The heat was on against the damp chill in the low-ceilinged room where we ate, but I still felt cold. It was noon according to the clock past the gates that separated us from the kitchen, but it was three by my internal clock, and I was hungry. The scrambled eggs in front of me were not going to pass my tongue, however. They looked good enough, but the sulfur in them would give me a migraine. It smelled funny in here, sort of a mix of dead fish and decayed redwood.
Depressed, I picked at a piece of toast, thinking the butter tasted off. Not enough salt? I wondered, dropping it. I almost wiped my hands on my spiffy-keen, orange jumpsuit, but stopped at the last moment. Not knowing when I'd get a new one, I licked my fingers instead. Across from me was my upstairs neighbor, a sallow-looking witch who had ignored me so far as he dipped his toast into his coffee before eating it. To my left was Mary. I'd met her earlier by way of conversation around the wall between us, and my first sight of her had been a shock; the woman was so thin she looked ill. To my right was a middle-aged guy who never spoke. Most everyone was talking. Alcatraz wasn't a big place, and it was kind of... homey. Maybe it was because we were on an island with no ley lines, surrounded by salt water. There simply was no escape.
Unhappy, I pushed my tray away and sat with my plastic coffee mug. I'd been here since the midnight boat brought me over with a load of canned goods, handcuffed to a pole in the middle of the boat. Since then, I'd showered in salt water in a big empty room - as if being on an island surrounded by salt water wouldn't take care of earth charms on its own - reshowered in freshwater, been poked, prodded, gossiped over, and given a new band of charmed silver with my name on it. It had been a relief to finally get to my cell, where I fell into an exhausted sleep hours before everyone else. I felt like a dog at the pound. And like a dog, I worried that my owner wouldn't come pick me up. I hoped it was Ceri who summoned me out of here, not Al. I couldn't call Al for help while I wore charmed silver, but he could summon me. I had to believe that I'd be summoned by someone, eventually.
At least I'd gotten the cremation ashes off me, I thought as Mary jostled my elbow, and I blinked when her smile showed she was missing a tooth.
"You heard about the food then?" she said, glancing at my tray, pushed to the middle.
"What do you mean?" I took a sip of coffee.
"They drug it," she said, and the guy across from us shrugged, continuing to tuck in.
I didn't swallow, my mouth full of coffee as my gaze went between them, wondering if it was truth or prison razzing. The big guy across from me seemed to be enjoying his breakfast, but Mary looked like she hadn't eaten in years.
"It is!" she said, eyes wide in her thin face. "They put in an amino acid that binds to the receptors in your brain to chemically strip you of your ability to do magic if you eat enough."
I spit the coffee out, and the guy across the table guffawed as he chewed. Feeling ill, I set the coffee aside, and Mary nodded, adding enthusiastically, "Your sentence is based on how much of your ability they want to take away. I've got thirty years left."
The witch across from me finished his eggs and eyed mine. "You'd get early parole and be out of here by spring if you'd eat," he said.
Mary cackled at that, and I glanced at the guards, busy not caring. "So how long are you in for, Rachel?" she asked, eyes on the demon scar on my wrist. She obviously knew what it was. "Life," I whispered, and Mary cringed.
"Sorry. I guess you should eat, then. I got sixty years for killing my neighbor," she said proudly. "His damned dog kept peeing on my monkshood."
"Monkshood Mary... ," I said, recollection raising my eyebrows. "You re Monkshood Mary? Hey! I read about you in school!"
She beamed, extending her hand. "Hey, Charles, see? I'm still famous. Glad to make your acquaintance," she said as if having rehearsed it a thousand times, and I took her bird-light hand, feeling like it might break in my grip.
"I'm Charles," the man across from me said, and his hand engulfed mine. "That there is Ralph," he added, nodding to the silent man on my right. "He doesn't talk much. Been kinda down since the cell next to him went empty last year."
"Oh. Sorry." I glanced at him. "Someone got out, huh?"
Mary picked at her crust, skirting where the butter was. "Tried. If they catch you alive, they neuter your magic the old-fashioned way. Ralph, show Sunshine your scar."
