August 15, 2014

It rung in her ears still.

That horrible sound ringing over Litchfield, she had lost track of how long it had been since that dreadful day. Of course, it was easy to loose track of days in here and even easier if you were in her condition.

How could she sit here bemoaning her condition when Alex, Alex. She couldn't even think. She couldn't think how many times she had asked, is she dead or alive? Where is she? Would she ever be back? Would she be the most recent victim of compassionate release, be judged too sick for prison and a daily reminder they screwed up, they must get rid of? Would the government take her and send her somewhere else, a place she would really have to rely on their soulmate connection if she would ever be lucky enough to find her again.

Screw up. She screwed up. The darkness in her brain whispering louder as the day wore on. This is your fault. You had another chance and you again tossed her away. You treated her like she was nothing and didn't support or comfort her. You should have been there to save her. You should be the dead one. Your a worthless chicken shit.

With each passing day she became convinced she would never see the love of her life again. All these questions and worries kept her up nights. Made her constantly full of rage and sadness simultaneously. Made her cut into her leg or abdomen with a razor blade, punch her pillow one minute and then sob into it the next. Then she would stay in one position frozen for hours. If her friends attempted to move her she would stay like that. If they tried to talk to her she either didn't answer or said unintelligible or disorganized words and phrases. Her behaviors and movements were odd and purposeless.

It broke the heart of everyone who knew her before and how beautiful, intelligent and naive she had been not long ago. Now she was an empty shell. Pale white skin, jutting bones under a uniform that was constantly falling off, stringy white blonde hair and blank, expressionless dull grey eyes. She hardly showered. She didn't smile or laugh, they missed how happy she had been with Alex.

The relationship that once annoyed them they all wished for again, if only for Piper's sake and restore even a semblance of balance lost over the past six weeks. They feared Piper was no longer in there. That some creature was inhabiting her body. That her pain and love for Alex had reached its inevitable climax, the point where she had no choice but to burn up in its intensity.

Piper's condition wasn't helped by the fact that none of the guards knew Alex even if she called her Vause. And she had no friends anymore, they blamed her or she blamed them. Only Red, Yoga Jones and Morello dared to talk to her. But no matter how hard they tried they couldn't reach her. They force fed her Ramen but she would stick a toothbrush down her throat every time they tried to feed her and throw up. She had been bulimic for six months in high school so she knew what to do. The taste of blood and stomach acids were her only real comforts.

Piper was the resident bad girl now and not in a good way. She had become a vengeful spider, she didn't even have to mention manipulative and she was even starting to believe dangerous. Between the ruthless way she had ran her business to her behavior that awful day most of the girls were scared of her, even the ones who had come in that day.

That siren sounding out an emergency came to her so easy now. It woke her from a dead sleep in the middle of the night. It made her bolt upright, scream and reach into the relative darkness for Alex. Of course, she would never tell anyone sometimes when the sirens woke Piper up she saw her beloved reach for her.

Sometimes Kubra himself would be in front of her with that look he got when Alex would leave the two of them alone. He told her if she didn't do what he wanted then he'd hurt Alex, stop giving her work or letting her be her companion. So she let him touch her, let him sit her on his lap and kiss her, feeling him become erect and herself become wet involuntarily as he took control of her. Hold her down, hit her just hard enough not to bruise her. She cried when she was alone, took hot showers but none of it helped. It took the joy she once had with Alex. Paris might not have ever happened if a week before he hadn't pushed her onto her knees forced his hard dick into her mouth. The Istanbul trip merely tipped the scales against Alex's business and she unfortunately went along with it.

She had forgotten about his abuse until that day, now that too invaded her dreams and made her scream in terror.

But she had to be careful. She was already constantly one outburst from being sent to psych. She had a black eye from inadvertently waking up the wrong girl on the wrong night. Luckily after that Red made it clear that any girl that came into her cube without her permission would have hell to pay. She had a heavy cast with green tape on her right hand to her elbow. She had gauze along her left and she put the excess on her leg. She had a cast all the way up her leg and crutches and her side was bandaged and wrapped in an ace bandage. It reminded her of her pain and how she should have died. The heaviness of her casts reminded her of the rocks she believed were holding her down, waiting for her to drown.

***********
She had slowly pieced together that day with Red and Morello's help, she lost most of her short term memory to the whole month before and two weeks after the assault. She had only three memories of that period and wasn't entirely certain any of them weren't hallucinations or delusions, symptoms of her psychosis.

First, she had heard there was an escape when an area of fencing was left open during the guard strike. From what she had overheard, half the prison had been found down by the lake. Then there was a body found in the greenhouse. Morello had grabbed her coming out of the chapel.

"Where are you going so fast," she had asked her.

"Chapman, so glad I ran into you! Something has happened at the greenhouse!"

"The what," Piper frantically exclaimed.

"Yes, I know. Its where your girl Vause should be. She should be getting off work, right?"

