"Take it up with the judge," the officer said flatly without any remorse or care. "We just deliver where we're told."
The van stopped in front of a concrete building that looked more like a fortress than a prison.
The back doors opened, and rough hands pulled Shuyin out. Her legs had gone numb from sitting, and she stumbled on the pavement.
"Move it," a guard barked, hauling her upright.
She marched through a heavy steel door into an intake area that smelled of mold and bleach.
The walls were concrete, unpainted, with cracks running through them like veins.
The fluorescent lights overhead flickered intermittently, casting everything in an unstable, sickly glow.
The guards here were different from the ones at the courthouse. They were bigger and harder.
Their faces showed no sympathy, and no humanity, just some cold indifference.
One of them, a massive woman with close-cropped grey hair, looked Shuyin up and down with open disdain.
"Another rich girl thinks prison is gonna be a spa," she muttered to her colleague snickering with disgust.
They uncuffed her and immediately began the processing. Shuyin was ordered to strip, every piece of clothing was taken, the grey dress she'd worn to trial, her underwear, everything, leaving her standing naked and shivering in the cold room while the guards watched with bored expressions.
"Hands up..."
"Turn around...."
" Bend over."
The search was invasive, humiliating, and designed to strip away any remaining dignity she was left with.
Shuyin's face burned with shame, tears streaming silently down her cheeks, but the guards didn't care. This was routine for them.
When they were satisfied, they threw a coarse orange jumpsuit at her. The fabric was rough, scratchy, nothing like the silk and cotton she was used to. It felt like sandpaper against her skin.
The pants were too long, the shirt too big, hanging off her frame like a costume designed to make her look small and powerless.
Prison-issue shoes, canvas slip-ons worn thin by previous inmates, completed the transformation.
Lin Shuyin, socialite and heiress, no longer existed. In her place stood Prisoner 47839.
"This way."
They led her deeper into the facility. The corridors were endless, each one darker and more oppressive than the last.
The paint on the walls was peeling, revealing layers of different colors underneath, as if the building itself had lived through decades of decay.
The floors were concrete, stained with things Shuyin didn't want to think about.
And the sounds, the sounds were what made it real.
Screaming from somewhere deep in the complex, laughter that sounded more like madness than joy.
Metal clanging against metal in irregular rhythms. The shuffle of feet. Voices shouting threats and obscenities in languages and slang that Shuyin didn't understand.
As they passed the other cell blocks, the catcalls started.
"Fresh meat!"
"Look at that pretty face! Won't be pretty for long!"
"Hey, new girl! You're gonna be my bitch!"
"I call dibs!"
Hands reached through bars, grasping at her as she passed through the corridor. Shuyin pressed herself against the opposite wall, her heart hammering so hard she thought it might burst from her chest.
The guards didn't hurry and didn't protect her. They just kept walking at the same steady pace, as if the threats and jeers were background music they'd long since stopped hearing.
They went down a flight of stairs, metal stairs that rang with each step, and into what felt like the basement of hell.
The air here was thicker, and harder to breathe. The smell of unwashed bodies and backed-up plumbing was overwhelming.
Finally, they stopped in front of a cell door. Block D, Cell 7.
The guard pulled out a heavy keyring and unlocked the door with a screech of protesting metal.
He grabbed Shuyin's shoulder and shoved her forward hard enough that she stumbled inside.
"Welcome home, Princess," he said with a cruel smile. "Try not to die your first night."
Before Shuyin could even respond, before she could even turn around or ask any questions, the door slammed shut behind her with a deafening clang.
The lock turned with a grinding finality that made her stomach drop.
She was inside.
The cell was small, maybe ten feet by twelve feet, with three bunk beds crammed into the space.
A single toilet sat in the corner with no partition, and no privacy. A sink with a cracked mirror. One small window high up on the wall, covered with bars and too dirty to see through.
The walls were covered in scratches, graffiti, and stains that could have been anything.
And three pairs of eyes turned to look at her.
The woman on the bottom bunk was massive, easily six feet tall, and built like she could snap Shuyin in half without effort. Her arms were thick and covered in crude prison tattoos, snakes, skulls, names crossed out and written over.