2. I'm not okay and it's not alright
AN/ Thanks for the great feedback, you guys rock :)
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"Come on, sunshine. I haven't got all day. There are tax dollars at work here, not that you would care." A gruff voice cuts through hazy consciousness.
The first thing Piper becomes aware of is someone violently shaking her, bear-like hands clamped around her shoulders, and for a second her sleep-filled mind cannot calibrate itself to the present and instead feels herself being dragged back into that room.
Thankfully before anything plays out, Alex's low voice whispering in her ear grounds her back to real time, "Piper...Pipes, wake up. We're here."
Her eyes spring open, the face of Sean, the bearded guard inches away from hers. Yellowed teeth from years of smoking growling at her, "I said get up, inmate! Did you leave your hearing back at camp?"
Dazed, Piper glances around. The bus was stationary and mostly empty. The last of the passengers just climbing off.
"Piper, let's go." Alex's familiar voice helped dampen the feeling of disorientation she was finding difficult to shake off. It's not long before they too are escorted off, Alex's cuffed hand on the small of Piper's back the whole time.
They join the line of women stood outside, huddled together against the briskly cold winds swirling around the area. The bus was parked in a large courtyard, cemented and desolate. The fresh air felt simultaneously soothing and harsh against their exposed faces. The sudden open space felt disconcerting in a way that it would after spending the better part of an entire day cooped inside an airless metal container on wheels.
They're grouped in a row of single files. A female guard approached the group and performed a quick headcount of everyone. When done, she nods at her colleague in a gesture of satisfaction.
"Ladies! We've arrived at our much awaited destination!" Sean bellows, mouth folded into an amusing snarl, "It's not quite the five starred vacation camp you've all gotten too comfortable at but for now it will have to do."
Nobody speaks.
Piper scans the crowd of women, chained and complacent. Amongst the faces she spots Nicky who was stood further back about three lines down. She hadn't uttered a single word during the entirety of the bus ride, only speaking when spoken to. Her face sullen, eyes sunken and distant - the pain of Lorna Morello's separation so visibly etched in her downtrodden expression.
Red was here also, the bruises from Piscatella's beating still marring her face, remnants of that night visible and understood by only a few. There was none of that Russian bravado; shoulders slumped and timid, instead there was just the shell of a meek inmate who was busy concentrating on the instructions being roared by the guard.
There were others also, all sharing the same battle fatigued expressions: Gloria Mendoza, Tasha, Black Cindy, amongst the few.
Lastly, Piper's eyes rested on Alex stood beside her - exhaustion dulled her intense green eyes, dark circles underneath them only half hidden by her glasses. Her posture was hunched, a heavy set to her shoulders. It was the appearance of someone who'd been defeated, robbed off all optimism and hope. Piper wondered what she too looked like.
The abrupt shout knocks Piper out her thoughts, "Follow me!"
The clanking of chains and handcuffs were the only noises piercing through the cold mist. Piper had no idea where they'd eventually ended up. She had tried to estimate the number of hours the bus had been on the road for but had quickly lost count. The small windows of the bus had been boarded up with black tarpaulin sheets, preventing any attempt for anyone to orientate themselves in space.
It was night now and cold. Freezing cold. The bitter wind dropping temperatures even further, the cold seeping through their flimsy khakis they'd hastily been issued back at Litchfield.
Teeth chattering and hands shaking violently against her handcuffs she and Alex - along with the others shuffled toward a towering nondescript building. Three large grey blocks in a U shaped formation were surrounded by imposing grey walls topped with barbed wire. Even taller watchtowers stood erected at every right angle of the perimeter. Piper caught a glimpse of two guards patrolling the small balconies on top of the nearest tower, all brandishing sniper rifles, their long and thin barrels gleaming in the night sky.
Piper felt her hairs stand on end, her heart racking up in speed as a frigid anxiety ran through her body. The realisation of their situation suddenly hit her hard. She looked to Alex for a reaction but her expression remained cryptic, her gaze fixed out front.
The cuffs painfully dug into her wrists, the cold numbing the tips of her fingers and unable to place them into her pockets for warmth. Piper was aware of her breathing turning rapid, icy condensed air sweeping in and out of her mouth in foggy plumes.
