I came to division the same way we all do. Not that that's where my story actually started exactly, but we'll get to that. Either way, it was where one of my lives ended and where a whole new one began. A second chance, I was told, and maybe that was true, but I never asked for one.
I was no one special. Like all the others I woke up in a dark room, in a white bed, not knowing where I was, where I had been, what had happened. Like all the rest I had been in prison one moment, and then all of a sudden I wasn't, would never be again. Not that I knew it then. Not that I understood that life as I knew it was over, for better or for worse.
Waking up in a strange place was nothing new to me. Neither was the institutional feel of the cold facility and empty room. I had spent enough time in hospitals and prisons to recognize the environment with my eyes still closed, had even gotten used to the sterilized chill.
"You have nothing better to do than watch me sleep?" I challenged, opening my eyes to the stranger, stretching, feeling the deep ache that spread through my whole body and made my head foggy. Something else that I was used to.
He didn't say anything, just watched me with that puzzling expression that I would come to know, some combination of cold amusement, pity, judgment. I would never know what he was thinking.
I didn't like the way he looked at me, as though he saw right through me, not a comfortable feeling. I pulled myself into a sitting position, would have stood if I wasn't light headed. Still, I refused to let him see how vulnerable I was feeling.
"Let me guess. Shrink?" I demanded, glaring at him. "I think we both know therapy's not going to do shit" I said flatly, maintaining eye contact. "Little late for that anyhow."
He almost smiled at this. "I'm not a therapist" he assured me. "My name is Michael. I work for the government. I'm here to give you a second chance."
I snorted, rubbed my arm self-consciously. "You're too late" I told him. "Got my second chance when I killed my father. Then another after I got out of juvie, then the hospital, half way house, juvie again, then prison of course. This might be number six or seven."
Something changed in his face, but then he was turning away, opening a file.
"Well this time is for real" he informed me. "As far as the world is concerned you're dead." He looked back at me. My first surprise, and he knew it, wanted to see my reaction. I didn't give him the satisfaction, forced my face to remain blank while my mind reeled. After a long moment I shrugged. I was thinking of all the possibilities, wondering what it all meant.
His eyes narrowed. He waited for me to speak, maybe to ask questions, but I didn't so he continued without me.
"Your death was officially ruled a suicide. We brought you here to start over, to work for us, to become a contributing member of society and a part of something bigger than yourself. You have the chance to start over."
I considered this for a moment. "What's the catch?" I asked suspiciously. I had learned long ago that if something seemed too good to be true than chances were that it was.
He smiled again and this time it was almost real. "You'll learn, train, follow the rules and work for us. That's how it works" he informed me.
"Or what?" I said, ever defiant.
He shook his head. " That's something you're not going to want to find out."
The message was clear, the warning was not subtle. Do as you're told, or else. I felt as though I was a child again, the message at least seemed the same. There was one way to survive, and choices didn't exist.
"You said you worked for the government?" I asked curiously.
He nodded.
"Doing what?"
Michael sighed. "You'll find out soon enough."
"And why me?" I demanded sharply. "What use could I be to the government?"
He cocked his head, observing me closely once again.
"You've killed… two people?" he glanced down at the file in his hand then back up at me, though I had the distinct impression that he already knew the answer, or at least what was written on the papers he held. I couldn't meet his eye.
"It doesn't matter now" he added in a low voice. "As far as the world is concerned you're dead too." He waited, and finally I looked up at him.
"Three" I said softly, the first time I had ever admitted it to anyone. He nodded as though this didn't surprise him at all.
"Starting with your father… when you were twelve?" he asked with the mild surprise of someone who had seen just about everything. He looked at me, seeming to expect some sort of explanation but that wasn't something I was about to offer, besides, I had no doubt it was spelled out for him in the file. It wasn't often that young girls happened to fill their fathers with bullets. And after that it was only a matter of time..
"There were no drugs in your system at the time of your booking" he stated. Another question? Something else about me that surprised him?
"I'm not an addict" I informed him firmly.
He shrugged. "No" he said slowly, "Just a cold blooded killer."
I glared at him. "You don't know anything about me" I told him.
"No" he agreed again. "But many just like you, others who end up here because the only other option for them is death row. Just. Like. You."
That was when it clicked in my head and I leapt up. "That's why the government wants me, isn't it? To kill for them? What the fuck is this place? You can't keep me here!"
I was on my feet yelling at him, but even as I said it I knew I was wrong, that they could do whatever they wanted, because I was legally dead, and even if I wasn't I would still be in prison. My mind and body were searching for a way out, past this strange man and his world of killers, past whatever was in the halls beyond the tiny room, but we both knew it was impossible.
He barely seemed bothered by my outburst. He was blocking the door, the only way out, and my need to escape was making me panic. The moment I realized it I began to force myself to calm down, to think the situation through, to breath, and once I was thinking rationally again I realized that attacking Michael and trying to escape undoubtedly would not work. I was beginning to get a picture of what I had been brought into, and I was a pretty sure that the man standing in front of me was a government sanctioned assassin. I didn't exactly have a chance, at least not yet. Instead I stilled, then sat back down on the bed and returned to glaring at him, my only concession to weakness the way I hugged myself, holding myself together.
"Impressive" he said sincerely, noting the almost instant changes in my demeanor.
I ignored this. "I'm not a murderer" I stated firmly.
"I disagree" he said. " I think you'd have no problem killing me right now if you thought that it meant an escape from here."
I didn't contradict him. It was exactly what I had been thinking since the moment I had opened my eyes.
He continued. "And I'm obviously not the only one. In fact your own mother-"
"Shut up" I said, so insistently and desperately that he actually stopped talking, and nodded. I was grateful when he closed the file, as though that somehow shut out my old life, not that the new one was going to be any better.
He watched me for another long moment in which I stared back at him with growing dislike and dread.
"You should get some rest" he told me. "Wouldn't want to sleep through training. You're lucky. It's worse for the addicts who have to detox first."
If this was meant to reassure me it didn't work. With one last nod he crossed to the door and was gone. I stared at it for a good minute, then curled up on the small bed and forced my mind to go blank so that I wouldn't have to think about the past, the present, and what seemed worst of all: the future.
