Yay! Thank you for the reviews on my first chapter. It's all very encouraging. By the way, I also publish all my new stories on Archive of Our Own under the name "Megan Rosenberg" if you're ever over there and want to read them there instead of here. It's strange to me how entire fandoms are much more or much less active here or there... No one comments on my Orange Is The New Black stories there, but you do here... and no one comments on my Ghostbusters stories here, but they do there. Same story, different audience I guess.

Anyway, thanks for the comments. I really do appreciate it a lot. :)

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CHAPTER 2

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At lunch, Lorna was given a plastic tray filled with food that was a lower quality than even her high school had to offer. (She honestly hadn't believed food could sink to this low a quality and still be legal to serve to humans.) The tray had discolored apple sauce in one compartment, mushy peas in another, some kind of chili, and a sort of hard piece of bread. She was particularly relieved when a juice box and sealed string cheese were thrown onto it at the end of the line. The items still being packaged made them seem a little safer.

"Thank you." Lorna smiled up at the girl serving the tray to her. She looked only a few years older than Lorna herself, and was wearing the same sweats uniform as the other girls. Maybe this girl's job was to help at meals. Lorna wondered what her own job was going to be. Hopefully something easy and clean - like shredding paper in the office or answering the phone. She could be an okay secretary probably.

The girl smiled and nodded, but didn't say anything back. Lorna frowned and looked away, feeling kind of embarrassed. None of the other girls were saying thank you. Maybe that wasn't proper etiquette around here.

"Thanks, Norma." Boo grabbed her tray next, holding it in one hand as she put her arm around Lorna's shoulders. "Norma doesn't speak. She's been here the whole time I've been here, and I never once heard her say a single word."

"Oh..." Lorna forced a breathless smile and glanced back at the girl behind the counter for a moment. "Why doesn't she talk?" Lorna whispered as she leaned closer to her room mate.

Boo shrugged. "Maybe she can't - like she doesn't know how or her tongue's gone or something. Maybe she's traumatized about whatever she did to be put in here. I really don't know her. Don't know why she's here or anything."

"Hm..." Lorna shrugged. That was odd, really - for a girl Norma's age to just not speak at all. She couldn't have been older than twenty-one. Fig already said so - that that was the age cut off for someone to be living here. Lorna had never met a teenager who just didn't talk. Unless they were deaf. "Can she hear?" Lorna wondered with furrowed brows.

"Seems like it. Fuck if I know. I just let her do her thing and don't question it." Boo laughed.

Lorna forced a small laugh. That was pretty blunt. She supposed Boo was right though. It didn't matter too much what Norma did and why. Lorna was only in here for a month. She only had to make a couple friends so she wasn't completely alone in here... And they didn't even have to be long-term friends. There was no reason to learn Norma's story. Or anyone else's really... She just had to survive her time, then go home to her boyfriend and live happily ever after.

"Here's where we sit." Boo gestured toward a table where another girl was already sitting with one of her legs bent at the knee and her foot up on the seat next to her..

The other girl glanced over her shoulder with a raised eyebrow before smirking as she looked Lorna up an down. "Hey." She stood up and offered her hand. "Nicky Nichols." She introduced herself.

"Lorna Morello." Lorna shook her hand and forced a smile. She was glad this girl was being welcoming, but her roommate was welcoming too - perhaps too much so. She wanted people to be nice, but not in a creepy way. With Boo asking her for sex and immediately interrogating her on her sexuality, Lorna was beginning to worry she might have already fallen in with the wrong crowd. Boo was extremely eager to talk to her, put her arm around her, explain lesbian sex to her... Now this girl seemed really genuinely pleased to meet her too. She just wanted to get through her time here - do what they asked her to, lay low - not get into any fights... She didn't even consider she might have to worry about any of the girls sexually harassing or assaulting her.

