Chapter 18

Unfortunately for Frankie, Agent Fuller decided to charge her with using a fake ID to gain access to a government facility. During the two weeks she awaited trial, Rory managed to get a message to her through one of the guards at the detention facility where she was being held. The mission had been a success thanks to her quick thinking, but they couldn't afford to bring any attention to her connection with Hydra by getting her released. They were going to exert some influence over the judge that had her case and get her sentenced to the minimum amount of time allowed and sent to a low security federal facility. True to his word, she was sentence to eighteen months with time served, and parole in eight months to FCI Danbury in Connecticut.

Her cell mate was a quiet woman named Rachel who was serving three years for obstruction. The doctor she worked for had created files for fake patients and prescribed pain medication. Various middlemen had filled the prescriptions, then sold the drugs at ten times their cost. The doctor got half of the profits. It was going well, until the good doctor got too greedy. With the crackdown on opioids, the feds had taken notice of the amount of prescriptions he was writing and opened an investigation on his office. Tipped off that his office was going to be raided and his files taken, he called Rachel and had her shred all his files. She complied without question, loyal to her employer. When the feds arrived and caught her in the act of shredding their evidence, she was arrested.

A mousey little woman who barely reached Frankie's shoulders, she feared everything and everyone in the prison. In other words, she was useless as an ally. Frankie couldn't help but feel sorry for her though.

At lunch her first day in the general population, Frankie surveyed the different groups scattered around the room. Some were self-explanatory. Two separate groups of Latina women clustered together; one with a few visible gang tattoos. There were four groups of African American women; Rachael pointed out two of them.

"Those are Bloods and the ones in the far corner are Crips. Most of the time, they just ignore each other, but they tend to follow the tide from outside. If the two gangs are fighting out there, things can get pretty intense in here. That one with the long blonde hair is the leader of the Crips gang in here, Nita. Right now, she and Tanisha, the Blood with short natural hair, have an uneasy alliance."

"An alliance?"

"Yeah, there's a new group that formed up in the last year," she nodded to a group of twelve women occupying a table in the middle of the room. "They seem to have a lot of resources at their disposal, though."

The group was hard to define as there was no unifying attribute for its members; they were a mix of races and ages. Some had tattoos, most didn't. The other women in the room gave them a wide berth.

"Who are they?"

Rachael shrugged, "nobody knows for sure, but rumors say Hydra."

"Hydra? Really? There's that many of them?"

"Like I said, it's just a rumor. Who knows, they might be something completely different."

Frankie nodded. If they were Hydra, she needed to avoid them. Rory's message had cautioned her to lay low. She couldn't risk being associated with them if she wanted to stay under SHIELD's radar.

Other groups were made up of individuals that were in for similar crimes; junkies that were in for stealing to support their drug habits, murderers, sex offenders, white collar criminals. The group of murderers was small, only four women sitting quietly by themselves in a corner of the lunchroom. Frankie recognized one of them; her face had been on every television and newspaper for weeks after she had been apprehended and again when her trial had begun. A whistle blower for a large banking firm, when the executives had been acquitted of fraud, she had taken it upon herself to exact justice.

"This is a medium security prison," Frankie observed. "How is Melissa Cho even here?"

"She had a good lawyer."

"Must have been a hell of a good lawyer."

During lunch on her third day, a tall, thin woman approached their table as they ate.

"Hail Hydra."

Frankie looked up from her tray and frowned at the woman, "I think you have the wrong person."

The woman continued to stare down at her, "I don't think so."

Fuck. Now what? The last thing Frankie wanted was to start trouble and end up on the wrong side of any of the gangs in here.

"Look, I don't want any trouble…," she started.

"Then don't cause any," the woman interrupted, leaning down so that her face was only inches from Frankie's. "Say the damn words and get your ass over to our table where you belong. You don't want to piss us off."

So, this was the way it was going to be, Frankie thought. It was going to be a long eight months.

She started to stand and a firm hand on her shoulder pushed her back down onto the bench.

"Is there a problem here, Leena?" Melissa Cho said from behind her, leaving her hand on Frankie's shoulder.

Leena took a step away from the table and considered Melissa for a moment.

"No, there's no problem, Melissa. Just a misunderstanding, that's all."

With that she winked at Frankie and returned to her own table.

Frankie looked over at Rachael, still frozen in mid chew, her eyes huge, then turned and looked up at her savior.

"Thank you."

"Come on, get your tray and join us," Melissa removed her hand and turned away, expecting Frankie to follow her.

"Can…, can Rachael come too?" she asked the woman's back.

Melissa stopped and looked at the two of them. "If I say no?"

"Then I'm staying right here." She wasn't going to leave her cellmate with a target on her back and no protection.

Melissa sighed, "then bring her. But you're responsible for her, not me."

Once at the table with Melissa, Frankie couldn't restrain herself, "why are you helping me?"

The other three women looked at Melissa quietly, leaving it to her to explain.

"Our lawyer contacted us and let us know that we needed to look after you," she said quietly.

"Why?" Frankie was confused.

Melissa shrugged, "I don't know. She said she was calling in a favor for getting me sentenced to this place instead of some maximum-security hole."

"Same here," another one of the four added and the other two nodded.

After that incident, Frankie and Rachael found themselves on the same rotation as Melissa and the other three women. Heather was in for killing her abusive husband; she ran over him with his truck. Five times. The funeral had to be closed casket. Nora had a long record of petty crimes until she took part in a bank heist that resulted in a dead security guard and two dead hostages, one by her hand. Justine was a suspected serial killer but could only be directly tied to one victim, so she was serving just one life sentence.

They all had been represented by the same firm. A firm that had somehow managed to have them serve their sentences in a medium security facility. The same firm that had represented Frankie.

