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Caitlin laid on the bunk and found herself once again staring at the concrete ceiling of the cell. There wasn't much else to look at and she didn't want to take herself to the window and see that pole in that courtyard any more. Every time she looked out her window, she kept thinking that her trial was in the morning.

She watched as the setting sun traced patterns through the bars on the window onto the floor, and then the wall, and finally it disappeared, leaving only the incandescent bulbs in the prison's light fixtures to illuminate the cell.

She heard the sound of booted footsteps coming up the stairway and she recognized Orfeo's cadence, so strong and regular. She sat up and scooted herself up in the bunk until she could lean back against the wall and watch the bars of her cell.

The footsteps got closer and soon she could make out the quiet words that the guard always seemed to have on hand for her charges. Little reassurances here, some quiet banter there. When she got to the cell next to Caitlin's, she heard the guard pause for a moment with a quiet chuckle. The sounds of snoring from the next cell had become a comforting constant in the early evening, and Orfeo apparently found it amusing.

The pause was only for a moment and then a few more steps brought her into view at the bars. Caitlin could almost feel a smile creeping up her face, but it just didn't want to come out. She had to admit that she liked and looked up to the wolf on the other side of the bars. The look on her face, though had her curious. It wasn't a frown, but it spoke of something that was troubling her.

"Caitlin," Orfeo said, "I've brought you some things."

Caitlin looked at her curiously. It was rare that Orfeo referred to her as anything other than 'Kincaid' or 'girl,' and the fact that she was using her first name had her a bit worried and she looked down at the guard's hand, holding a bundle.

Orfeo slid the bundle through the bars and rested it there, watching Caitlin on the bunk. Caitlin stood and crossed the cell in a matter of a couple steps and took the package from her. Wrapped in a rough twine, she found a pad of paper and a stack of envelopes. Clipped onto one of the pages of paper, she found a standard black pen.

"I always give a girl paper and a pen before she has to go for her tribunal if there's a chance that she's not going to come back to the cell."

Orfeo's voice was quiet and controlled, but Caitlin could hear a little bit o apprehension behind it, and she knew what she meant when she thought she might not be coming back. She turned and she looked towards the window then back at Orfeo.

"You mean I might be going out there, don't you, Momma Wolf?" Caitlin asked quietly.

"Yeah, I do, Caitlin."

Orfeo reached in through the bars and caught hold of Caitlin's hand when she saw the tears starting in her eyes again.

"Listen, Kincaid," she said, voice stern and growing a little in volume, "you've got to keep hope, okay. But I don't want you to not have a chance to say what you need to say. You write what you need to and I'll make sure that it gets where it needs to go. If you come back here, then I'll make sure no one has to see those letters."

Caitlin's hands shook as she looked down at the package, and then she nodded, not looking back up at Orfeo. Not sure what else to do, she reached over with her other hand and laid it over Orfeo's, then finally looked up at the wolf.

"Take the time you need, Caitlin, and I'll make sure that I get them before you go in the morning," Orfeo said.

She patted Caitlin's arm and then pulled her hand back through the bars. She stood on the other side for a moment longer and then smiled and walked back the way she came. There was no banter on the way back down the hall, just a hushed quiet, as if the other girls knew why Orfeo had come up. Perhaps they did. Maybe they'd seen her with the bundle before.

Caitlin found her thoughts drifting back to Lilly. Orfeo probably brought her a package just like she did Caitlin. Somehow the thought was both disturbing and frightening at the same time. Then she thought of Poppy and she crossed to the window. She found Poppy's window across the courtyard easily and she watched the other girl sitting on her bunk writing. The other girl's eyes lifted from her work and looked out the window at the courtyard.

Caitlin put her hand on the glass and the movement caught Poppy's eyes and drew them to meet Caitlin's. Caitlin held up the bundle from Orfeo and Poppy did the same. Caitlin could feel a sense of kinship with the other girl, even though they were worlds apart and separated by that horrible, stained grass. It was something they had in common, that bundle of paper.

She lowered her package and turned back to the bunk, then sat down. She laid the small stack of envelopes on the bunk beside her and put the pad of paper on her lap with the pen in her hand. She tried to think of who she wanted to write to, and she tried to think of what she wanted to say.

Momma Wolf said that she might not be coming back to her cell and if that was the case, she would never be seeing any of her family again, and the crushing weight of her situation finally came the rest of the way down upon her as she sat and looked at that blank piece of paper staring her in the face. She never imagined that she'd ever be in the position of writing a letter to someone she would never see again.

She set the pad aside and laid her head in her hands and let the sobs rock her body and the tears fall down her face. There was no way to stop the shaking that started on top of the sobs, no way to block the thought that she would never again see her family and that all she had to look forward to was the pole in the yard, chained like an animal in a cage.

It wasn't the hysterical crying and screaming that had assailed her the first day, but somehow she felt it even more acutely. She could see herself in her mind's eye, just three days ago, happily sitting on the couch watching television, hoping that her sister would be coming home for a visit so that she could cry on her shoulder about Hunter. There was nothing in the world that she wanted more than to be back in that living room, just a normal person again instead of here with the empty paper.

After a time, she started to realize how much time was passing and that the lights in the cells would be going out before too long. She reached over and brought the pad back to her lap and put the tip of her pen to the front page. In a slow, deliberate writing, she began what she was sure would be the last letter that she would ever write.

Tears stained the page and made the ink run under them, but she didn't smear them away. She just left them there to dry for fear that her words would be forever washed away by the drops if she wiped them away. There was no way that she could bear that her last words on the earth could be taken away so easily.

It took her a couple of restarts on new pieces of paper to get what she wanted down on the page, and by the time she was almost finished with the letter, the lights had gone out. She finished her last few words by the orange lights in the courtyard filtering through her window and she signed her name. Finally, she set the pad aside and she curled up on her bunk, letting the tears flow as they might while she sobbed and rocked herself to sleep.