Chap­ter 188 of All the Col­ors of the Dark begins with Patch wait­ing in a hold­ing area while a sec­re­tary makes repeat­ed calls to coor­di­nate updates about the judi­cia­ry in the Twen­ty-fifth Judi­cial Cir­cuit. After near­ly twen­ty min­utes, War­den Riley enters, casu­al­ly instruct­ing offi­cers to remove Patch’s cuffs before guid­ing him into his office. Riley’s pres­ence is phys­i­cal­ly unremarkable—round in stature, face flushed with age and habit—but it’s the paint­ing behind him that tru­ly seizes Patch’s atten­tion. The large can­vas por­trays a bustling Main Street scene, evok­ing a rush of mem­o­ries from a time when Patch’s hands still held brush­es instead of cal­lus­es from prison labor. He recalls this as one of his ear­ly works, a piece that once rep­re­sent­ed ambi­tion, now dis­tort­ed by the pas­sage of time and regret.

War­den Riley points out that the paint­ing was select­ed by his wife, Aileen, one of her many attempts to give the office a warmer feel. The dis­cus­sion soon turns to Patch’s recent peti­tion for a mod­est library pro­gram on C Level—an area hous­ing pris­on­ers with lit­tle to no hope of return. Riley explains that while the Bureau of Pris­ons has encour­aged reha­bil­i­ta­tive efforts, death row remains a del­i­cate sub­ject. Patch takes the moment to describe how books serve not just as dis­trac­tion but as life­lines in a place where time moves slow­ly and hope fades even faster. He ref­er­ences inmates like Mar­ty Tooms, who face decades in iso­la­tion with­out mean­ing­ful stim­u­la­tion, using lit­er­a­ture as their only win­dow to life beyond the bars.

As they con­verse, Patch reflects on more per­son­al matters—especially the pain of not see­ing his daugh­ter, who has­n’t vis­it­ed in years. He tells Riley about the beat­ings he suf­fered in his first months, par­tic­u­lar­ly a bru­tal encounter with a gang mem­ber that left him with bro­ken ribs and two miss­ing teeth. Despite the scars and soli­tude, he express­es that his resilience has grown, fueled not by revenge, but by a qui­et mis­sion to bring moments of dig­ni­ty to those around him. His voice soft­ens as he shares a line he once read—“No act of kind­ness, no mat­ter how small, is ever wasted”—reaffirming that lit­er­a­ture fos­ters empa­thy even with­in steel walls.

Riley, appear­ing con­tem­pla­tive, leans back in his chair, the pin­stripes on his vest catch­ing the over­head light. Though the con­ver­sa­tion is seri­ous, a touch of humor seeps in as Riley jokes about how lit­tle time he has to read these days, espe­cial­ly now that Aileen insists on dec­o­rat­ing every cor­ner of their home with moti­va­tion­al quotes. Patch laughs light­ly but returns to the mat­ter at hand, press­ing gen­tly about the need for human­i­ty in places like C Lev­el. Riley sighs, nei­ther promis­ing nor refus­ing, but rather acknowl­edg­ing the com­plex­i­ty with a nod, hint­ing that the bureau­cra­cy may not be quick, but the effort is not wast­ed.

As their meet­ing ends, Patch is escort­ed back through the cor­ri­dor, car­ry­ing both antic­i­pa­tion and appre­hen­sion about what awaits on C Lev­el. That night, despite his men­tal fatigue, sleep escapes him. His thoughts swirl—not only about the logis­ti­cal chal­lenges of run­ning a book deliv­ery sys­tem in a high-secu­ri­ty block but about the peo­ple behind the cell doors. He won­ders whether a paper­back on art the­o­ry or a worn nov­el might make a dif­fer­ence, even for some­one sen­tenced to die. The thought lingers heav­i­ly, whis­per­ing the ques­tion he’s afraid to answer: Can redemp­tion be offered when soci­ety has already writ­ten some­one off?

The chap­ter clos­es with Patch lying in his bunk, star­ing at the ceil­ing above as the soft hum of the prison fades into the back­ground. His hands, once used for paint­ing del­i­cate strokes on can­vas, now twitch with rest­less ener­gy. Tomor­row he will descend to death row, not just to deliv­er books, but to con­front what might be the dark­est cham­ber of his past. The final line leaves read­ers on edge: He wasn’t sure if he was ready, but the sto­ry had already begun turn­ing its next page.