He stands when he sees me. His suit is immaculate, his expression controlled, but his eyes are moving too fast—already working the problem.
"How is he?"
"Bad." The word comes out flat. "They've destroyed him, Kent. The sedation is so heavy he can barely stay conscious. He asked about my head—he spent his lucid moments asking about me."
Kent's jaw tightens.
"The hearing postponement is going to hold," he says. "They've got too much momentum. The breach gave them everything they needed to justify extended restriction, and the documentation you built—"
"Isn't enough."
"No. Not anymore."
The corridor is empty around us. Gage has stepped back, giving us space, but I can feel him listening. Watching. The three of us in a facility that's turned against all of us.
"What do we need?" I ask.
Kent is quiet for a moment. His eyes move over my face, reading something I can't see.
"External pressure," he says finally. "Media attention. Public outcry. The kind of spotlight that makes institutional cover-up more expensive than transparency."
"What else?"
"Testimony. Direct witness accounts of protocol violations. Someone willing to go on record about what's actually happening in that cell."
"What else?"
Kent's expression shifts. Something like admiration, or concern, or both.
"Your career," he says quietly. "Your certification. Your professional reputation. All of it."
"I'm asking what you need."
"And I'm telling you what it will cost."
I think about Jude on the bed in solitary. The weak grip of his fingers around mine. The wet shine in his eyes when he said he'd do it again.
Every door. Every time.
"Get him out."
Kent goes very still.
"Get him out." My voice is steady. Clear. The clearest it's been since this started. "Whatever it takes. Whatever it costs me. We need to get him out."
The words hang in the corridor air. Kent looks at me for a long moment.
"Alright," he says finally. "Then I need everything you have. Every report, every log, every email. And you need to be ready for what comes next."
"I know."
"You're sure?"
"I am. What they're doing to him is criminal and cruel."
Something crosses his face. Triumph and grief, tangled together, and underneath both of them something that might be respect.
"Alright," he says. "Then we go to war."