Sunshine? I thought, not happy about the nickname, but Ralph put down his fork and pulled the hair up from his forehead. "Oh my God," I whispered, and he let his hair fall, turning back to his meal and carefully manipulating the fork... concentrating on it. Slowly, very slowly. They had lobotomized him.
"Tha-that's inhuman," I stammered.
Charles stoically met my horrified gaze. "We're not human."
Silence fell, and I felt cold. I had to get out of here. Like now! Why hadn't anyone summoned me home yet? Ivy said she was okay, but what if Jenks really was hurt and she'd been lying so I wouldn't worry?
I was so lost in my thoughts that I jumped when I realized someone was standing behind me. I turned, coming eye to middle with one of the biggest women I'd ever seen. She wasn't fat, she was big. Big boned, big chested, big ankles, and big hands. Her pudgy face made her eyes look small, but they glinted with intelligence.
"Hey, Mary," she said with a southern accent. It wasn't the elegant sound of a southern belle, but the ugly twang of trailer trash on the edge of the woods with a trampoline out front and stacks of TV Guides by the door. Her fat-lost eyes stared at me as she casually took Mary's tray, holding it over the smaller woman's head while she shoveled her breakfast into her mouth.
"Lenore, this is Rachel," Mary said, her tone shifting to a respectful fearfulness. It pegged my bully meter, and my face warmed. "Rachel has Mark's old cell," Mary finished.
Lenore's eyes narrowed. "You don't need dis, honey," she said, setting Mary's tray down and taking up mine. "Yer figure's jest fine. Let Auntie Lenore take care of yo-o-o-ou."
Just how many syllables are in "you"? I thought dryly. I wasn't going to eat it, but I wasn't going to let Auntie Lenore think she could walk over me either. Trouble was, it was kind of tight at the table, and she held the tray right over me.
I took an angry breath. Mary shook her head, scared. The posted guards weren't watching. They were careful not to, by my estimation. Fine. "Charles, make a hole," I said, and the man casually made a little hop with his hip. Three people protested as he shoved them down, but his bulk made the move fast and easy.
I ducked under the table and slid all the way to the other side, popping up beside him and stepping up onto the bench seat. Standing taller than Lenore, I jerked my tray away. Or at least I tried. The woman had a grip on it as if it was a ticket out of here.
The surrounding conversation died, and all eyes turned to us. Lenore was staring at me as we both held my tray. "You think you can take me, skinny ass?" she said, eager for a fight, and I sighed. Why hadn't Ivy summoned me out before I had to fight someone?
"What I think is, you'd better let go of my tray before I jam it down your shirt," I said. "Anyone ever tell you that you look like an orange in that jumpsuit? Auntie Lenore? More like Auntie Clementine." Hey, if I was going to fight this woman, I was going to do it right.
"You skinny bitch!" she shouted, and people moved. Except for the guards watching us.
"Rachel, no!" Mary said as she scrambled up. "Stop or they'll gas us!"
Not as long as the guards were in here laughing. Lenore made a fist with her free hand. The fork was in it, placed to gouge. She yanked me across the table. I let go before she could pull me into her and dropped, sitting on the table. Bracing myself, I kicked out with both feet, hoping to hit her solar plexus hard enough to wind her. It could be over in ten seconds.
My feet slammed into her. Lenore didn't move, and the shock reverberated all the way back to my spine. My jaw unclenched, and I slowly sent my eyes up to see her smiling at me. My God, the woman was built like a tank. Lenore smirked, then slammed the tray onto my head.
It hit hard, and my vision spun. "You got yerself a sparkly," she said, grabbing my wrist. Suddenly I found myself careening down the table as she walked, me sliding into everyone's trays until I fell off the end in a crash of tin and plastic.
"Ow!" I yelped as I hit, sprawled on the floor.
"Pretty sparkly," she said sarcastically, and I slipped in coffee and eggs as I tried to get up, helpless in the woman's grip. "Dey only make demon summoners wear dees," she said, wedging a thick finger between me and the charmed silver. "You summon demons?"
"No," I panted. "But I'm a liar, too."
"Then you don't need it none," she said, trying to pull it off me.
