Chapter 3 -- Proposal
Oh, great, Faith thought. Just freaking great.
Two days had passed since the incident in the cafeteria, and Faith had had no luck catching up to the woman who had stopped the berserk prisoner. It was hard to find people in the enormous crowd in the cafeteria, and the woman obviously didn't have the same work schedule as Faith. Faith knew she would catch up with the tall, tough girl eventually, but she hated waiting.
Worse, Faith had just been informed that the prison psychologist wanted to see her. No reason was given. Did they think Faith was somehow involved in the fight? Or with the suicide victim who was found that same morning? Maybe this was just some kind of spot check to make sure that no other prisoners were going to snap in similar ways.
Though Faith had never actually met a psychologist, she imagined they were a lot like the social workers Faith had encountered in her childhood. Their main job was to ask a lot of personal questions, take kids away from their parents, and generally make things worse than they already were. The few who acted like they cared never stuck around long.
But Faith knew something now that she didn't know back then: that there were people in the world who really DID want to help, and they didn't always screw things up. So it was with a less-than-completely-closed mind that Faith first sat down across a small plastic table from Fuller State's resident shrink.
"Hello, Faith," the woman said. "I'm Sarah Reynolds. I'm the clinical psychologist here at Fuller."
"Hey," Faith said as she sized the woman up. Reynolds was a reasonably slim white woman in her early 40's; her medium-length brown hair had a few strands of gray. She wore small, round glasses over her brown eyes that made her look slightly owlish.
"I understand that you spent three months in supermax," Reynolds said, "over an incident in the lunch line."
"Yeah. I wanted peach Jell-O, and they only had lime."
Reynolds cracked a small smile, which Faith took as a good sign. It was nice to meet an authority figure who could laugh without being jabbed in the colon with the broom up her ass.
"The prisoner behind you stabbed you in the back," Reynolds continued, "and you responded by nearly breaking her neck. Is that accurate?"
"Pretty much," Faith said flatly.
"Was it self-defense?"
"Pretty much," Faith repeated.
"And the second incident -- another knife-wielding prisoner, in the exercise yard. You didn't injure her as severely as the first."
"I saw her coming. The other time, it was just reflex."
"It seems you possess substantial fighting skills."
"I'm from Southie, in Boston. My neighborhood wasn't that great."
"I understand." The woman smiled slightly. "Do you still practice?"
"Sometimes."
"Good. I'm told that martial disciplines can help control one's temper. Has that been a problem for you in the past?"
"You read my record, right?" Faith said with some irritation. "I'm not here for shoplifting."
"I know what you were sentenced for, Faith," Reynolds said, leaning forward over the table. "That's not the same as knowing what really happened, or why."
Faith looked at the floor. Three months in near-solitary confinement had given her time to think about her past and even figure some of it out, but she wasn't sure she was ready to share yet.
After a few moments of silence, Reynolds said, "Faith, I can't force you to be here." She paused. "Actually, that's not accurate; I CAN force you to be here. But that would be pointless. I would like to help you to improve your self-control, to become the sort of person who belongs in the world and not in prison. But I can only help; I can't do it for you, and I can't make you do it."
Faith looked up into Dr. Reynolds' face. There was geniune kindness there. Even more importantly, there was confidence. This woman really believed she could help Faith to change. And if she believed it, Faith decided, then maybe it was true. Even if it wasn't, at least it would make for one more hour of conversation each week and one less hour of staring at the walls.
"Fine," Faith said.
"Good," Reynolds responded. "Why don't we start with what happened in Los Angeles?"
Faith sighed. Telling this story to a stranger was going to require some heavy editing, but, somewhere deep down, Faith needed to tell it to someone. Someone who wasn't there when it happened, who could see it from a neutral point of view. Someone who could tell help her understand why she tried to make Angel kill her, instead of just throwing herself off a bridge or something.
"I don't know why I went to L.A., exactly," she started. "But there's this guy I know there, a real tough guy, and some people wanted him dead..."
-----
"So what do you think, doctor?" the warden asked Sarah Reynolds later that day when he called her to his office. "Is she able?"
"This girl has been through a lot," Reynolds answered. "It's as if she's awakened from a long nightmare about being chased by a monster, only to discover that she IS the monster. She's been dealing with that realization for three months, in almost complete isolation. I can't imagine how she coped with it."
"Hmm." Teague looked at Reynolds, waiting for more.
"This is a critical time for her," Reynolds continued. "Being alone for so long was difficult, but it gave her time to process all the experiences that led up to her imprisonment. Most importantly, being in supermax freed her from temptation; there were few people there on whom she could vent her violent impulses. Now she has been thrust into an environment crowded with the most belligerent, impulsive, manipulative members of society. It must be a great strain to maintain her control."