"Yeah. I know who you are. We've heard about you already. We actually don't get new people that often. There's like thirty of us here, and half of us have been here for months." Nicky told her. "Boo was told she was gettin' a roommate so we've all been eagerly awaiting your arrival. Come sit." She sat back down and gestured toward the seat next to her.

Lorna nodded slightly and placed her tray down on the table, sitting next to Nicky and glancing toward her. She seemed very confident. Not mean or pushy. Not vaguely threatening like Boo, but just really sure of herself. She didn't seem shy or nervous about meeting someone new. Lorna was kind of nervous though. She preferred meeting people when they were new - not her. She actually kind of liked welcoming others, hosting parties... She didn't like being the new person.

Lorna looked Nicky over, trying to be sly about it. Nicky had the wildest hair Lorna had ever seen on a white girl - maybe on any girl. It was an almost reddish blonde, curly and unkempt. It didn't look like she had even tried to tame it. Maybe she didn't even brush it. It wasn't a style Lorna would ever try herself, but she had to admit Nicky make it look good. She also wore smudged, dark eyeliner that made her look like she'd gotten drunk last night, didn't bother washing her face, and just woke up like that the next morning. Lorna wondered if she had done something like that. Could Nicky have smuggled alcohol in here? Was she the sort who was going to be doing things against the rules and constantly getting herself in trouble? Would Lorna end up getting in trouble just by associating with someone like Nicky?

"What are ya thinking, kid?" Nicky frowned.

Lorna shook her head and blinked as she stared down at her tray. "Nothing..." She forced a breathless laugh.

"Well, you're just stairin' at me..." Nicky laughed. "So what are you in here for? How long you got?"

"Um..." Lorna shrugged. "I think they said it depends on my behavior and how I do and stuff, but they estimated a month."

"That's it?" Nicky's eyebrows rose as she scoffed, shook her head, and rolled her eyes. "What'd you do? Not say please and thank you to your mom? What the hell kind of sentence is that?"

"We're teenagers, Nicky... They're not putting us in prison for the rest of our lives. I thought the idea was like a quick reform - show us the error of our ways, fix us, and let us go... How long's yours?" Lorna frowned.

"I've been here two and a half months already and have another month and a half still to go." Nicky told her. "God damn... They really fucked me over. As usual."

"What did you do?" Lorna wondered.

Nicky laughed. "I'll tell you mine if you tell me yours."

Lorna laughed and looked down. "Fine. I stole. A lot." She explained. "I stole things from stores. Sometimes I returned them for cash. And I ordered things online, called and said I never got the stuff, got refunds and got to keep the items. Then sometimes I'd return those in-store for cash too."

"Damn. That's really smart." Boo commented.

Lorna shrugged one shoulder as she looked over at Boo. "Wasn't smart enough to not get caught."

"I could have used someone like you." Nicky noted. "Not that it wouldn't have just led us both straight here - or worse."

"So what did you do then?" Lorna asked.

"Drugs. Heroin." Nicky answered simply.

Lorna felt a little speechless for a second. She didn't know kids her age did heroin. Marijuana, yes. Alcohol, cigarettes, of course... Maybe some of the really messed up kids did cocaine... but heroin? Lorna wasn't even sure what heroin did, or how someone would take it. She knew lots of kids who drank, lots who smoked weed. She'd heard rumors about a junior boy at her school doing cocaine... No one in her social circle ever mentioned heroin. "H-how old are you?" Lorna whispered.

Nicky laughed. "Jesus, kid... I'm about as old as you are. This is a youth facility."

"I know..." Lorna looked down and stirred her apple sauce with a plastic spoon. She let the spoon drop and then looked back up. "I just... I didn't know kids our age did heroin. It seems so serious."

"So does theft and mail scams, Morello." Nicky laughed. "Nobody's in here because they were doing things right. We all fucked up big or else we wouldn't be in here."

"I guess that's true." Lorna agreed, glancing to the seat across from her as a fourth girl sat down at the table.