Rory was watching out for her after all.

Under the protection of Melissa and the others, Rachael transformed from quiet, fearful to cheerful, outgoing, and helpful. She started helping other inmates by providing tutoring lessons for free. Having a master's degree in business, she helped others with their finances by showing them how to budget and open savings accounts. When tax season rolled around two months after Frankie's arrival, some of the prison guards sought out her help with their taxes.

Leena and one of her cronies had tried to corner Frankie twice outside of the lunchroom, but Frankie was adept at avoiding people when she needed to and managed to elude the Hydra thug both times. The woman had been reduced to glaring impotently at her during mealtimes, much to Frankie's amusement.

With Rachael busy most of the time, Frankie spent most of her time with Melissa and Heather, who turned out to be easy companions, despite their crimes. Frankie developed a bond with them during their hours together. The women talked about their lives outside of prison and what they would have done differently if given the chance. When Frankie told them the story about Rory, both were horrified at the carelessness of the Avenger.

"That is exactly why they need to be regulated," Heather pointed out. "I mean, this Hawkeye isn't even a powered person and look at how much damage he's done."

"Yeah, but what happened with Captain America shows that they can't be regulated. When they say 'fuck you and your rules' who is going to make them comply? Iron Man couldn't and he was one of them," Frankie argued.

"Then what the hell are we supposed to do? Just sit back and let them do whatever they want?"

"I don't know if there is an answer, Heather. What I tried backfired on me."

"What did you do?" Melissa asked.

Frankie told them about stabbing Clint and the events that unfolded afterwards, leaving out the part about her joining a secret Hydra cell hidden deep underground. Afterwards, both women looked at her with more respect.

"You've got balls of steel, girl," Melissa told her with a sharp laugh, slapping her on the back.

"For all the good it did me. All I succeeded in doing was getting on SHIELD's radar."

"And Hydra's, apparently," Heather added.

Frankie decided to spend her time in prison expanding her knowledge. Checking out a basic physics textbook from the library, she quickly learned that her lack of skills in mathematics was going to limit how much she could learn from the more advanced sciences. Consulting Rachael, she picked up two basic math books from the library.

Having dropped out of school shortly after her 14th birthday, when she ran away from her foster home, at first it was slow going. But after a couple of weeks, she had gotten the hang of studying again and, with a little mentoring from both Rachael and Melissa, she began to pick up the pace and started to enjoy learning. She found that she loved working with fractions but hated square roots.

Sitting alone one afternoon, trying to get the hang of factoring, she was startled by Lucy, one of the junkies, running up to the open cell door.

"They have Rachael! You have to come," Lucy panted, bent over trying to catch her breath.

"Who?" Frankie pushed her book aside and sprang up from the bed.

"Leena and two of her girls."

"Where?" Frankie asked as she shoved past the winded woman.

"The Gee-dunk room," Lucy called after her as she sprinted away.

She stopped by Melissa's cell block, but her friend was not around and nobody on the block knew where she was. Frankie briefly considered searching for her but didn't know if Rachael had that much time. She left a message for Melissa and continued without backup.

Hurrying towards the north wing, Frankie went over what she knew about the layout of the area. The gee-dunk room was what the inmates had called the area that held vending machines years ago, before reduced funding and dietary guidelines had shut them down. Now the area was used to store excess tables and chairs from the lunchroom, but habits die hard and the area was still called the gee-dunk room.

There were two ways in, through the unused gym locker room on the east and the corridor from the lunchroom on the west. Leena would have lookouts posted at both, but the locker room provided some cover with the two rows of lockers. That way was the closer of the two sealed it for Frankie.

She slowed down when she reached the gym. At this time of day, there should be a few women inside using the machines, but as she looked in the small, square window in the door, the room was dark and still. Leena wasn't taking a chance of having witnesses.

Frankie pushed the door open slowly with her foot. One of the hinges squeaked softly as it opened inwards. She froze and listened intently but didn't hear any other noise. She pushed the door open enough to slip through then eased it closed. Allowing her eyes to adjust to the darkness of the room, she could make out the shapes of the exercise machines, benches, and weight racks. She made her way over to a rack and picked up a ten-pound dumbbell to use as a weapon.

At the back of the room was a door to the locker room. This door didn't have a window, so she had to turn the knob and push it open slightly to see inside. The locker room was dark also. Frankie frowned. Why wouldn't they be guarding this entrance?

Warily pushing through the door, Frankie put her back to the wall and skirted around the right side of the room, keeping a row of lockers between her and the door in the back. With the glimpses she caught of it, there was light showing through the crack under the door. As she drew nearer, she could hear voices from the other side as well, then a strangled cry that could have only been Rachael.

Throwing caution to the wind, Frankie raced to the door and kicked it open, hoping to have the element of surprise on her side. What she had forgot in her rush was the light in the room. Momentarily blinded by the sudden brightness, she could only manage to make out shapes and movement. One of the figures lurched towards her and she swung the weight hard. The impact made a sickening crunch and the figure dropped to the floor at her feet.

Before she could turn to face movement to her left, a hard object, she wasn't the only one that had grabbed a dumbbell, struck her in the back of the head, dropping her to her knees. Another blow from behind knocked her forward to land on the still figure on the floor.

Before consciousness faded, she heard Leena from somewhere above her.

"Nobody is untouchable, Frankie."

Sometime later, maybe just seconds, maybe hours, Frankie's eyes flickered open. Pushing herself up carefully, she stared in shock at the body she was laying on. Rachael's empty eyes stared at her in accusation. Her left temple was caved in from a blow from a dumbbell. Frankie looked around and found hers on the floor inches away from where she had dropped it.

Blood had dripped off it, forming a puddle the size of half-dollar on the floor.