"But can she handle it?" Teague asked.
"I believe she can. Her will is strong; she can do what she sets her mind to, and she has set her mind to becoming a better person."
"Fine. I'm bringing her in. We need her. Now, what about Sonya Medford?"
Reynolds' forehead furrowed. "An equally complex case. I believe she, too, truly wishes to change. But I don't think she yet knows what she wants to change into."
"We can help her with that," Teague said. "As long as you think she's trustworthy."
"Yes."
"Then we're good to go. I'll meet with both of them tomorrow."
"You really think this will work?"
"I really do."
-----
That evening, Faith was on her way back to her cell from the prison library, where she had been wrestling with the possibility of trying to get a Graduate Equivalency Degree. On the one hand, there was all the studying, something she never liked and was never very good at. On the other hand, how else was she going to spend her time? Playing poker for cigarrettes?
She reached the top of the spiral stairs that led up to the third tier of the housing unit and, along with hundred of other prisoners, moved down the long row of cells toward her own. Instead of thinning out, however, the crowd of blue-suited women was becoming thicker, slowing Faith down.
Suddenly, there was a crashing sound from somewhere up ahead, followed by barely-coherent screaming. Faith pressed forward, forcing her way through the crowd to see what was going on.
"Get the fuck away from me!" a woman was screeching. "I'LL FUCKING KILL YOU!"
Faith finally got close enough to the front of the crowd to see several inmates gathered, not too close, around the door to one of the cells. Inside the cell, Faith saw a single prisoner crouched behind a cot, which had been tipped onto its side to form a makeshift barrier.
"Sarina!" one of the inmates outside the door shouted. "What's wrong with you?"
"Lying BITCH!" the woman screamed. "Don't act like you don't know! You ratted on me to the guards, and now there's cameras in the lights and microphones in my shoes and roofies in my toothpaste! So DON'T YOU PRETEND!"
Sarina grabbed a bottle of shampoo out of the cubby behind her and hurled it at the woman who had called to her. The targeted prisoner ducked only just in time; the plastic bottle slapped noisily against the far wall.
Faith moved close enough to get a good look at the shrieking Sarina. The expression on the woman's face was unmistakeable; it was one of unreasoning, all-consuming terror. Her eyes darted from one onlooker's face to the next, as if she were expecting someone -- or everyone -- in the crowd to attack at any moment.
Faith's first impulse was to act, to rush Sarina and wrestle her down. But Faith had learned from experience that her first impulse wasn't always the right one. If she just ran in there, she could probably take the woman down, but maybe not without hurting her. The guards, on the other hand, could blind her from a safe distance with their pepper spray, then grab her arms and cuff her without causing any lasting injury.
"Everybody back off!" Faith shouted, waving her arms at the inmates crowded closest to the door of the frightened woman's cell. "Just give her some space!" The other prisoners paused for a second, then slowly backed away from the cell door.
"Sarina!" Faith shouted, standing just within the terrified inmate's view, "We're gonna leave you alone now! None of us are coming in, I promise!" It wasn't a lie; only the guards, who weren't here yet, would enter the cell.
Sarina screamed back, "You're lying! You all want to kill me!" But she made no move to attack.
Faith didn't say anything more. Several seconds later, two large guards in riot helmets and body armor pushed past her and ran into the cell.
In the two seconds it took the guards to enter the cell and take aim with their pepper spray, Sarina picked up her cot and threw it sideways at the guards with impossible force. The steel frame hit the first man in the chest and knocked him down; the corner caught the in his side and knocked him off-balance long enough for Sarina to rush him. She rammed shoulder-first into the center of the guard's kevlar vest; the man's helmeted head cracked into the back wall. Then Sarina reached under the guard's armored face mask and began choking him.
Faith couldn't stand by any longer. She had decided to let the guards handle this, and now their blood would be on her hands if they got killed.
She ran into the cell and grabbed Sarina's right arm. She wrenched the deranged woman's hand off the guard's throat, and pushed her elbow up and back, throwing the shrieking inmate down. Faith fell on her, seized her wrists and pinned her to the floor.
Sarina screamed high and loud, thrashing so hard that Faith's superhuman strength could barely hold the woman down. Faith had seen -- and caused -- a lot of fear in her time, but she had never seen terror like this.
Suddenly, Faith felt a nightstick hit her between her shoulder blades; the spot burned as if on fire. The toe of a black boot smashed into Faith's face, flipping her off of Sarina and onto her back. Faith's head was swimming, but she saw that the cell was now flooded with more black-armored guards, crowding around the struggling prisoners. Faith went limp, as she had learned to do when beaten by the guards, but Sarina howled and flailed as nightsticks thumped against her sides, arms, and legs. Now and then there was an audible crack as a bone fractured.
