“I have to go.” He groaned and I didn’t want him to leave either. These precious moments were few and far between. Cohen kissed me until my lips felt bruised. Some days I felt like the target on my back grew tenfold if people only knew about us. I swore people could tell he’d fucked me by the way my hair stood up on end and the way my attitude changed. Having Cohen inside me gave me a confidence I hadn’t expected and a little jaunt in my step. When my shift at the library was over, Officer Pettigrew returned to walk me back to my cell.

“There’s a group scheduled for the showers in five minutes if you want to go.” She said looking me up and down. Was it obvious I had sex? We didn’t talk much so I nodded and gathered what I needed for the shower. My shampoo and flip-flops were essential.

“Are you sure about this?” I turned back to Officer Pettigrew who looked bored and urged me inside. There should have been other women in here but it was empty still.

“They’re coming from the rec room. Looks like you’ve got a few minutes by yourself. You want to wait or what?” She questioned impatiently.

“No, thank you.” I said and she grunted walking away. I could hear the other women coming and quickly got under the shower. The hot water pounded down onto the white and yellow tiles from chrome showerheads that looked older than me. The muscles of my back, legs, and shoulders were sore from the sex on the library table, but I felt fulfilled for the first time in a long while. I didn’t know what was happening from day to day, and this thing with Cohen could be fleeting at best. I let my thoughts run freely, ignoring the negative ones, and letting them flow down the drain with the water that sluiced over my body. I rubbed the shampoo in my hair, making it foamy and fragrant. I thought about fields of strawberries and juicy summer fruit, which made my mouth water. Sadness filled me, thinking I would miss the summer being incarcerated. There would be no fruit to pick in the suburbs to bring back to make tarts and pies like I did with my mother. There would be no beach trips to Galveston in my shitty car with my co-workers when the bar closed for its annual week off. So many things I didn’t realize I would miss.

A sound inside the shower room startled me. A door slammed shut. I shut the water off and grabbed my towel. My red flip-flops squeaked and flapped against the water and floor. A chill made goosebumps on my legs as water droplets ran down the length of them.

“Hello?” No sound came back except my own voice and heartbeats. I was alone but the hair rose on the back of my neck as I fought back the terror. I smelled the cloying scent of roses before I saw her face.

“If it isn’t the bitch Benedicta…little tattletale.” Evangelina and three of her Tribe members took up the space between me and the closed door of the showers.

“Where’s the guard?” I asked trying to see beyond them. A guard was supposed to be here always.

“Bitch got paid, she don’t care about some prison pussy.” Meaning the Tribe bribed her. I swallowed down my fear.

I wrapped the towel tighter around my body. My body prepared to fight my way out of here. I hadn’t been in a fight before with the exception of that day in the yard. No schoolyard frays, no throw down in hallways. I was fresh blood, and Evangelina and her crew had it out for me.

“What do you want, Evangelina?” Her eyes narrowed. I guess I wasn’t supposed to be asking the questions but too bad.

She grabbed me by the hair and pulled me close to her face, spitting words. “I can smell his cum dripping from inside you.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” I filed the lie away easy, protecting myself as best I could. No one was coming to save me.

“You’ve been a real pain in the ass since you got here. You and that puta snitch we put in the hospital.”

“What?”

“Didn’t your dick tell you she wasn’t coming back?”

“Maris?”

“Bitch was a word whore spreading her lips for the warden.” Shock coursed through me. What? That meant that all this time Cohen had someone working for him. Maris was the snitch. She was the one who must have gotten Hector in trouble.

“What does that have to do with me?”

“Grant was supposed to get rid of you. Dumb shit couldn’t do that right.” She spit at my feet the fluid hitting my thigh making me cringe. It was disgusting. I didn’t know anything about Grant or his plans except that somehow I got fucked by getting his unwanted attention twice now.

“Well Grant’s dead, so fat lot of good it did him after all.” I sneered. I was done being their punching bag.

Evangelina took a step forward with menace in her eyes when one of her gang-girls spoke. “And now Hector is in custody no thanks to this rat.”

“Eye for an eye, don’t you think?” She snickered and her bitches moved in, hitting, punching, and kicking me to the hard floor. Everything hurt as I curled up in a ball trying to protect myself.

Banging on the door made them pause for a second. They would kill me, given half the chance.

“Shit, those guards are supposed to be changing shifts right now.”

“Didn’t you pay that female guard enough?” One yelled.

The banging on the door became louder, like someone or something was trying to break it down. All I could focus on was keeping myself conscious so I could tell whoever was coming what happened.

“The south entrance at the laundry isn’t supposed to be monitored right now. Fuck the shipment.” Evangeline scoffed.

“I thought they had the laundry van coming?” I had no idea what her goons were yelling about because each word seemed to be punctuated by a kick or a hit to my body with a heavy sock filled with whatever they could use to hit me with.

The door banged again, and pandemonium filtered into the shower area as guards rushed in to subdue the fight. I lay where I was, unmoving.

Evangelina shouted, feet stomping and slipping in the puddles of water when another guard put her down, handcuffing her. “God damn that Garcia.”

My last thought before oblivion was that maybe, just maybe that’s what Cohen wanted to know.