“Denied,” she said.

“The board cited the premeditation, and the recordings.

He’ll serve the full six years.

And Celina’s appeal for early release was thrown out last month.” I nodded, and I took a breath of the workshop air, sawdust and lavender polish, and I noticed that I felt nothing so dramatic as triumph.

I felt, instead, a deep and settled quiet.

They had built a prison of fear around me once, brick by brick, over years — had taught me that I was helpless, that my voice did not matter, that staying silent and small was the only way to survive.

And they had been so sure of it, so completely certain that the woman on the floor was beaten, that they never once thought to check whether she was listening.