Finally, they hurt Sarina enough that she couldn't struggle any longer. She could only screech and whine like a wounded housecat as several guards picked her up and carried her out of the cell. Two others lifted Faith; she felt far away from her body when the faceless, armored figures carried it off to who knows where. Soon, her field of vision blackened, and she drifted away completely.
-----
Faith woke up in a strange place. Bright lights blinded her to everything but the black silouette of a woman's head leaning over her.
Faith tried to lift her head to speak, but the effort was like moving a bag of concrete with her neck. Concrete that could feel pain.
"Uhhh," Faith groaned as she gently set her throbbing head back down. "My head hasn't hurt like this since the day after I learned about body shots." She smiled weakly. "You wouldn't believe how much tequila will fit in a guy's belly button."
"Lie still," the woman said, rubbing something on Faith's forehead. "You're lucky your skull isn't fractured."
"Where am I?"
"County General. The doctor just stitched up a nasty cut on your head; I'm cleaning you up."
Faith tried to raise her hand to her head, but only got her arm up a few inches before it stopped with a rattle of metal on metal. Both of her hands were cuffed to the gurney she lay on. Faith didn't protest, knowing that this was standard procedure.
Then memories of the fight started to trickle into Faith's brain. "Where's Sarina?" she asked.
"Is she a friend of yours?"
"No. Her cell is near mine. Is she gonna be OK?"
"We're not sure. The doctors are still with her. Now, if you can lie still for a few more seconds... There. You're all done. You should rest for a little while; I'll be back in later to check on you."
The nurse got up and went to the door. Faith suddenly felt a twinge of fear.
"Um-" Faith started.
The nurse stopped and turned. "What?"
"Nothing."
"Are you sure?" There was genuine concern in the woman's dark eyes.
"I...woke up alone in a hospital once," Faith said. "It wasn't so great."
The nurse walked over to the bedside and pointed to the call button that hung just behind Faith's head. "This goes to the nurses' station. I'll be on duty for six more hours; if you wake up, just push, and I'll stop in."
Faith felt embarassed to act so needy. But the nurse somehow understood. Even though Faith now knew that such things were possible, they still amazed her.
And when Faith awoke hours later, she pushed the call button, and the nurse did indeed show up.
-----
The next morning, when the hospital staff was satisfied that Faith did not have any sort of brain injury, they sent her back to Fuller. Faith had barely had time to change into a fresh uniform -- carefully avoiding pulling off the bandage on her forehead -- when a guard came to her cell.
"Warden wants to see you," the guard said.
"What for?" Faith asked.
"Didn't say," the guard replied. "Let's go."
Faith suddenly flashed on all the times in elementary school -- and junior high, and high school -- when she'd been called to the principal's office. She'd never worried then, and she wasn't worried about seeing the warden now. What's he going to do? she thought. Expel me?
-----
When Faith arrived at Warden Teague's office, she was surprised to see Sonya Medford, the woman Faith had been trying to meet for two days, sitting in one of two cushioned metal chairs in front of the warden's desk. The guards who had escorted both prisoners into the office in waited outside the door.
The warden stood up and extended his hand. "Faith," the man said with a hearty smile, "I'm Andrew Teague, the warden. Have a seat."
Faith shook the man's hand and sat down next to Sonya. She hadn't expected such a warm welcome. Nor had she expected a prison warden to be so good-looking, at least for his age. Faith mentally slapped herself -- despite having spent three months largely isolated from the male half of the species, this was no time to get hormonal.
"Have you two met?" Teague asked.
Faith turned towards Sonya. "I'm Faith," she said.
"Sonya," the woman replied. "I heard about how you handled Sarina when she went bugshit yesterday. Nice."
"Same goes for you and Psycho Girl in the cafeteria," Faith said. "She would have killed somebody if you hadn't taken her down."
"Good," Teague said, causing both women to turn to look at him. "Then I don't have to waste time telling you why you're here. You're both tough, and you both stepped in to help people when you didn't have to. In my book, that means you might actually be fit to let out of here someday."
Now Teague had both womens' undivided attention.
"I wish I could say the same for most of your fellow prisoners. The problem is that most of the women in here can't fend for themselves the way you two can. They have to join gangs to avoid being victimized, and once they're in the gangs, they become more hard-core than when they arrived."