Her body was in the midst of catching up with the damning reality Litchfield was now a past concept. But what Piper's mind couldn't wrap itself around was what the future exactly held. Because right now she was like a blind woman walking in the dark, trying desperately to grab purchase of something.
Here, the tight security was significantly more racked up...even more so than the Chicago prison she and Alex had been taken to for Kubra's trial. And that had been a medium secure prison, so what the hell was this? Her step falters involuntarily causing the person behind her to walk into her. "What the fuck are you doing? Keep walking." The voice hissed in her ear, the slight waver of their own fear impossible to miss.
"Sorry." She whispered, barely able to keep her voice down, the tension bubbling up in her throat. Piper wrenches her thoughts away and instead keeps her eyes fixed on Alex's back who was walking in front of her. It's a flimsy idea but if she kept her gaze steady on the one person she cared about more than anything else in this world, she could almost pretend none of this was happening.
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They eventually reach a set of iron wrought gates, already swung open for the group. The guards perform another headcount before beckoning them through.
Alex glances back and throws Piper a don't worry smile. Piper bites her lips and attempts to smile back but her face doesn't quite get there.
"You break the rules and you'll wish you were fucking dead." This time they were being addressed by a stony faced guard with tattoos covering the entirety of both of his arms. Piper's eyes fall to a Confederate flag amongst the aggressive looking inkings. She quickly averts her gaze when she felt his body shift to face her.
He must have spotted her recoiling frown because he disparagingly mutters, "Great another one who's trapped by her own white guilt." He drops his voice to a low rumble so that only she could hear, "If it was up to me I would separate you all by race- that way there wouldn't be half the problems we have now." He laughs humourlessly, "But of course, we have liberal skanks running this failure of a shitshow, too fucking preoccupied with pleasing every bitch and her heritage instead of properly punishing you all."
"Listen up!" He roars without stepping back, addressing the crowd once again, grinning when Piper jumps back. "You think you're the baddest of gals, don't ya? Well I'm afraid things are drastically different around here. Here, you answer to us. You wanna pee? You ask. You wanna eat? You damn well ask. Hell, you wanna goddamn think? You ask us! Ya'll are here because of shitty choices you made. No one else to blame but yourself." He pauses for maximum effect, "You thought you could reenact Attica back at that summer camp you call Litchfield? Well here we don't allow shit." He laughs, "Anyone who's stupid enough to think otherwise we'll be dealt with." He casts a deliberately disapproving stare over the group, eyes burning with over the top fury, "Welcome to fucking hell, ladies."
It's not a second later when they're ushered closer and closer to their new surroundings, the night sky forming an ominous back drop against the menacingly high barbed walls with their constantly buzzing electric gates. Somewhere in the distance the wail of a siren broke out, moments later a faint red glow lit up the left quarter of the building.
"Fuck you. I eat sissy men like you for breakfast, douche-bag." Someone mutters behind her.
Piper can't help but turn around, and was met by Frieda's incongruously cheerful smile, an obvious contrast to the frightful expressions shared by most. If anything, the smile pulling at her lips seemed almost maniacal in comparison.
"Chin up, Chapman." Frieda declares lightly, "Just imagine these good for nothing high school dropouts as pigs being stabbed by the world's bluntest knife over and over again," She winks, her voice all high-spirited and seemingly unswayed by the tense situation, "Try it. It helps make the situation a whole lot less shitty."
"What was that, inmate?" A guard rocks up toward them with surprising stealth. He casually shoves women out of line as he approached them. Piper feels Alex's body tense beside her, feet stumbling backward and hastily creating distance between herself and the guard who wedged himself in front of Frieda.
"Where's my invite to this 'lil tea party you got going, huh?" He asks, his face millimetres from Frieda, narrowed eyes clearly meant to intimidate her into submission. "Because I do too love me some real deep chat, y'know?"
Piper watches Frieda nonchalantly stand her ground, eye contact unwavering. "I'm actually more of a coffee gal but a cup of tea wouldn't hurt me either if you got some."
He's about to snarl something back at her when another guard calls him away. He throws Frieda one last look before walking back to the front of the crowd.
Piper remembers to breathe.
"I was gouging his eyes out with my bare hands." Frieda whispers into her ear, "It's a technique my late mama taught me to handle the school bullies. Of course, she hadn't meant it literally when she found out what had happened to Justine Anderson when she kept throwing my school lunch into the Tennessee river…but that's a whole other story."