"If they're going to have me cook here, they could at least give me something edible to work with, right?" The girl complained in a thick accent as she practically slammed her tray down onto the table. "Am I being unreasonable asking for actual food? What am I supposed to do with canned apple sauce and chili?"

"Red, this is Lorna Morello. The new girl. She literally just got here like a half hour ago." Boo nodded toward Lorna, who offered the older girl a small, tight-lipped smile.

"Hi." The older girl sighed. "You know these peas came in a bag... Not frozen either. Like a twenty pound bag of smashed up peas in a cardboard box with three other massive bags just like it. Probably everything that didn't meet the quality standards to be served to human beings - maybe not even to livestock."

"Really?" Lorna looked down at her tray.

"I'd say they're probably full of preservatives, but who could tell? They could be rotten for all I know. They certainly smell like it. I'm not about to taste them." Red rolled her eyes.

"The bread's okay." Lorna shrugged as she took a tiny bite of it. Crumbs fell down onto her tray as she chewed. "A little hard..." She added.

"It's toasted, but it was already hard... So, you're the new girl? Big Boo's roommate?" Red noted.

"Guess so." Lorna forced a small laugh. She frowned as she looked past Red's shoulder, noticing a very tall, mean-looking girl a few tables away glaring angrily in their direction. Lorna stared back for a few long, breathless seconds before turning and looking slightly behind herself. Was the girl glaring at her?

Red must have noticed Lorna's worried expression, because she followed the younger girl's gaze, then looked back, scoffed, and rolled her eyes. "It's not about you, Sweetie, so don't worry. That's Vee. She's staring daggers at the back of my head - not at you."

"Oh." Lorna breathed out nervously. "W-what's her problem?"

Red rolled her eyes again. "Everybody's got an arch nemesis. She's mine."

"I don't think I have a nemesis." Lorna shrugged. "Why does she hate you?"

Red shook her head. "Old stuff." She answered vaguely. "Blown out of proportion, of course. She's always got to be one to take things way too far, hold a grudge forever over something insignificant... like a fucking lunatic."

Lorna grimaced and glanced back toward Vee, who was sitting next to a second girl who didn't seem to have blinked her eyes in all this time. "Who's the crazy-looking girl next to her?" Lorna whispered.

"Um..." Nicky narrowed her eyes as she cocked her head to the side and looked across the room. "People call her Crazy Eyes... I guess I don't really know her real name."

"Maybe she doesn't have one." Lorna speculated as she opened her string cheese. "Maybe the staff here found her in the woods or something. She looks totally nuts..."

"Oh, she is. Totally batshit fuckin' crazy. Man, if you've ever heard her talk..." Boo trailed off.

"She's not blinking..." Lorna noticed, unable to break eye contact with the girl. She's either starin' at the back of your head too, or she's staring at me..." She whispered.

"Just look away." Boo laughed. "If you're tryin' to win a staring contest with her, I can tell you now it ain't gonna happen."

Lorna blinked and looked down. She really didn't need to be making enemies in here. Especially not this soon. She'd been here less than an hour.

"She writes pretty good erotica though. Really twisted, disjointed shit, but it's kinda hot." Nicky noted. "She's got a journal that someone found and passed around one weekend. All kinds of shit about aliens fuckin' each other and time travel sex. I think there were ghosts fingering each other through some kind of portal to the spirit realm and some kind of monster with six vaginas and dick fingers - like actual functioning dicks instead of fingers. I read the whole thing one night - it was like an entire notebook. Like an eighty page notebook - front and back... Completely full. It was quite a ride."

"Wow..." Lorna frowned, glancing across the room again. "Red, she's still stairin' at you." She noted of Vee. "They won't like attack you or anything, will they? I mean... are they dangerous?"

"Potentially." Red shrugged. "If she fucks with me, I'll have her wishing she were dead. Nobody takes a swing at me without gettin' a swing right back at them. And I work in the kitchen, so I have access to knives."

Lorna felt her eyes widen.