Both Faith and Sonya nodded in agreement. Even in the short time they had been in prison, both had seen new inmates with minor records sucked into the gangs and made to commit worse crimes in prison then they had on the outside. Gang leaders ruled with both carrot and stick, having access to drugs with which to reward the faithful and large groups of thugs who could punish the defiant. What did the prison system have that could compete against those kinds of incentives?
"So here's what I'd like," Teague continued. "You two have reps for being tough, and the skills to back them up. So I want you to start hanging out together. Being seen together. In the cafeteria, the gym, wherever. I can even change your work schedules to give you more time for that.
"Most important, I want you to keep an eye out for any new prisoner who you think might be even half-serious about getting her life together. Get her to hang out with you, too. And teach her how to survive in here without becoming somebody's bitch."
"Warden," Faith said, "not to get technical or anything, but are you telling us to start a gang?"
The warden smiled. "Faith, every prison environment is the product of two systems: the prison administration, and prison society. The state and I control the administration, but the gangs control the society. It's a long-standing, well-defined system that even the people who run the prisons can't upset. So instead of trying to change the system from the outside, I want to work within it.
"So yes, I am telling you to start a gang. An honest gang, where prisoners who don't want to make crime a permanent career can get protection from the real thugs."
He turned to Sonya. "Sonya, I understand you're in our recovery program."
"Twenty-two days clean and counting", Sonya said. "Whole reason I'm in here is drugs; I don't want any more to do with them when I get out."
"Good," Teague responded. "Part of your job will be to lend a hand to anybody who comes to you wanting to clean up. Let them know that there's somebody they can talk to, and a safe group of people to associate with, instead of junkies and dealers."
Faith saw Sonya nodding carefully. It was hard to ignore the sense in what the warden was saying.
"This all sounds great," Faith said, "but there's one problem. When we start this Girl Scout troop, the regular gang leaders aren't going to like it. Hell, they'd probably be willing to put their arguments aside just to squash us. How do we deal with all that?"
"Don't think I haven't given that a lot of thought," Teague replied. "The reason I'm making this proposal to the two of you right now is that some of the gangs are disorganized at the moment. Sarina was a leader in one of the biggest gangs, and Yolanda Perez, the woman who committed suicide, was a major drug runner and right-hand woman to one of the other gang leaders. That gives you the opportunity to put together a big group quickly, while the established gangs are dealing with their internal problems and aren't recruiting so hard."
"Lucky break," Faith muttered. She hadn't really meant to say it; it just slipped out. Fortunately, the warden seemed oblivious to the suspicion behind the remark.
"Maybe," he said. "But luck isn't enough; it's what you do with the opportunities it brings you that matters."
"Can we have some time to think this over?" Sonya asked.
"Sure," Teague answered, "but let me know by this time tomorrow. This is your chance to make a mark, ladies -- to change the system for the better. Think about it."
Teague got to his feet and went to the door to let the two women out. Just as his hand grasped the knob, he added, "And don't forget the very positive things I would say to the board when you both come up for parole."
With that, the doors opened, and the two guards escorted Faith and Sonya away.
-----
Fortunately, before they were taken to their separate cells, Sonya and Faith agreed on a spot where they could meet and talk during dinner. Picking at her tray of steaming brown something with a side of steaming green something, Faith asked, "So where'd you learn to fight like that?"
"I was Orange County amateur kickboxing champ for two years. Even made it to the state finals once," Sonya replied.
"Wow. So...what happened?"
"Smashed up my knee in a car accident. I couldn't walk without crutches for six months. And I couldn't train. When I finally could start training again, I was in the worst shape of my life.
"I was so pissed off, losing so much time for no reason. I was angry all the time. So I started smoking a little weed to make it better, and the next thing I knew, I'd moved on to rock."
"Damn."
"Yeah. All the money I got from my accident settlement, I smoked up. Then I had to start dealing to pay for my own stuff. And now, here I am, just another guest at the Fuller Hotel.
"It took going to jail -- for a second time -- to make me realize how bad I'd screwed up. So now I'm trying to get clean, get out, and get my life working again. Now, how about your story?"
"How much time do you have?"
"It's like that, huh?" Sonya said, nodding. "You can catch me up on your personal soap opera later. Let's talk about the warden's idea."
"I gotta admit, I like it," Faith said.
"Why?"
"'Cause it could work. And because I'm tired of having to beat a girl down every other day just to stay alive."
"I'm with you on that," Sonya said. "But don't think we won't have to kick a whole lot of ass."
"I know," Faith replied. "But when you're kicking it for the right reason... There's nothing else in the world like that." Faith thought of the vampires she had fought in defense of a church full of people, and how she had felt then. She wanted to have that feeling again.
"Then let's do it," Sonya said, extending her hand.
Faith shook it.
