It only takes a few hours in jail for me to realize I’m not cut out for it. And I’m forced to stay the entire night.

From the second we get to the precinct, I know something isn’t quite right. I’m immediately separated from the others. No one processes me or does my fingerprints. I don’t even get to speak to a lawyer or make a phone call. Not that I have a lawyer or anyone to call. My parents would kill me if they were to find out I’m going to such drastic lengths to make Alexander Industries pay. They have warned me time and time again to keep my distance. Mom and Dad signed a confidentiality agreement when they settled with the corporate giant as a result of a chemical spill on a stretch of farmland that has been in my family for over a hundred years. Too bad I’ve always been a bit stubborn and pig-headed. Plus I was a minor when they practically signed their lives away with that waiver document.

Early the next morning, an officer comes to my cell and tells me to accompany him. Relief washes over me. I follow him out through a different hallway. This corridor takes me directly past a large detention room with a glass window that spans almost one wall, from the ceiling down to about waist height. I stop short. My eleven co-conspirators are all in there, wrists handcuffed, with their arms secured to a long metal bar extending along the length of the table. They all look up as I stop. Crap. This is not two-way mirrored glass. I raise my handcuffed wrists in solidarity. None of them smile. The stares they give me send a chill up my spine.

Why am I not with them? How long have they been in this room? What have they been told? And where is this officer taking me?

The cop mumbles for me to keep walking. He leads me to the end of the hall.

“Back against the wall,” he orders.

“Where are you taking me?” I ask, stepping back until I feel the cool concrete against my prison jumpsuit.

“These are your things,” the officer informs me as he hands over a large property seizure bag. It has my clothes, backpack, bullhorn, phone, and shoes. Everything that was on my person during the protest—except there’s also one of the posters that one of my colleagues was carrying.

“Am I being released?”

He removed my handcuffs and points to a door. “No more questions. Get in there. Change into your street clothes, unless you want to join your friends in the holding room.”

I want to tell him he’s not following police procedure, but my gut tells me to do what he says. There’s more to it. I won’t find out more if I resist. I nod and step into the room. After spending the night in this orange monstrosity they call prison wear, I can’t get changed fast enough. I stuff everything else into my backpack, throw on my shoes and winter coat, and return to the hallway.

He takes me through two sets of double doors. The second door opens to a vehicle bay and a ramp to the outside world. I’m so confused, and I’m scared shitless, but I of all people should know not to expect the typical or the everyday. I just poked an insanely powerful corporate bully. Depending on what they think about it, they may shut me up, pay me off, or put me in a corner.

The officer grips my shoulders firmly. “I’d prefer to keep the handcuffs on, so try not to do anything stupid. Understood?”

I nod, and he keeps his hand on me as we head over to an unmarked police car. He puts me in the back seat, goes around to the driver side, and within minutes, we’re heading north on Fifth Avenue. My stomach sinks when he parks in front of the same freaking clubhouse where I let Malcolm Alexander have his way with me. Or vice versa.

The officer opens my door. “Come with me.”

This police officer should be grateful I’m not in a mouthy mood today. I’ve been itching to rattle off all the ways he’s broken procedure. He can easily be dismissed for bringing me here, maybe even charged. And I still haven’t been fingerprinted. My curiosity is getting the best of me, so I follow him inside and to the doors of a room on the main floor.

I can’t wait to see who’s on the other side of these doors.

I’m pretty positive I know who it is, and when I’m led inside, I’m not even remotely afraid anymore.

The problem is, Malcolm looks just as confident. He sits there, wearing a white button down shirt and dark slacks, relaxing on a plush red couch in a room that looks more like a man-cave than an office. One wall is covered with a giant floor-to-ceiling TV screen. Another has a fireplace, and straight ahead, there’s a fully stocked bar behind the pool table in the center of the room.

Malcolm should be nervous, anxious, ready to threaten me, or bargain with me, or convince me to sell my soul. Instead, he’s lounging.

I’m not too sure what to think anymore.