He sat on the edge of his bunk, dressed in the orange jumpsuit that had come to define him, and forced himself to think of his daughter. Emily would be eight now. The last time he held her, she was only three. The last time he saw her in person was during the trial, sitting beside her grandmother—too young to understand why her father sat among strangers who wanted him gone.

At sunrise, the guards approached his cell. Their footsteps echoed down the corridor, silencing the other inmates. Everyone understood what it meant. This was not new.

Daniel stood up calmly. He had given up resisting a long time ago.
“Do you need anything?” one of the guards asked. It was Torres, a younger man who couldn’t quite hide his discomfort.

Daniel paused. Weeks earlier, he had been given the form for his final meal, but he never filled it out. Eating felt meaningless now.
“I want to see my daughter,” he said quietly, his voice rough. “Just once. Before it’s over. Let me see Emily.”
Torres hesitated, clearly affected, then looked at the older guard beside him—Watkins, a man who had witnessed enough executions to become emotionally distant.
“That’s not usually allowed, Foster,” Watkins said, though his tone wasn’t harsh.
“I understand,” Daniel replied. “But I’m asking anyway.”
The request moved slowly through the system, like a fragile hope no one expected to survive. Eventually, it reached Warden Robert Mitchell—a sixty-year-old man whose years at Huntsville had left deep lines on his face.