"She won't really stab her." Nicky whispered, clearly reading Lorna's expression of worry. "I mean, not unless she has to. We aren't allowed to take knives out of the kitchen, so Vee would have to try something in there for that plan to even be possible."

"Who's your counselor? You met them yet?" Red wondered as she took a cautious bite of apple sauce and then made a disgusted face.

"Mendez." Lorna frowned, remembering what Boo said about the man. "I haven't met him."

"Oh, Honey... You don't want to meet him." Red frowned. "He's such a creep."

Lorna swallowed and looked down.

"I heard he raped a girl last year." Nicky whispered. "I wasn't here last year. I don't know that anyone here now was - nobody stays that long... But that's what I heard. A rumor's just a rumor... but still. There's not any rumors about other counselors being rapists - well, except Bennett. He's a monitor though - not a counselor."

"Bennett's not a rapist." Boo frowned.

"Yeah he is." Nicky disagreed. "Daya's pregnant. It's gotta be his. She's been in here longer than I have and she's only like a month along. I've seen Bennett and her flirting, getting really close in the corners when they both think no one's looking. I heard that during that week when she was between roommates, Bennett snuck into her room and they had sex."

"Yeah, but she consented." Boo went on with a shrug and a shake of her head as she tore her crumbly piece of toast in half. "He didn't rape her. They both wanted to do it. And she's only maybe pregnant... So maybe the whole thing is just a rumor."

"No, she took a test. I heard her friends talking about it. She's pregnant for sure, and she can't consent to sex with a twenty year old man." Nicky persisted.

"Twenty's not that old, Nichols." Boo scoffed. "She's sixteen, not five."

"It's an abuse of authority." Red agreed with Nicky. "The monitors and counselors wouldn't be allowed to pursue a sexual relationship even if it wasn't a youth center. Like doctors and patients or teachers and students - even in university. It's just not moral. And Daya is still a minor. Bennett's an adult. She can't consent."

"Daya knows full well what she's doing." Boo shook her head. "As far as I know, she's even the one who started the whole thing."

Nicky shook her head, but didn't argue any further. "The counselors and monitors aren't allowed to fuck you, Lorna, regardless of what Boo here says." She smirked.

"Good to know." Lorna breathed out a nervous laugh.

"In all seriousness though..." Nicky furrowed her brow. "Mendez is kind of a creep. If he says anything inappropriate, tell someone. Tell me."

"Okay..." Lorna frowned, hoping these girls were exaggerating. She'd never met Mendez, but so far, everyone she had talked to about him was making her believe he was going to be some horrible, violent rapist or something. "And they won't let me just switch counselors?" She pouted.

Boo shook her head. "Nope. I got Healy and he's a fuckin' idiot. I've tried to switch to Rodgers over and over again, not that it'd probably be much better."

"Yeah, there's not really any good counselors. Some people like Rogers, but..." Nicky trailed off and shrugged. "It's kinda just like one of those things where you've gotta serve your time, try not to make trouble or argue too much... Just get through it so you can leave."

"Get through what?" Lorna stared with wide-eyes. "Do you think Mendez is like... gonna attack me or somethin'?"

"No..." Nicky laughed. "I mean, probably not... I mean just the whole thing. Get through the whole thing of having to be here. I think Mendez is mostly talk - like he'll comment on your tits or your ass or just kinda look you up and down and stare too long. I mean, I did hear the rape rumor - and that's not good... But it is a rumor, and it's old..."

"Great..." Lorna exhaled loudly.

"Well... Anyway, just keep me informed. You've got friends here - all of us at the table. Right, girls?" Nicky looked toward Boo and then Red. They both nodded. "So just tell us if he does anything or says anything that scares you. We'll help as much as we can."

"Okay." Lorna frowned. "I hope you guys are just being dramatic here..."

"Well.. Maybe we are. He's not my counselor. All I know is what I've heard." Nicky shrugged.

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