It was like a movie theatre. A sick, twisted movie theatre, with rows of chairs in front of a black curtain, ready to swing open. They'd had the advertisements, now it was time for the feature presentation.
The room was dark, hushed voices talking into dictaphones behind him like screams to his ears, the scratching of pens on paper grating through his mind.
It was all he could do not to stand up and scream out for them to stop. This wasn't a show for others to watch, sigh and debate at how right or wrong it was. It was a death, an unjust death that constituted as eye for an eye, the old do unto others saying sailing straight out the window.
But he couldn't cry out. He knew his place in the room, the one under guard, wrists handcuffed to each other. Veronica's hand snaked to his, sitting softly on his entangled fingers. Everything seemed cold, her touch like ice to his skin.
He couldn't breathe. The failure of everything crashed around his shoulders. He'd been so close. If he'd gone one day earlier, if he hadn't screwed things up with Sucre before and they'd been able to go without delay, perhaps they wouldn't have fixed the pipe. Perhaps they would both be sitting on a beach somewhere, away from death and the strong stench of defeat that filled the air.
He shifted his weight in his chair, the soft tinkling of chains silencing the room for a split second before the hurried writing began again.
This was front page news, the spectacle of the week. Lincoln Burrows, murderer of the Vice President's brother, executed. Blood repaid.
There wasn't a clock in the room, bare walls glaring back at the viewers, but seconds ticked down from his watch.
Just seconds away from the death of another family member, the man who was his role model as a child slipping from his grasps with every tick of the clock.
Was this sacrifice? His brother had given up everything for him to have a good life and now the ultimate sacrifice would mean nothing. He was in prison, and everything that Lincoln had given him was for nothing.
He took a deep breath, the movie began.
The curtain swung open.