"If we don't get to her first," Tank said, her laugh sounding even darker and sinister.
"She's pretty. Could trade her for a lot. Enough to get us cigarettes and extra food... Also protection from the guards."
Shuyin's whole body went stiff. Trade her? Like she was a thing, and not a person?
"We'll see," Tank continued. "Let her settle in first. Break her in slow motion, then we'll see what she's worth when she complies...."
More laughter echoed and then it went quiet.
Shuyin pressed her face into the moldy pillow and bit down hard to stop herself from making any sound. She couldn't show weakness.
Not here.
But the tears came anyway, silent and hot, soaking into the fabric.
Her grandmother was dead and she had just left her in the mortuary..
Her family had destroyed her entire life, now, she'd been convicted of murder she didn't commit. And now she was trapped in a cell with three dangerous women who saw her as nothing more than something to use.
This was her life now. This was all she had left. If they traded her, what was she going to do?
The lights went out an hour later, just like Tank said. The cell went dark except for a faint glow from the hallway. The sounds of the prison at night were different, contained more screams, more crying, and more banging on bars.
Shuyin lay perfectly still, not sleeping, barely breathing. Every sound made her jump.
Every creak of the bunks made her think someone was coming for her.
She could hear Tank's heavy breathing below. Heard Razor shifting and muttering in her sleep. Heard Blade, silent and still, like she was waiting.
Hours passed by, or maybe just minutes but time meant nothing anymore.
Today was supposed to be her wonderful wedding day, but this was the outcome she hadn't anticipated at all...
Shuyin stared at the stained wall and tried to remember who she used to be. The girl who went to galas was a beautiful director. The girl who was supposed to get married. The girl who had a grandmother who loved her.
That girl was gone and in her place was Prisoner 47839. Titled with a number. A body in a cell... And nothing more.
This was her first night in this place...
The darkness in the cell was absolute, broken only by the faint glow from the corridor lights filtering through the small window in the steel door.
Shuyin lay frozen on the thin mattress, every muscle tensed, listening to the heavy breathing and occasional shifting of the women below her. Sleep was impossible. Each rustle, each sigh, sent a fresh jolt of terror through her.
Hours bled together in the suffocating blackness. Then, a new sound, a soft, rhythmic scraping echoed.
It was the woman on the middle bunk, slowly, methodically dragging her sharpened toothbrush shiv against the concrete floor once again... Shuyin wondered if she had ever slept like a normal person...
The sound was a quiet promise of violence, a whisper in the dark that said the night was not over.
Shuyin held her breath, her heart hammering against her ribs so loudly that she was sure they could hear it.
Then, the scraping stopped.
A moment of silence, more terrifying than the sound itself.
Then, suddenly a hand, cold and rough, closed around her ankle from below.
Shuyin gasped, jerking her leg back in fright, but the grip was like iron holding her back in place and couldn't loosen.
"Get down here," the large woman's voice grumbled from the bottom bunk.
Trembling, Shuyin had no choice. She climbed down, her legs so weak that she nearly fell.
The three women were now standing, forming a half-circle around her, trapping her against the cold bars of the cell.
The leader stepped forward, her face a mask of cold amusement in the dim light. "Second lesson," she said, her voice low. "Everything has a price in here. And you, pretty bird, look like you can pay."
She reached out and ripped the jade hairpin from Shuyin's hair, the one her mother had given her. Shuyin cried out, a sound of pure anguish, and made a desperate grab for it.
This was the only keepsake she had received from her mother...
The wiry woman was on her in an instant, twisting her arm behind her back with brutal efficiency. Pain shot through Shuyin's shoulder as she shrieked painfully.
"Bad move," the leader sneered, pocketing the hairpin, keeping it away. "Now you owe us for the trouble." She nodded to the third inmate, who held up the sharpened toothbrush.
"This is how it works," the leader said, her eyes glinting. "You give us what we want. Your food rations. Your commissary privileges. Or..." She gestured to the shiv. "...we take it. Starting with that pretty face of yours."