END CHAPTER 3
Oh, great, Faith thought. Just freaking great.
Two days had passed since the incident in the cafeteria, and Faith had had no luck catching up to the woman who had stopped the berserk prisoner. It was hard to find people in the enormous crowd in the cafeteria, and the woman obviously didn't have the same work schedule as Faith. Faith knew she would catch up with the tall, tough girl eventually, but she hated waiting.
Worse, Faith had just been informed that the prison psychologist wanted to see her. No reason was given. Did they think Faith was somehow involved in the fight? Or with the suicide victim who was found that same morning? Maybe this was just some kind of spot check to make sure that no other prisoners were going to snap in similar ways.
Though Faith had never actually met a psychologist, she imagined they were a lot like the social workers Faith had encountered in her childhood. Their main job was to ask a lot of personal questions, take kids away from their parents, and generally make things worse than they already were. The few who acted like they cared never stuck around long.
But Faith knew something now that she didn't know back then: that there were people in the world who really DID want to help, and they didn't always screw things up. So it was with a less-than-completely-closed mind that Faith first sat down across a small plastic table from Fuller State's resident shrink.
"Hello, Faith," the woman said. "I'm Sarah Reynolds. I'm the clinical psychologist here at Fuller."
"Hey," Faith said as she sized the woman up. Reynolds was a reasonably slim white woman in her early 40's; her medium-length brown hair had a few strands of gray. She wore small, round glasses over her brown eyes that made her look slightly owlish.
"I understand that you spent three months in supermax," Reynolds said, "over an incident in the lunch line."
"Yeah. I wanted peach Jell-O, and they only had lime."
Reynolds cracked a small smile, which Faith took as a good sign. It was nice to meet an authority figure who could laugh without being jabbed in the colon with the broom up her ass.
"The prisoner behind you stabbed you in the back," Reynolds continued, "and you responded by nearly breaking her neck. Is that accurate?"
"Pretty much," Faith said flatly.
"Was it self-defense?"
"Pretty much," Faith repeated.
"And the second incident -- another knife-wielding prisoner, in the exercise yard. You didn't injure her as severely as the first."
"I saw her coming. The other time, it was just reflex."
"It seems you possess substantial fighting skills."
"I'm from Southie, in Boston. My neighborhood wasn't that great."
"I understand." The woman smiled slightly. "Do you still practice?"
"Sometimes."
"Good. I'm told that martial disciplines can help control one's temper. Has that been a problem for you in the past?"
"You read my record, right?" Faith said with some irritation. "I'm not here for shoplifting."
"I know what you were sentenced for, Faith," Reynolds said, leaning forward over the table. "That's not the same as knowing what really happened, or why."
Faith looked at the floor. Three months in near-solitary confinement had given her time to think about her past and even figure some of it out, but she wasn't sure she was ready to share yet.
After a few moments of silence, Reynolds said, "Faith, I can't force you to be here." She paused. "Actually, that's not accurate; I CAN force you to be here. But that would be pointless. I would like to help you to improve your self-control, to become the sort of person who belongs in the world and not in prison. But I can only help; I can't do it for you, and I can't make you do it."
Faith looked up into Dr. Reynolds' face. There was geniune kindness there. Even more importantly, there was confidence. This woman really believed she could help Faith to change. And if she believed it, Faith decided, then maybe it was true. Even if it wasn't, at least it would make for one more hour of conversation each week and one less hour of staring at the walls.
"Fine," Faith said.
"Good," Reynolds responded. "Why don't we start with what happened in Los Angeles?"
Faith sighed. Telling this story to a stranger was going to require some heavy editing, but, somewhere deep down, Faith needed to tell it to someone. Someone who wasn't there when it happened, who could see it from a neutral point of view. Someone who could tell help her understand why she tried to make Angel kill her, instead of just throwing herself off a bridge or something.
"I don't know why I went to L.A., exactly," she started. "But there's this guy I know there, a real tough guy, and some people wanted him dead..."
-----
"So what do you think, doctor?" the warden asked Sarah Reynolds later that day when he called her to his office. "Is she able?"
"This girl has been through a lot," Reynolds answered. "It's as if she's awakened from a long nightmare about being chased by a monster, only to discover that she IS the monster. She's been dealing with that realization for three months, in almost complete isolation. I can't imagine how she coped with it."
"Hmm." Teague looked at Reynolds, waiting for more.
"This is a critical time for her," Reynolds continued. "Being alone for so long was difficult, but it gave her time to process all the experiences that led up to her imprisonment. Most importantly, being in supermax freed her from temptation; there were few people there on whom she could vent her violent impulses. Now she has been thrust into an environment crowded with the most belligerent, impulsive, manipulative members of society. It must be a great strain to maintain her control."
