CHAPTER 10: Lockdown at Copper Ridge

Copper Ridge went into lockdown twelve minutes after the hearing monitor went dark.
Doors slammed across the blocks. Radios spat numbers. Officers moved too fast and too loudly, which told Caleb the trouble was higher than prison discipline now.
The official announcement said security breach. The real announcement came from Malik, who passed Caleb's cell during count with a laundry cart and whispered, "Naomi has the video. June too. Amos sent it outside before they traced the terminal."
Caleb gripped the bars. "Where is Amos?"
Malik did not stop walking. "Gone to medical, they say."
They say was how prison buried facts before dinner.
An hour later, Price arrived with three officers. His calm was gone. Sweat darkened his collar. "Mercer, step back from the door."
"Where is Amos?"
"You are not in a position to ask questions."
"You keep saying that to men with evidence."
Price's jaw tightened. "Evidence is only useful when it survives court."
The officers opened the cell. They cuffed Caleb and marched him through service corridors instead of the main block. No cameras in the first hall. No inmates in the second. At the third turn, Caleb saw a gray suit waiting near the exit gate.
Graham Pike.
Falcon's lawyer looked irritated, as if prison corruption were an appointment running late.
"This is foolish, Harlan," Pike said. "He cannot disappear after the video leak."
Price snapped, "You should have thought of that before your man let the sister walk out of the lobby."
Caleb stopped walking.
June.
Pike saw the reaction and smiled faintly. "Your sister is stubborn. That is not always a virtue."
Caleb's body went cold.
Before Price could force him onward, alarms erupted from the north wing. A smoke detector shrieked. Officers turned their heads. One cuff loosened because the young guard holding Caleb flinched at the wrong second.
Caleb did not run.
He stepped back, broke the grip, and used the open cuff only to create distance. Controlled. Clean. No revenge.
Through the smoke at the corridor end, Malik appeared pushing the laundry cart.
Inside it, pale but conscious, lay Amos.
"Move," Amos rasped. "Before these gentlemen remember they are criminals."