AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Chapter Seven
I’ve always had an obscure idea of what jail might be like. But this? This is so much worse than I ever imagined. Somehow, I’d romanticized the idea of incarceration. Free room and board, free food. I’d be warm and clothed without a care in the world, maybe make a few friends.
What I never considered was solitary confinement.
Being stuck in this tiny room, in this tiny bed, with nothing but my depressing thoughts to keep me company, is maddening. I don’t have anything to occupy my time, not even a worn Bible collecting dust on the ledge behind the bed.
I’ve read the scribbled messages scratched into the paint more times than I can count. I’ve recited all the movies I know by heart, line by line, to try and pass the time. I even sang a few songs, but nothing helps. My thoughts always revert back to my brother and my dog, my response to Bronson’s offer still hanging over my head.
“A prominent family we think is responsible for a murder.”
Murder.
Even though I have blood on my hands, I still don’t know if I have the ovaries to go through with something like this. I’ve never gone undercover with really bad men. My crimes have mostly been petty theft—an expensive handbag, the phone of someone important, laptops, and even drugs. But offering myself up to murderers?
I don’t know if I can do it or if I’ll survive it. But do I have a choice? If I say no, I might as well be sentencing Mitch and Mischief to death.
Unable to sit any longer, I push myself off my bed, wrap my arms around my torso, and begin to pace. Pace is really too grand a word for the three steps it takes me to get from one side of this shithole to the other.
Beyond the door, I hear shouting, and I push myself up on my tiptoes to look out. Through a set of glass doors, I can see the women not in confinement. Their white T-shirts are stained from use, and their orange pants hang baggily off their asses. Two of them are in the middle of a fight, with fistfuls of hair flying everywhere, while the other women cheer for the person they want to win.
Guards rush in, restraining the fighters and a handful of others. Handcuffs are brought out and secured. Even in jail, we can be prisoners. It’s so fucked up.
Can I live like this for the rest of my life?
Footsteps make their way toward my door, and I hurry back to my bed, plopping down on it. The little metal compartment in the middle of my door opens, and a tray filled with food slides in.
The person giving it to me doesn’t acknowledge me, doesn’t say hello. Hell, I’d be happy if they told me to fuck off just to communicate with another person.
I blink my tired eyes then go and retrieve my lunch. Looking at the plate, I note the small dividers keeping the grotesque contents of each square segregated from the others, as if all hell would break loose if they touched. Slop filled with nameless chunks of grayish meat float in a watery broth. Another holds what looks like bright orange cottage cheese but smells like rotten eggs. The only thing I can even fathom putting in my body is the carton of milk.
Abandoning the food, I open the milk and drink it down fast. It’s been so long since I’ve had the extra cash to buy it that I almost forgot how good it is.
Lying here in my bed, I feel like jail is really a giant daycare for bad people. We’re clothed and fed. We have specific wake times, bedtimes, and shower times. Our food comes in tiny slots, and we eat it with milk while wearing jammies all day long.
Fuck, I need to get out of here.
I’m already going mad, and it hasn’t even been a day. I can’t imagine spending my life in prison. Tossing the empty milk carton back onto the tray, I flop down on my back and stare at the ceiling.
Or can I? Maybe I can live here for the rest of my life. Sure, Mitch-bitch will end up in a state-run facility, but he won’t fucking die there. It’s Mischief I’m more concerned about. But with that heart on his nose, and those adorable, mismatched eyes, he’d be adopted in no time.
Right?
Or maybe it’s wishful thinking, something I thought I had given up on a long time ago. I close my eyes and let out a deep sigh when I feel something—a drop of water. My eyes fly open, and I look around before feeling another land on my arm. The droplet dribbles down my skin and onto the bed, and I stare at the fucking thing as if it might do tricks if I watch long enough.
Another drop lands on my nose, and I look up, seeing beads of water forming over my bed.
Fucking hell.
Moving off my bed, I tuck myself into a corner by the door and begin screaming for a guard, but no one comes, and several minutes later, it begins raining in my fucking cell.
The water is gray and smells like rotten assholes. Quickly, my standard white T-shirt is soaked through, and my hair is drenched in wet curls around my face.
“Fucking help!” I scream until my voice grows hoarse, until I’m shaking from the cold, until I’m so desperate to get out of here that I’d offer to be Bronson’s personal slave for the rest of my life.
How bad could going undercover for a family of murderers even be? As dirty water continues to soak me to the bone, I realize I don’t fucking care. They can kill whomever they want as long as I get out of here. Shit. Bronson even offered me a tiny apartment.
I was a fool to say no in the first place.