"But can she handle it?" Teague asked.
"I believe she can. Her will is strong; she can do what she sets her mind to, and she has set her mind to becoming a better person."
"Fine. I'm bringing her in. We need her. Now, what about Sonya Medford?"
Reynolds' forehead furrowed. "An equally complex case. I believe she, too, truly wishes to change. But I don't think she yet knows what she wants to change into."
"We can help her with that," Teague said. "As long as you think she's trustworthy."
"Yes."
"Then we're good to go. I'll meet with both of them tomorrow."
"You really think this will work?"
"I really do."
-----
That evening, Faith was on her way back to her cell from the prison library, where she had been wrestling with the possibility of trying to get a Graduate Equivalency Degree. On the one hand, there was all the studying, something she never liked and was never very good at. On the other hand, how else was she going to spend her time? Playing poker for cigarrettes?
She reached the top of the spiral stairs that led up to the third tier of the housing unit and, along with hundred of other prisoners, moved down the long row of cells toward her own. Instead of thinning out, however, the crowd of blue-suited women was becoming thicker, slowing Faith down.
Suddenly, there was a crashing sound from somewhere up ahead, followed by barely-coherent screaming. Faith pressed forward, forcing her way through the crowd to see what was going on.
"Get the fuck away from me!" a woman was screeching. "I'LL FUCKING KILL YOU!"
Faith finally got close enough to the front of the crowd to see several inmates gathered, not too close, around the door to one of the cells. Inside the cell, Faith saw a single prisoner crouched behind a cot, which had been tipped onto its side to form a makeshift barrier.
"Sarina!" one of the inmates outside the door shouted. "What's wrong with you?"
"Lying BITCH!" the woman screamed. "Don't act like you don't know! You ratted on me to the guards, and now there's cameras in the lights and microphones in my shoes and roofies in my toothpaste! So DON'T YOU PRETEND!"
Sarina grabbed a bottle of shampoo out of the cubby behind her and hurled it at the woman who had called to her. The targeted prisoner ducked only just in time; the plastic bottle slapped noisily against the far wall.
Faith moved close enough to get a good look at the shrieking Sarina. The expression on the woman's face was unmistakeable; it was one of unreasoning, all-consuming terror. Her eyes darted from one onlooker's face to the next, as if she were expecting someone -- or everyone -- in the crowd to attack at any moment.
Faith's first impulse was to act, to rush Sarina and wrestle her down. But Faith had learned from experience that her first impulse wasn't always the right one. If she just ran in there, she could probably take the woman down, but maybe not without hurting her. The guards, on the other hand, could blind her from a safe distance with their pepper spray, then grab her arms and cuff her without causing any lasting injury.
"Everybody back off!" Faith shouted, waving her arms at the inmates crowded closest to the door of the frightened woman's cell. "Just give her some space!" The other prisoners paused for a second, then slowly backed away from the cell door.
"Sarina!" Faith shouted, standing just within the terrified inmate's view, "We're gonna leave you alone now! None of us are coming in, I promise!" It wasn't a lie; only the guards, who weren't here yet, would enter the cell.
Sarina screamed back, "You're lying! You all want to kill me!" But she made no move to attack.
Faith didn't say anything more. Several seconds later, two large guards in riot helmets and body armor pushed past her and ran into the cell.
In the two seconds it took the guards to enter the cell and take aim with their pepper spray, Sarina picked up her cot and threw it sideways at the guards with impossible force. The steel frame hit the first man in the chest and knocked him down; the corner caught the in his side and knocked him off-balance long enough for Sarina to rush him. She rammed shoulder-first into the center of the guard's kevlar vest; the man's helmeted head cracked into the back wall. Then Sarina reached under the guard's armored face mask and began choking him.
Faith couldn't stand by any longer. She had decided to let the guards handle this, and now their blood would be on her hands if they got killed.
She ran into the cell and grabbed Sarina's right arm. She wrenched the deranged woman's hand off the guard's throat, and pushed her elbow up and back, throwing the shrieking inmate down. Faith fell on her, seized her wrists and pinned her to the floor.
Sarina screamed high and loud, thrashing so hard that Faith's superhuman strength could barely hold the woman down. Faith had seen -- and caused -- a lot of fear in her time, but she had never seen terror like this.
Suddenly, Faith felt a nightstick hit her between her shoulder blades; the spot burned as if on fire. The toe of a black boot smashed into Faith's face, flipping her off of Sarina and onto her back. Faith's head was swimming, but she saw that the cell was now flooded with more black-armored guards, crowding around the struggling prisoners. Faith went limp, as she had learned to do when beaten by the guards, but Sarina howled and flailed as nightsticks thumped against her sides, arms, and legs. Now and then there was an audible crack as a bone fractured.
