"I know," Shuyin said quietly. And she did understand. She had no illusions about what this arrangement was or what it meant for her future.
Tank climbed up to the top bunk with practiced ease.
Blade settled onto the middle bunk, her movements economical and silent. Razor had already stretched out on her usual spot.
The cell fell into a heavy quiet, each woman lost in her own thoughts and concerns, surrounded by the ever-present sounds of the prison at night.
Shuyin lay in the darkness, wrapped in three thin blankets that smelled strongly of mildew and old sweat, her broken body barely holding itself together through sheer stubbornness and the numbing effects of the pills.
She thought about the fighting pit and its nightmare atmosphere. The crowd's animalistic screams echo off the concrete walls.
The massive woman's brutal fists connected with her flesh over and over. The coppery taste of her own blood fills her mouth.
She thought about her family and their perfect masks hiding monstrous intentions. The trial that had been a foregone conclusion from the start.
The conviction that had sealed her fate. Her grandmother's funeral, which she hadn't been able to attend, and she was unable to even bid her a final goodbye.
And she thought about the undeniable fact that someone wanted her dead so desperately they'd orchestrated this entire elaborate scheme to make it happen while maintaining plausible deniability.
Who possessed that much raw power? Who had that many connections reaching into places like Blackwater Ridge?
The pain pills dragged her consciousness down toward sleep like an anchor pulling her beneath dark waters, but just before unconsciousness finally claimed her completely, one more thought surfaced clearly through the fog:
I'm not going to die in this place. I'm going to find out who orchestrated all of this. And I'm going to survive long enough to make every single one of them pay for what they've done.
It was just a small spark of defiance flickering in a vast ocean of pain and despair.
But it was something real and solid to hold onto.
The harsh, metallic clang of something striking the cell bars jolted Shuyin violently awake from her medication-induced sleep.
"COUNT! EVERYONE ON YOUR FEET NOW!"
She tried to move her body and immediately regretted the attempt.
White-hot pain exploded through her broken ribs, radiated across her swollen face, and shot up from her crushed hand. An involuntary moan of agony escaped her split lips before she could stop the sound.
"This one can't get up, boss," Tank's voice called out with practiced casualness. "Fell during the night. Got herself busted up pretty bad trying to find the toilet in the dark."
Two guards appeared at the cell door, their silhouettes backlit by the corridor lights.
One was a man with a thick, muscular neck and eyes as cold and empty as ice. The other was a woman with her dark hair pulled back into such a severe bun that it looked actively painful.
"What exactly happened here?" the male guard demanded, his voice sharp with suspicion.
"New girl got up to use the toilet in the middle of the night," Tank explained, her voice taking on a bored, matter-of-fact tone. "She was disoriented from being in a new place, and couldn't see properly in the darkness. Fell right off the top bunk trying to climb down. We told her to be careful navigating at night, but fresh arrivals don't ever listen to advice."
The female guard's eyes narrowed as she studied the scene carefully. She looked at Shuyin's battered face, taking in the severe swelling, the dried blood crusted across her skin, the way one eye was completely swollen shut. "That definitely doesn't look like a simple fall to me."
"You calling me a liar, boss?" Tank's voice went immediately dangerous, carrying an edge of threat.
"I'm saying that girl looks like she went through an industrial meat grinder," the guard shot back, not backing down. "That's more than just falling off a bunk."
"Maybe she's really clumsy," Razor offered from her bunk, casually examining her fingernails as if discussing the weather. "Maybe she fell more than just once. Some people are naturally accident-prone."
"Or maybe you three decided to give the new rich girl a proper welcome beating," the male guard suggested, his voice heavy with accusation.
"Why would we do something that stupid?" Blade asked, her voice perfectly reasonable and logical. "We don't even know her yet. She literally just got here yesterday. We got no beef with her, no reason to risk getting thrown in isolation over some stranger."
The two guards exchanged meaningful glances, clearly not convinced but lacking concrete evidence. The female guard pulled out her radio and keyed the microphone. "We need medical personnel down in D-Block, Cell 47. Got an injured inmate."