Shuyin's one working eye widened slightly as the pieces of the puzzle clicked together even through the thick fog of pain clouding her thoughts.
"They wanted me dead," she whispered hoarsely, understanding dawning. "Made it look like an accident, like regular prison violence."
"Exactly right," Razor confirmed from her perch above. "Prison violence happens every single day in places like this. Nobody investigates too hard, but whoever planned this made a critical mistake by using our cell for their scheme. Now we're witnesses to what they did. Now we know someone's pulling strings from outside these walls."
"So we're keeping you alive," Blade added from her spot on the floor, her voice characteristically flat and emotionless. "Not because we suddenly like you or feel sorry for you. It's because our own survival depends on keeping you breathing too. It's as simple as that."
The brutal honesty of their words should have hurt, should have felt like another blow, but strangely it didn't.
These women were criminals, hardened by years of violence and survival in the worst places society had to offer, but they were also survivors who understood the game being played.
And right now, in this moment, their survival was inexplicably tied to hers.
"Who did this?" Shuyin managed to force out. "Who wants me dead badly enough to arrange all of this?"
Tank shook her head slowly. "That's what we need to figure out together. You come from money, right? Got a connected family with power and influence?"
Shuyin's eye closed, even that tiny movement causing discomfort, "possibly my family or fiance.... They framed me for murder. My grandmother... she was the only one who actually..." Her voice cracked and broke, unable to finish the sentence. "She's dead now."
"So this is a family drama then," Razor said thoughtfully. "Rich people's problems getting people killed. Someone wanted you gone permanently, not just locked up and forgotten."
"Could be about inheritance," Blade suggested, always practical. "Money makes people do terrible things."
"Maybe that's part of it," Tank agreed, stroking her scarred chin as she thought. "Or maybe she knew something dangerous. Saw something she wasn't supposed to see. Rich families always have dark secrets they want buried."
Shuyin's mind drifted through fragments of memories, each one now tinged with pain and betrayal. Her family, always so perfect on the surface, maintaining their carefully constructed facade for the world to see.
Her grandmother's last words echoed in her failing consciousness: They're lying, Shuyin. Don't trust them. Don't trust any of them.
But who specifically had orchestrated all of this? Was it her Father with his cold ambition? Her stepsister who had always resented her position? Or could it possibly be her fiancée?
The pain pills Tank had given her were starting to work their way through her system, bringing a blessed numbness that spread gradually through her broken body.
The pain was still there, ever-present and throbbing, but it felt muted now, distant, almost like it was happening to someone else entirely.
"Get some sleep while you can," Tank said, standing up from the bunk and stretching. "Guards will do their morning count at six o'clock sharp. We'll tell them you fell getting up to use the toilet during the night. Happens all the time with fresh arrivals who aren't used to the dark. They'll believe it without question."
"And if they don't believe us?" Razor asked from above, a note of concern creeping into her voice.
"Then we stick to the story no matter what," Tank said firmly, her tone brooking no argument. "All of us tell the exact same version. They got no proof to say otherwise, and they're not gonna investigate too hard over some new inmate falling in the dark."
Blade nodded her agreement silently. Razor gave a small grunt that indicated her understanding.
These women, these violent criminals with their scars and crude tattoos, were actively protecting her from further harm. Not out of any kindness or compassion, but out of pure practical necessity. Yet somehow, it was the most honest alliance Shuyin had ever known in her entire life.
It was better than family, better than blood ties.
The thought hit her with surprising force even through the haze of pain medication clouding her thoughts. Her family had systematically destroyed her with practiced smiles and carefully constructed lies, manipulating everything behind a veneer of love and concern.
These inmates were keeping her alive with brutal, unvarnished honesty about their motives.
"Thank you," Shuyin whispered, the words barely audible.
Tank paused at the ladder leading to her usual bunk, now temporarily Blade's, since Shuyin was occupying hers on the bottom. "Don't thank us yet, princess. We ain't heroes playing at rescue. We're just trying to survive the same as you are. When this whole situation is over, when we figure out who's pulling the strings behind all this, you're on your own again. Back to being just another inmate."