CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR

Kyle stepped through the open gates of the prison and took his first step to the outside world, as the gates slammed close behind him. They slammed them extra hard, Kyle realized, as if wanting to rattle him, to take away his joy. It was the final insult of this merciless institution, of these sadistic guards, who had done everything to break him over the last five years.

But he wasn’t going to let anything bother him now. Now, for the first time in as long as he could remember, he was on the other side of these gates, on the other side of the barbed-wire tower. Now, for the first time, he didn’t have to answer to these cretins. He was a free man. Free. He could hardly believe it.

Kyle grinned from ear to ear, breathing in the crisp October air, relishing what it felt like to be outside. It was amazing not to have to hear his fellow convicts screaming and hollering reverberating all around him, all the time. To not have to fear for his life. And most of all, he thought, as he turned