Finally, they hurt Sarina enough that she couldn't struggle any longer. She could only screech and whine like a wounded housecat as several guards picked her up and carried her out of the cell. Two others lifted Faith; she felt far away from her body when the faceless, armored figures carried it off to who knows where. Soon, her field of vision blackened, and she drifted away completely.
-----
Faith woke up in a strange place. Bright lights blinded her to everything but the black silouette of a woman's head leaning over her.
Faith tried to lift her head to speak, but the effort was like moving a bag of concrete with her neck. Concrete that could feel pain.
"Uhhh," Faith groaned as she gently set her throbbing head back down. "My head hasn't hurt like this since the day after I learned about body shots." She smiled weakly. "You wouldn't believe how much tequila will fit in a guy's belly button."
"Lie still," the woman said, rubbing something on Faith's forehead. "You're lucky your skull isn't fractured."
"Where am I?"
"County General. The doctor just stitched up a nasty cut on your head; I'm cleaning you up."
Faith tried to raise her hand to her head, but only got her arm up a few inches before it stopped with a rattle of metal on metal. Both of her hands were cuffed to the gurney she lay on. Faith didn't protest, knowing that this was standard procedure.
Then memories of the fight started to trickle into Faith's brain. "Where's Sarina?" she asked.
"Is she a friend of yours?"
"No. Her cell is near mine. Is she gonna be OK?"
"We're not sure. The doctors are still with her. Now, if you can lie still for a few more seconds... There. You're all done. You should rest for a little while; I'll be back in later to check on you."
The nurse got up and went to the door. Faith suddenly felt a twinge of fear.
"Um-" Faith started.
The nurse stopped and turned. "What?"
"Nothing."
"Are you sure?" There was genuine concern in the woman's dark eyes.
"I...woke up alone in a hospital once," Faith said. "It wasn't so great."
The nurse walked over to the bedside and pointed to the call button that hung just behind Faith's head. "This goes to the nurses' station. I'll be on duty for six more hours; if you wake up, just push, and I'll stop in."
Faith felt embarassed to act so needy. But the nurse somehow understood. Even though Faith now knew that such things were possible, they still amazed her.
And when Faith awoke hours later, she pushed the call button, and the nurse did indeed show up.
-----
The next morning, when the hospital staff was satisfied that Faith did not have any sort of brain injury, they sent her back to Fuller. Faith had barely had time to change into a fresh uniform -- carefully avoiding pulling off the bandage on her forehead -- when a guard came to her cell.
"Warden wants to see you," the guard said.
"What for?" Faith asked.
"Didn't say," the guard replied. "Let's go."
Faith suddenly flashed on all the times in elementary school -- and junior high, and high school -- when she'd been called to the principal's office. She'd never worried then, and she wasn't worried about seeing the warden now. What's he going to do? she thought. Expel me?
-----
When Faith arrived at Warden Teague's office, she was surprised to see Sonya Medford, the woman Faith had been trying to meet for two days, sitting in one of two cushioned metal chairs in front of the warden's desk. The guards who had escorted both prisoners into the office in waited outside the door.
The warden stood up and extended his hand. "Faith," the man said with a hearty smile, "I'm Andrew Teague, the warden. Have a seat."
Faith shook the man's hand and sat down next to Sonya. She hadn't expected such a warm welcome. Nor had she expected a prison warden to be so good-looking, at least for his age. Faith mentally slapped herself -- despite having spent three months largely isolated from the male half of the species, this was no time to get hormonal.
"Have you two met?" Teague asked.
Faith turned towards Sonya. "I'm Faith," she said.
"Sonya," the woman replied. "I heard about how you handled Sarina when she went bugshit yesterday. Nice."
"Same goes for you and Psycho Girl in the cafeteria," Faith said. "She would have killed somebody if you hadn't taken her down."
"Good," Teague said, causing both women to turn to look at him. "Then I don't have to waste time telling you why you're here. You're both tough, and you both stepped in to help people when you didn't have to. In my book, that means you might actually be fit to let out of here someday."
Now Teague had both womens' undivided attention.
"I wish I could say the same for most of your fellow prisoners. The problem is that most of the women in here can't fend for themselves the way you two can. They have to join gangs to avoid being victimized, and once they're in the gangs, they become more hard-core than when they arrived."
