here, your life hung in a delicate balance.

Moving down the hallway, Kristy’s senses were assaulted by a wave of smells that no amount of training could prepare you for: piss, shit, sweat, all of it mingling with a hopelessness and desperation so profound it seemed to seep into your bones.

“Take your time,” the warden said. Kristy nodded, but she intended to finish this task as quickly as possible. She hastily snapped photos of the hallways and rows and rows of cells. Inmates’ faces peered out through the tiny shatterproof windows on their cell doors. Some of them recognized her.

“Yo, Miz Tucker, my lawyer’s got questions for you.” Some were heavily medicated and desperate.

“These motherfuckers are torturing me. You gotta get me help.”

Others were lost causes.

“That’s one fine piece of ass. Come here. I’ll show you what a real man is like.”

“I’ll kill you, you motherfucking, cocksucking bitch. I’ll kill all of you.”

Not much shocked Kristy. Not anymore. She was used to hearing men talk like this. Inmates in prison weren’t that different from regular folk. Some were kind and polite. Some were mentally ill and should never have been put on death row in the first place. Others were wretched, miserable souls with no chance of redemption. Sometimes it was hard to tell who was who. It had taken Kristy years to adjust, but their words no longer rattled her. As a PIO, she had to appear in control, unmovable.

She stepped into an empty cell and snapped more photos. Polunsky was often called “the hardest place to do time in Texas,” and Kristy agreed. All the inmates were kept on lockdown twenty-two hours a day in these small solitary cells. Even their one hour a day of recreation was caged, no contact with any other inmate. With no access to phones or televisions and no contact visits, inmates were basically entombed in these cells. It was about as close to hell on earth as you could get. Kristy couldn’t imagine being trapped behind these walls, day in and day out.