The elderly woman didn’t hesitate; she reached through the steel and cradled his face in her gnarled hands. “I’m here, son,” she whispered, her voice breaking the oppressive silence of the wing. “I never stopped looking for you, not for one single day.”
Elias sobbed, a sound so raw it made the hair on my arms stand up. He wasn’t a convicted felon in that moment; he was just a boy lost in the dark who had finally been found. I stepped back into the shadows to give them the only privacy this place allowed.
I kept watch at the end of the tier, listening for the sound of the shift change. Every minute they spent together was a minute I was dancing on the edge of a total career meltdown. Then, I heard the heavy clatter of the main gate opening at the far end of the block.