"She's not," she started to say then stopped knowing the real truth about their love,"Yes," she answered trying to hide her fear as they entered the dayroom they put their faces up against the window.

They had gotten there just in time to see the ambulance pull up and the paramedics quickly pull out a stretcher and run into the building with all their gear. Minutes later, they came out of the greenhouse with a barely recognizable body covered with a blanket except for a bloodied and bruised face covered partially by an oxygen mask. Of course, only Piper had clearly seen the long black hair and just the slightest peek of a rose coming up from the shoulder that was barely peeking over the blanket. She couldn't have hallucinated it or could she?

"ALEX! ALEX! ALEX! No, no, no! AAAALLLLLEEEEXXXX!"

It was that final screeching of the woman's name, her ex-lover three times over that gotten the attention of the guards.

"Chapman, you don't know its her," Morello told her as she grabbed her shoulders.

"I do. I do," she responded in between heaving sobs.

"There's no way to know its her."

"I, I, I kn-kn-know," Piper answered as she struggled to catch her heaving breaths in between sobs, as tears and snot began to stain her khaki top. "I saw her hair. I, I, I saw...I saw a bit of her rose tattoo."

"I didn't. I couldn't even tell if the figure was female."

"I can. I know her better than you or anyone else in here!" For a second, Piper knew what her beloved Alex must have felt like when she and really nobody believed what she had known to be true and now it had come to pass. In a horrid, unimaginable way. The only way it could have been worse would have been if they had come out of the greenhouse with a body zipped in a black bag. If that would have happened the life would have gone out of her right then and there.

"You bitches don't believe me now but just wait, you all will see and then you will feel like I do right now. Mark my words soon the day will come. You bitches didn't believe her and you won't believe me but its her," Piper screamed, breaking free from Morello's grasp and running back to the window. Morello ran after Piper, trying to take care of her but she quickly overpowered her.

"Chapman! Chapman," Morello yelled as Piper began to go completely insane, throwing and breaking things and screaming out unintelligible words and phrases. Between Piper's deafening howl and her destruction it was so noisy in the room, girls turned from the spectacle outside to the one inside.

She seemed to have superhuman strength in that moment. Morello wanted to help but all she could do was watch and fear for her friends. She wished she could do more, that she could save them and it broke her heart that she couldn't. She missed Nicky every day and now she had lost Alex, who must be dead and probably Piper, who she knew was headed to psych or max, that's just what happened when you were destructive.

Piper watched as the ambulance sped out of the prison with lights and sirens blazing, drowning out the last chirps of Lichfield's sirens. It all seemed to be happening in slow motion.

She beat her hands and arms bloody on the steel bars of the window as glass shards flew everywhere, scratching her up as they flew towards her, "Alexxxxxx! ALEEEEXXXX! I'M SORRY, I'M SORRY! COME BACK. I HAVE TO TELL YOU...ALEX! DON'T YOU FUCKING LEAVE ME...DAMN YOU ALEX FUCKING VAUSE," she yelled one last time before a guard pulled her away from the window kicking and screaming. Anger flashed in her eyes and her nostrils flared as she got an expression unique to yelling after Alex.

Somewhere between the window and medical she had gashed her head and cheek pretty deeply and bruised her side. She vaguely remembered hitting her head on the bars and glass flying but didn't remember using much force.

She would later be told she got a couple scratches and kicks in as the guards led her away. She was becoming woozy and everything started to get blurry as she was tackled to the ground, hitting her head hard and landing on her knee first as one of them dug their knee into her neck while another held her leg down, one punched her in the temple. Then when she tried to push herself up a guard kneed her in the side causing her to wince in pain and then he hit her with his club three times. Only then was she handcuffed and led out of the room by three guards and a nurse.

She felt sick to her stomach, from her fear and self hatred, or so she had thought at the time. Everything was so loud and her ears were ringing so ferociously that she couldn't tell if the sirens were still sounding or not.

She was falling over from what the guards thought was shock but was actually from that plus what she would later find out to be a head wound and what they had thought at the time was a minor concussion. Of course, her emotional state didn't help her physical one any.

As she was carried out of the day room was the guards and nurse asked each other, "take her down to psych?"

She was later told Red fought for her, telling Healy, "If you really care about me you would know she's not having a nervous breakdown, she's just scared for Alex. Its completely understandable and you know it. I know you hate the idea of the two of them and their love but don't take it out on Chapman. You know how terrible it is down there. She's not gonna hurt anyone, just take her to medical, stitch her up and sedate her for a few days. She will be fine." "Okay, Red," he paused,"Take her up to medical and don't you dare talk about any of this near her," he told the guards and nurse as they led Piper out and the girls watched in amazement at her display.

They were unable to comprehend the emotions it would take to inspire a storm like the one they had just witnessed. Could anyone really have that much pain, anger and love within them? Piper did.