They carry on walking through the open gates reaching another yard this one smaller and surrounded the front of the prison. High metal enforced fences divided the open area into smaller squares each with a heavy duty door making its entrance. They're unceremoniously pushed through a walkway marked 'Entrance 2' in big red writing.
Piper found herself shepherded into a large expansive room obviously set up for inspection.
If there was one thing she had become desensitised to - was a stranger asking her to strip and squat. Silently, along with the others she peeled off the clothes she'd been wearing for the last three days. It was almost a relief to know they would at least be issued with freshly laundered clothes.
After they all had their fingerprints and photographs taken, they were pushed through a long corridor closed off by yet another set of double doors.
She and Alex kept close. The heavily secured prison environment instilled a perceptible discomfort inside them both. She could tell Alex was stoically holding it together in the face of whatever was yet to come.
Her entire body ached to touch Alex so badly just to be sure she was really here. Just to be sure she wasn't going to lose her. There had been a mere ten minutes where Alex had been taken to a separate searching facility for further inspection of her cast-encased arm. Presumably to see whether she'd smuggled any contraband inside it. Those ten minutes had felt like infinit.
They were cuffed again and made to walk into the bowels of the prison.
"Piper, listen." Alex was staring straight ahead and it was the first time she's made real spontaneous conversation since they'd left Litchfield. Her eyes were closely fixed on the guard handling urine samples beside them.
Piper feels herself almost deflate from the long exhale of relief rushing out. But no sooner had the feeling made its way around her body she caught sight of Alex's uncharacteristically serious look, a fine tension rippling through the muscles of her jaw. "I think we're going to be split up."
Before Piper could stop herself she blurts out, "Don't say that."
Except, she'd been thinking the exact same thing ever since they were hauled off their transport. Piper had managed to sink herself into a false well of optimism, believing herself purely by way of obsessive repetition. Somehow hearing Alex say it out loud now made it seem like it was the only obvious conclusion.
Still not looking, Alex continued, "Pipes, you must have figured by now that this is a maximum security jail…they're not going to let inmates who know each other share the same block much less room together. We'll most likely share recreation and meal times-"
Piper grasps onto the little purchase she had, "But they don't know we know each other."
Alex properly regards her for the first time "My drug trial. Your drug trial...even the Kubra trial. There are papers with our names all over. Copies of our indictments. Hell, my deposition naming you….it's all on record, Piper." She sighs, recollecting herself, 'What I'm trying to say is that you have to be careful. They see us as high risk inmates because of that fucking riot. They'll try and turn everything and anything into an infraction...whatever you do or say or even think is going to be watched. As far as they care that group in the bunker are who instigated the riot, they sure as hell don't want a repeat of something like that."
Piper studied her in turn, taken aback by the grim and flat expressionless face."Alex, I-"
She's cut off, "You have what? Two months left on your sentence? At the most three?"
An icy weight settles into Piper's chest when she begins to follow Alex's train of thought, "Alex, what are you talking about?"
"Look, I have another shit ton of sentence left…it doesn't matter if another few months are added to mine. It won't make a blind bit of difference. But you, Pipes? You're nearly there." She smiles softly, eyes warm and wistful, "You're on the home run. I don't want you to trip and fall at the very last hurdle."
Alex keeps talking - laying out the path of Piper's future brick by brick - a safe route traversing through treacherous territories. But where was Alex? Where was she factored in all this?
Not caring whether the guards heard them Piper angrily cocks her head, "What the fuck are you talking about, Alex? Is this some kind of martyr speech you've been practicing?"
"Piper," Alex began cautiously but Piper was unable to contain the hurricane of emotions buffeting her and so harshly cut her off.
"You haven't said a thing for hours back in that bus but now...now you're all of a sudden telling me it doesn't matter if a few months are added to your sentence? Like it's just a minor inconvenience, but I...I should keep my head down?"
"Are you honestly implying that you shouldn't keep your head down?"
"Alex, seriously, is that the point you're hung up on?" Piper feels herself being propelled by irrational anger when the cuffs stop her from running her hands through her hair in frustration. "And not the fact that you're casually implying you're inevitably going to get time added to your sentence, like it's not a big fucking deal." Hurt was plying her words into ugly shaped accusations, fright was making it hard for them to leave her mouth. "I thought we were in this together."
