Westgate was an old prison, crumbling at the seams. The hallways were narrow and twisted and full of dark corners. Corners where anything could (and did) happen, unchecked and unseen, and especially to guys like Troy. So Troy kept his head down, hands in his pockets, and his eyes worked overtime as he edged down the hallway.
Daniel Amato had a cell on the honor block. Twelfth on the right. Troy could only dream of a cell. He'd literally dreamed of having his very own cell just last week, only to be jarred awake in his dormitory bed by Crazy Larry puking and shrieking the next row over. Every night, Troy went to bed fully clothed with his shoes on, so he could run fast for the guard station at the other end of The Pool when shit went down.
Ten, eleven, twelve. A cramped cell like the rest. Nice crocheted Afghans on both bunks. Pictures all over the walls—mostly what looked like cut-outs from nature magazines. Some religious stuff. No way to tell whether that was Daniel's or his cellie's. There was a statuette of the Virgin Mary, and one of a saint. The saint was weird, though. Troy couldn't recognize which one. And he knew his saints, even though he had stopped being a "Good Catholic Boy" (as his grandmother called him) somewhere after his thirteenth birthday.
He moved on.