"Hey! Stop!" I yelled, but the guards only laughed. I was covered in egg and coffee, and half the table was angry with me for dragging their breakfast onto the floor. "Ow!" I shrieked as real pain stabbed through my wrist. "Let go!"
"Gimme yer bracelet," Lenore said, squeezing my hand. "Give it."
She didn't want my bracelet. She wanted to freaking break my hand.
I pulled back and gave her a side kick, but it was like kicking a tree, the woman was so big. She took it, then swung a thick fist at me. I ducked and people cheered.
"I said let go!" I shouted, throwing coffee in her face.
Lenore bellowed as her grip loosened, and I pulled away. Arms outstretched, she came at me. I ducked, scampering out from under her and slipping on eggs. I couldn't let this woman get a bear hug on me - she'd snap my spine.
Still howling, she turned to follow, moving remarkably fast. I hadn't wanted to hurt her, but I didn't have much choice anymore. Jumping onto the table, I fell into a fighting stance.
Lenore hesitated, her eyes flicking behind me. Taking a step back, she passively raised her hands, but it wasn't because of me. Too late, I turned.
Pain exploded at the back of my knees, so hard and fast that I couldn't breathe. I went down face-first. Tears blurred my vision, and I curled into the fetal position, trying to hold my knees. Someone had hit me from behind. Oh God, I'd never walk again.
"I's kill her! I's fucking kill her!" Lenore was screaming, and I looked past my stringy hair to see her being led away by two guards, submission holds on her with the help of a couple of sticks. Sure, big talker now that she couldn't do anything.
"Get up, Sunshine," someone said sarcastically, and I groaned when they pulled me up and dragged me between them. I couldn't straighten my legs. They hurt like hell. Apart from our table, the rest of the room was orderly. Noisy, yes, but no one was getting off their benches.
Mary held her narrow body with her skinny arms, scared. Charles wouldn't look up. But it was Ralph's expression that scared me. Terror was in his eyes, terror he couldn't express but was reliving. Not the medical wing. God, please. Not the medical wing.
"New girl making friends?" one of the guards said, letting go and shoving me into the wall before he jerked my arms behind me. "What is it they say about redheads?"
"The medical wing?" the other said, hesitating by a stairway going down. There was a cold draft coming up, stinking of fear and infection. God, no. They could do it, and it would be over. My life done. I'd be like Ralph, and all the magic in the world wouldn't be able to fix me.
I gathered myself to fight again, my relief almost making me cry when the first replied, "No. She's got someone from the mainland coming over, and they want her to be able to talk."
My relief was short lived. They want me to be able to talk? I wasn't getting a lobotomy because it might inconvenience someone?
The sound of links of steel ratcheting closed around my wrists was loud. I wanted to fight, but I could hardly move, and fear hit anew when they dragged me past my cell to another part of the prison. My heart pounded, and I struggled to get up, to do something! Being hurt and cuffed wasn't nearly as terrifying as the realization that these people could do anything - cut me up like they had Ralph - and no one would think twice, much less care.
The noise from the dining hall grew fainter, and it was just me and my jailers, dragging me backward over the concrete floor past a series of close-set metal doors. They faced a solid stone wall, and beyond that, the unseen ocean. My heart pounded, and adrenaline got me to my feet when they stopped so one guard could open a cell door. It took two of them to do it, one at the cell with me, and one at a remote panel. The sound of the creaking door chilled me, and I gritted my teeth against the pain in my knees when they started to buckle with my own weight.
"Enjoy the hole," the guard said, and he shoved me past an outer metal door and a second, standard barred door into a lightless five-by-nine box. I fell, vision graying from the pain in my knees. The barred door shut before I could even pull my face up. The second door slammed behind it a moment later, cutting off the light after I saw the toilet, sink, and nothing else.
They didn't even laugh at me as their voices became faint, I was so beneath their consideration. Slowly I got my legs untangled, the motion difficult because my arms were still cuffed behind me. Feeling sick, I scooted back until I found the wall. It was metal, too, and cold. The soft sounds of my breathing became loud. Someone nearby was crying, but it wasn't me.
It would never be me.