"You know I didn't mean it like that," Alex answered, her voice rising with frustration, "You're twisting my words."
Piper turned so abruptly in Alex's direction, ready to hurl a few more reasons as to why this whole conversation was the most stupid thing she heard. When their bodies inadvertently touched. She remained wordless, too wrought with bubbling anger to even trust herself to speak. Instead Alex does, her voice quietly questioning, "Piper?"
Something in Alex's weary inflection caused her to look up, she had been too infuriated to clearly see before, but now the anxious concern written all over Alex's face was so obvious. The sight caught Piper's heart. It was hard to hold onto anger when all she wanted to do was to hold her and just be enveloped into a hug and forget the world for a few precious seconds.
She shuts her eyes for a moment, "You've got to stop saying stuff like that, Al."
Alex chuckles softly, but the mirth doesn't quite reach her eyes, "Is this going to be our first argument as an engaged couple? Come on, Pipes, not the most glamorous of situations to be having one right now."
It's supposed to soften the situation, maybe even make Piper laugh or at the very least persuade a smile, but all it does is make her feel intensely melancholic. She thinks back to her mother's phone call, how it finally felt as though a weight had been lifted from Piper's heart, remembering the absolute resolution of finally asking Alex to marry her. The proposal seems so distant now - almost as though it had happened someone else. The joy and happiness that had coursed through her during that moment now all felt so alien.
"I just…I just don't want you thinking like that...Like you're easily expendable and I'm not." Piper mumbles eventually, her voice small and weightless.
Alex shrugs her shoulders, eyes serious, "I just want you to be okay, that's all."
It's such a simple statement yet carried with it the weight of a decade worth of love and affection and Piper almost felt her legs buckle underneath it. Alex did touch her then - a so very brief brush of fingers over Piper's hand. The light pressure of their palms skating over each other was so unexpectedly comforting. They remain silent for a few minutes - both letting themselves to sink into the moment.
Piper had never allowed herself to even try and imagine the scenario of her walking out of prison a free woman while Alex was still an incarcerated subject of whatever fucking state they'd been dumped in.
Tears are prickling at the corner of her eyes, an awful feeling of wanting to be imminently sick hitting her insides like a storm ready to ravage everything in its path.
Alex catches her eyes, her face softening, "I love you... and you know I'd kiss you but the circumstances are kind of not ideal."
This time it does cause a small smile to form on Piper's lips, "I love you too." She can't help but say it with the conviction of someone who knows they might not see each other again.
Their eyes simultaneously fall back on a guard roughly placing a mesh bag of toiletries into Red's outstretched hands. The force of the slam caused her to drop it to the floor.
Just like that reality returns with a vengeance.
"What are you made out of, inmate. Fucking tofu?"
Red remained wordless and instead calmly picked up the bag and without further fanfare shuffled along the queue.
Piper wondered when the show would end. It was like an sick and unfunny joke being played over and over. She could almost hear the horrible canned laughter that closely followed.
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"Next!" Alex stepped forward, holding her free hand out to take the bag.
"What happened to you, inmate?" He points at her sling enclosed arm. "You got yourself into a lady fight or something?"
He sneers at her laughing at his own stupid joke.
She curtly answers, "It was actually one of your own."
He whistles in genuine surprise, "What the fuck did you do to piss 'em off?"
The exhale that left Alex was long and beleaguered. The bitterness still managed to rear its head one time too often.
Her broken arm was a very physical reminder of the shit that went down back in Litchfield. Any dumb fuck worth half their brains could have foreseen all hell was about to break loose the moment they saw Daya holding a gun point blank at that CO. A baying blood-thirsty crowd behind her, most hungry for that belated justice - but some gleeful at a chance for gratuitous violence. Alex had vowed to herself she'd stay out of it all but more importantly keep Piper out of it.
But here she was with a fucked up arm and entitled to less freedom than a chimp in a cage.
Alex kept walking.
It was so much easier to be in a perpetual state of anger than acknowledge the unconscious resentment she held toward her fellow inmates. There had been good intentions at the start, the inmates uniting against a corrupt prison system, seeking justice for Poussey's death, but then it had all quickly descended into anarchy and chaos.
If it hadn't been for their fake bravado and mob mentality she wouldn't be here.
Piper wouldn't be here.