Both Faith and Sonya nodded in agreement. Even in the short time they had been in prison, both had seen new inmates with minor records sucked into the gangs and made to commit worse crimes in prison then they had on the outside. Gang leaders ruled with both carrot and stick, having access to drugs with which to reward the faithful and large groups of thugs who could punish the defiant. What did the prison system have that could compete against those kinds of incentives?
"So here's what I'd like," Teague continued. "You two have reps for being tough, and the skills to back them up. So I want you to start hanging out together. Being seen together. In the cafeteria, the gym, wherever. I can even change your work schedules to give you more time for that.
"Most important, I want you to keep an eye out for any new prisoner who you think might be even half-serious about getting her life together. Get her to hang out with you, too. And teach her how to survive in here without becoming somebody's bitch."
"Warden," Faith said, "not to get technical or anything, but are you telling us to start a gang?"
The warden smiled. "Faith, every prison environment is the product of two systems: the prison administration, and prison society. The state and I control the administration, but the gangs control the society. It's a long-standing, well-defined system that even the people who run the prisons can't upset. So instead of trying to change the system from the outside, I want to work within it.
"So yes, I am telling you to start a gang. An honest gang, where prisoners who don't want to make crime a permanent career can get protection from the real thugs."
He turned to Sonya. "Sonya, I understand you're in our recovery program."
"Twenty-two days clean and counting", Sonya said. "Whole reason I'm in here is drugs; I don't want any more to do with them when I get out."
"Good," Teague responded. "Part of your job will be to lend a hand to anybody who comes to you wanting to clean up. Let them know that there's somebody they can talk to, and a safe group of people to associate with, instead of junkies and dealers."
Faith saw Sonya nodding carefully. It was hard to ignore the sense in what the warden was saying.
"This all sounds great," Faith said, "but there's one problem. When we start this Girl Scout troop, the regular gang leaders aren't going to like it. Hell, they'd probably be willing to put their arguments aside just to squash us. How do we deal with all that?"
"Don't think I haven't given that a lot of thought," Teague replied. "The reason I'm making this proposal to the two of you right now is that some of the gangs are disorganized at the moment. Sarina was a leader in one of the biggest gangs, and Yolanda Perez, the woman who committed suicide, was a major drug runner and right-hand woman to one of the other gang leaders. That gives you the opportunity to put together a big group quickly, while the established gangs are dealing with their internal problems and aren't recruiting so hard."
"Lucky break," Faith muttered. She hadn't really meant to say it; it just slipped out. Fortunately, the warden seemed oblivious to the suspicion behind the remark.
"Maybe," he said. "But luck isn't enough; it's what you do with the opportunities it brings you that matters."
"Can we have some time to think this over?" Sonya asked.
"Sure," Teague answered, "but let me know by this time tomorrow. This is your chance to make a mark, ladies -- to change the system for the better. Think about it."
Teague got to his feet and went to the door to let the two women out. Just as his hand grasped the knob, he added, "And don't forget the very positive things I would say to the board when you both come up for parole."
With that, the doors opened, and the two guards escorted Faith and Sonya away.
-----
Fortunately, before they were taken to their separate cells, Sonya and Faith agreed on a spot where they could meet and talk during dinner. Picking at her tray of steaming brown something with a side of steaming green something, Faith asked, "So where'd you learn to fight like that?"
"I was Orange County amateur kickboxing champ for two years. Even made it to the state finals once," Sonya replied.
"Wow. So...what happened?"
"Smashed up my knee in a car accident. I couldn't walk without crutches for six months. And I couldn't train. When I finally could start training again, I was in the worst shape of my life.
"I was so pissed off, losing so much time for no reason. I was angry all the time. So I started smoking a little weed to make it better, and the next thing I knew, I'd moved on to rock."
"Damn."
"Yeah. All the money I got from my accident settlement, I smoked up. Then I had to start dealing to pay for my own stuff. And now, here I am, just another guest at the Fuller Hotel.
"It took going to jail -- for a second time -- to make me realize how bad I'd screwed up. So now I'm trying to get clean, get out, and get my life working again. Now, how about your story?"
"How much time do you have?"
"It's like that, huh?" Sonya said, nodding. "You can catch me up on your personal soap opera later. Let's talk about the warden's idea."
"I gotta admit, I like it," Faith said.
"Why?"
"'Cause it could work. And because I'm tired of having to beat a girl down every other day just to stay alive."
"I'm with you on that," Sonya said. "But don't think we won't have to kick a whole lot of ass."
"I know," Faith replied. "But when you're kicking it for the right reason... There's nothing else in the world like that." Faith thought of the vampires she had fought in defense of a church full of people, and how she had felt then. She wanted to have that feeling again.
"Then let's do it," Sonya said, extending her hand.
Faith shook it.
END CHAPTER 3
