Chapter 12 - Chapter 11

# Chapter 11
VUSI

Twenty-three hours a day. That's how long I spend in this cell of barely three square metres. The narrow window is too close to the ceiling to look outside.

I'm allowed one hour of recreation outside my cell six days a week. Unlike inmates with life sentences, I'm never allowed to be around other inmates. I eat alone, shit alone, and pace the square caged area outside alone.

Alone is all I've ever known. Even when I was a free man.

No one cared about me when I was young, and they sure as fuck don't care about me now.

Not that I need pity.

But I have made useful contacts throughout the years while locked up inside this depressing cell, with its concrete slab to sleep on, steel toilet, and small writing table. Those contacts prove useful in moments like these.

A set of keys rattle in the lock, and I sit up in my bunk as the heavy door creaks open.

Warder Meiring enters, peering around the barren space, and clears his throat as he holds out the newspaper.

Reaching out, I take it and place it down beside me before sliding my hand beneath the thin mattress. "You know what to do?"

"Ja, it'll cost you. I'm already taking too many risks where you're concerned."

My deep chuckle fills the small space. "We both know no one cares around here, as long as we don't cause riots."

He gestures impatiently with his hand. "Kyk hier, you have two seconds to give it to me before I change my mind."

"Relax." I place it in his hand, and he looks down at it, raising one of his dark eyebrows.