It made Alex sick, the thought of her and Piper becoming separated, for her to constantly worry Piper hadn't been shanked by some drug fuelled lifer or shived in her sleep by a cell mate because she looked at them the wrong way.
Alex glanced at Red being handed a numbered sticker, her makeshift hat long removed at the initial inspection. The consequences of Piscatella's vicious doings still evident; the clumped hair with sporadic areas of raw scalp, a fresh reminder of the horrors that went down in that room. The hopeless image was eclipsed by the defeated and empty eyes, glazed and vacant.
Alex was hit by a self aware pang of guilt, Red hadn't been the one to knock her unconscious, nor had she broken her arm, neither was she the person who had forced the love of her life to watch powerlessly as a rogue guard threatened them all with their lives.
She's knocked out of her thoughts by a shrill voice, "Hey! You! Come with me!"
A guard built like a bodybuilder with angry beady eyes, pointed a thick index finger at her, "Yes, you!"
Alex feels herself hesitate and then tense.
"Alex…"
It's Piper, her voice all worried and anxious. She feels a hand brush the small of her back, the warmth a driving force that kept the cold tension from rising up inside her.
The guard whirled forward and flung his finger at Piper's face, "You speak only when you're spoken to, princess. Or have you gotta problem with following rules?"
"No…no, sir." Piper breathily mumbles, her eyes never leaving Alex.
Alex had to clench her jaw and clamp her mouth shut, worried she was going to verbalise the acute anger heating up her insides. She inclines her head, her eyes she hoped appeared measured and reassuring and mouths an I'll be fine.
Wordlessly, Alex left the group, and was made to follow down a different corridor that wound around the prison complex. She's pushed through a set of windowless doors manned by two further guards stationed on each side. They eyed her as she brushed past. She couldn't help but feel intimidated as their ravenous gazes washed all over her.
The part of the prison here was less lit, the crumbling dirty walls and various broken light fixtures giving the place a feel of being long abandoned. There's a fleeting second where Alex almost imagines she was made to stumble toward solitary, the DOC having somehow discovered the remains of Aydin and even more unlikely, pinned it on Alex.
She suspected solitary in this place was a whole lot worse than Litchfield's SHU. Alex doesn't like to mull over it too much but there's a perceptible part of her that would yearn for a stint in solitary - be finally punished for her actions.
Maybe then it would rid her of the demons that had been chasing ever since she walked out of that greenhouse. Yes, she deserved retribution, sort of like a fucked up prison-sponsored absolution.
She was a murderer after all.
Alex is surprised when she's buzzed into a room obviously meant to function as a clinical area. She's met by a middle-aged moustachioed man donned in a white doctor's coat, a worn stethoscope hanging off his neck.
Without preamble he glances down at the clipboard he's holding, "Vause? Alex Vause?"
Alex nods, still standing beside the door, intensely relieved the two guards who accompanied her hadn't followed her into the room.
The doctor's eyes rove over her before briefly resting on her sling. He beckoned Alex to lie down on the patient gurney situated beside a cupboard overflowing with medical supplies. The gurney was a small thing, pushed against the wall. Far, far away from the door. Too far.
"As per state regulations inmates who have sustained injuries on federal property are obliged to undergo a medical examination to ensure their full health." He reels it off without pause and without looking at her points at the bed, his impatience obvious.
Alex feels her body turn rigid. She takes an involuntary step backwards, her back hitting the door behind her. The thought of lying prone, the most vulnerable of positions sets her heart off into a restless thrum. "I don't think I need one. It's just my arm and it's not…uh causing me any problems." It comes out as barely a whisper, a hard knot tightens itself around her chest. He must have sensed her hesitation, and simply shrugged.
"Look, I don't make the rules here. I simply follow them and I suggest you do the same. The sooner we get this done the sooner you can be on your way."
Alex grits her teeth and forced herself to move forward before climbing onto the bed, wilfully ignoring the cold sweat breaking out of her skin. Fuck, she was embarrassing herself. But as much as she tried to rationalise that of course a prison medic wasn't going to jump on her, let alone with two guards were stood outside a few metres away. Despite this Alex still felt the sweat rolling down her back, a horrible anticipatory anxiety twirling through her.
"Off with that." He barks in declarative annoyance.
Her eyes shoot up, words of protest already stacking in her throat, only realising he thankfully meant her glasses.
