Armed, even inside the cellblock said 'unsafe' better than the walls and heat could. The man hadn't let go his weapon, the slap of it against the vest audible in the deadened molasses-slow quiet. The heat pressed in but with it was the weight of the air itself, thickening and turgid. The morass of a storm wasn't visible in the bright blue outside, all magnolia-pretty but the closeness of the heat made a promise one was coming soon.
Maggie stopped outside the cell-block. Her boots skidded over cement, one leg crossing the other, toe cocked against the floor. There was a pack of cigarettes in her back pocket, and a carton in the back-seat of her car, but the Toyota was baking in the oven-warmth, paint blistered over with blood. She watched the makeshift curtain move. There wasn't much of a breeze in here, the fabric was limp and hung still. Any sound between one and the next would be heard.
She hadn't slept with a single person in the room in years.
Her weight shifted over her right hip; she acknowledged the cell but she didn't walk in. "Everyone has a cellmate." Echoed it right back to him. They were the rules, she followed rules fine. Lifted her own eyebrows right back.