“I’m talking to you, bitch!”
My heart began to pound, and I took a deep breath in an attempt to calm it. Though my instinct was to run, I stopped, knowing it would be stupid to try to get away from her. Better to try to be friendly—maybe even get on her good side using my connections in the kitchen. If I’d learned anything during my time in a correctional facility, it was to keep my head down and avoid making enemies. O’Brien and I were still friends, and the threat of her wrath kept most of the harder, more violent criminals in our midst away from me, but this woman was new to the prison. She had no idea who O’Brien was or my relationship with her. Even if she did, she likely wouldn’t care.
“Sit,” I instructed Trixie as the woman approached us. “Wait.” Trixie did as I asked, and posed silently by my side, awaiting my further instruction.
“What the fuck is that animal doing in here?” the woman asked, huffing and puffing a bit. She was at least ten years older than me, almost as round as she was tall, likely outweighing me by a good sixty pounds. She had dirty blond, short hair and a mouthful of yellow, uneven teeth. Her blue scrubs were flat against her large breasts and stretched at the seams; blurry, black tattoos traveled up the skin of her thick neck.
“It’s part of my work-release program,” I said with a smile, trying not to display the anxiety I felt. “I train her and do other work with animals at a vet clinic in town.”
“Is that so?” the woman said, crossing her arms over her chest. She stared at me with tiny, round blue eyes, then looked at Trixie.
“It is,” I said, keeping my voice as steady as possible. I glanced around the hallway to see if anyone I knew might step in and discourage this woman from harassing me, but we were alone. Where’s a guard when I need one? “What’s your name?”
“Blake,” she said. She lifted her eyes back to mine, scowling.
“I’m Walker,” I said, keeping my eyes locked on hers. I’d never found myself in this kind of confrontation, but I’d witnessed many of them, and as with dogs, in prison, only the weaker animal looked away.
“Yeah,” she said, and she took a step toward me, putting her face only inches from mine. “You must be pretty special to get this kind of gig.” Her breath was rotten, full of decay; I tried not to flinch. “Tell me. How am I going to get me a gig like that? Leave this shithole a few days a week, just like you?”
“I don’t know,” I said, and I couldn’t keep the tremor from the words. My entire body tensed, and picking up on this, Trixie bared her teeth and growled, a low and deep, gurgling, threatening sound.
Blake’s leg shot out from her body and connected with Trixie before I knew what was happening. The dog yelped, and I screamed, “No!” and then I pushed at Blake’s chest as hard as I could. Trixie strained at the end of her leash, snarling at the woman who had just kicked her.
Blake stumbled backward, and then something dark flashed in her eyes. “Now you’re fucked, little girl,” she said, and she came at me again, her thick fists clenched, and the last thing I remember was Trixie barking and the bright sparkle of pain exploding inside my skull as Blake jumped on top of me, grabbed me by the ears, and banged my head against the floor.
Natalie
“Your destination is on the right,” Natalie’s GPS announced as she turned off the main road and onto a side street. It was an older neighborhood, one she’d driven through but never stopped in before, filled with rows of small houses with overgrown lawns. Zora’s house looked as though it had once been painted blue but now, after years of the sun bleaching the siding, it was more of a washed-out shade of gray. The roof was carpeted in thick green moss and sagged in the middle; the square window next to the front door had a large crack running diagonally across it. All the shades were drawn, so Natalie worried that the woman she’d come to speak to wasn’t there—probably at work for the day. But then, she saw one of the dingy yellow shades lift up at its corner, and a child’s face peeked out at her, only to quickly disappear again.