He walks up to her, "I'm going to have to listen with this first….I don't want any funny business."
Alex shuts her eyes, feeling the cold diaphragm of the stethoscope placed on her back. The doctor's breathing much too close to her. Next he asks her to move her arms and rotate her shoulders. Alex tries to concentrate on counting the cracks in the mildew covered walls when he starts to feel her shoulders, his touches all over her arms.
Raw claustrophobia claws through Alex's insides and she has to wrestle with the urge to fight him. She hastily pressed her fingers to her wrist, counting the beats of her heart. It only made her feel even more anxious, old terrors cruelly resurfacing. Her whole body was too tightly strung and she couldn't figure out a way to unwind.
Alex thinks of Piper. And thinks back to her proposal. It lessens the galloping of her heart a little.
"All done." He grunts, slinging his stethoscope back around his neck, his back to her, typing away on the computer. "You should be able to get the cast removed in about six weeks or so. I'll book you in for a follow up review then."
Alex doesn't say anything. Relieved, but above all perversely glad she'd be leaving the room soon.
He turns around, a flicker of sympathy briefly flashing across his face, "Any pain meds you're going to need? I can you prescribe low dose Percocet if you want." He narrow his eyes and regards her intently, "Or anxiety meds? You sure you're not going to need any of those?"
Alex shakes her head and tersely adds "No thanks. I'm fine." The last thing she wanted was to be doped up to her eyes with tranq meds and make herself vulnerable.
He throws her an emphatic look, as if to say last chance, "Fine, you're free to leave."
He presses a buzzer. Alex is escorted by the same two COs. One of them grabs her good arm, harshly dragging her forward, "You'll be glad to know we're taking you to your new home. It ain't the Beverly Hills but it's a close second."
Practically frogmarched, Alex finds herself unconsciously transposing Piscatella's face onto the CO pulling her along.
Think of Piper. Think of Piper. Her whole entire body was trembling, fists clenched, Alex strained to remain calm. But all of her awareness was too honed in on the hand painfully clamped around her upper arm. He might as well have grabbed her heart and wrenched it out of her chest.
"Can you loosen up a little?" Alex hissed, feeling herself becoming paralysed with that irrational fear. White noise roared in her ears drowning out all sounds as she tried hard to keep her head above the swirling depths of rising anxiety.
The guard swivels around, "What was that, inmate?"
"Hey man, you're gonna leave mark like that." The smaller of the two mutters uncertainly, "Remember what Rinkstein warned us about. And you're on two strikes already."
"Fuck yeah." Reluctantly, he yanks Alex free and snarls at her, "Consider yourself lucky today."
It's all she can do not to sink into the ground as Alex evens her breathing again. It's another few minutes when another gate was slammed open, this time they reached an open space lined up with barred cells.
Cell block ten.
Alex confines it to memory.
The block was arranged in an L shape with a central recess area. Countless guards patrolled the area, some carrying rubber bullet guns others with Tasers flanked in their holsters.
The noise in the block was deafening. Women were shouting and jeering and catcalling. Some were just screaming for attention, others sat meekly on their thinly mattressed beds. At the far corner women were smashing their cuffs against the bars, the metallic clanging reverberating across the contained space.
Alex caught a glimpse of a scuffle in one of the cells, a slight woman placed in a headlock by a larger woman, surrounded by two others who were egging her on. Alex catches the guard's face who obviously saw what was happening.
He simply shrugs his shoulders in response, face all bemused and casually explained, "This is the jungle, some bitches are the predators, others the prey. Just like the fucking animal kingdom. We're here just to make sure they survive until the end of their sentence." He beckons her along, "This is you."
Without warning Alex was roughly shoved into cell forty-eight and the bars slammed shut behind not a second later. Too startled from the contact, Alex fails to see the clenched fist rapidly headed her way. It connects loudly with her jaw, knocking her glasses clean off her face where they clatter onto the cemented floor. Disorientated, she grabs the nearest wall for balance, her fractured arm painfully colliding with the side of the bunkbed. She feels herself rocket to the ground, vision oddly blurred.
"Welcome to your new home, asshole." A deep and throaty voice spoke somewhere from the lower bunk bed, "We charge extra for love."
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AN/ Thanks for the read. Love to hear your thoughts!
