5. Overtime
It was only when Dallas finally sank down on her comfy old couch at home that the enormity of the task ahead hit her. She'd spent a good couple of hours going over the basics with Caputo and then the rest of the day in the staff room pouring over the mountain of files that was now piled on her coffee table. She was going to have to talk to Fig and see if she could negotiate extra office time over and above her one day of counselling sessions, but she wasn't hopeful.
Kicking off her heels with a sigh of relief, she allowed herself to admit that it was already rapidly becoming clear that Litchfield's corporate overlords were only interesting in paying lip service to something that might fend off lawsuits. Actual care of the women in their facility was very much secondary.
"Bastards," she muttered, tugging her long hair free from its ponytail and reaching for the brown paper bag that contained the takeout food she'd picked up on the way home. Prawn toast, salted chilli chicken with egg fried rice, and there was white wine in the fridge with her name on it … Not having had time to eat since breakfast, she was practically salivating just at the thought.
She couldn't get the prison out of her mind though. Most of her work of late had been in schools or colleges. In fact, she was going to be juggling her role at Litchfield with spending three days a week at the prestigious Lowridge Academy. It wasn't lost on her that she was getting much more time to focus on a bunch of wealthy teenagers and their angst than she was to try to help vulnerable incarcerated women.
And, god, the things some of them had been through! In fact, for some of them, life only seemed to have gotten darker since ending up in the prison that was supposed to rehabilitate them. It just wasn't right.
Dallas padded into the kitchen to grab a fork and pour herself that longed-for glass of wine, before returning to the couch to eat. She had told herself in the car that she'd take a half-hour to herself to unwind, but she was only a few bites in when she realised those files weren't going to stop calling to her.
She got up and flicked on her docked iPod, turning the music down low and hoping it would help her chill out.
"Fuck sake, Ford," she chastised herself not five minutes later, when she reached for the stack of paperwork. She wasn't on the clock. There was no prospect of overtime ...
There was also no fighting it.
So she gave in and opened the first file, chewing thoughtfully on another forkful of food as a young black woman gazed back at her from the photograph paperclipped inside. She wasn't someone Dallas was going to be able to help, but she had insisted on having the file all the same, wanting to learn what she could about the person who had directly or indirectly affected so many lives.
Her cell phone rang and she glanced at the caller id, her heart sinking in the seconds before it hardened. She ignored it and tried to return her attention to the paperwork in front of her.
Poussey Washington. Twenty-three. Deceased.
There was somehow at once both defiance and vulnerability in those dark eyes and Dallas put down her fork. Twenty-three. The girl was seven years younger than she was herself.
She gently pulled the photo from the file and sank back against the plump couch cushions with it in her hand.
It just wasn't right.
And it wouldn't have mattered what her circumstances were, but her record only made her fate seem all the more tragic. The girl came from a good family, was well-educated, well-travelled. She should have been out there in the world making something of herself. Not paying for one minor slip-up over weed with her life.
The counsellor could only imagine how it had felt for the other inmates to have witnessed what happened to Poussey. From her picture, she looked petite and she probably hadn't ever stood a chance once she'd ended up on the floor. It could have been any of them though – pressure just applied in the wrong place, or at the wrong angle. That was what had happened in the end, more or less.
Suffocation due to a crushed windpipe.
Dallas shook her head sadly, taking a large sip of her wine as those dark eyes continued to stare back at her. The girl's large, pretty features suited her close-cropped haircut and, while the picture showed her almost glaring at the camera, it was easy to imagine that mouth curved in a wide, engaging smile.
"I'm sorry I never got to meet you," Dallas whispered, before taking a deep breath and giving herself a little shake. She couldn't let herself get dragged in emotionally, especially over something it was too late to fix. She already knew the perils of that all too well and there was nothing she could do for Poussey now – except try to help her friends deal with the aftermath of her death and everything that had spiralled into.
Of course, relationships were frowned upon in prison. Especially of the sexual or romantic kind, but friendships weren't exactly encouraged either. Never mind the fact that human beings were naturally social animals – the prison system that depended on locked people up and isolating them was hardly going to care about that. But Caputo had provided details on those closest to Poussey, from her friends like Tasha Jefferson to her strictly off-the-record girlfriend Brook Soso.
Judging by their files, Dallas realised she was going to have her work cut out just dealing with those two, never mind anyone else, with one having been sent to Max as an apparent riot ringleader and the other having a history of depression and suicidal tendencies.
God, there were just so many woman who needed better support than the prison seemed prepared to offer.
Raking a hand through her hair, the counsellor thumbed quickly through the pile of files, trying to just get a sense of the numbers. She was going to have to cut back to a manageable level somehow, but she only had to consider all the possible causes of trauma in these women's lives to know that wasn't going to be easy.
There were those who had lost someone close to them – and it wasn't like Poussey was the only inmate to have died behind Litchfield's walls in recent months – but also those separated from young children, those battling serious drug or alcohol addiction, those who had suffered physical abuse at the hands of other inmates or even at the hands of guards … The list seemed to just go on, and on, and on.
A beep from her phone drew her attention once again. Text message.
Stop ignoring my calls. We need to talk.
"No," Dallas muttered. "We really don't. Fuck, I need more wine."
Lights out was supposed to bring silence. Unfortunately, it rarely worked out that way.
The guards only intervened if things got too rowdy though, so those simply giving way to tears or night terrors were largely left to the mercy – or lack thereof – of their bunkmates. And, as those who had learned the hard way could attest, the value inmates placed on not having their sleep disturbed was not to be underestimated.
Sympathy was a lot harder to come by after dark.
"Somebody shut her the hell up!"
"Yeah, quiet down, bitch."
"You crazy meth-heads are making more noise than she is," Alex Vause finally snapped, after what seemed like an eternity with her pillow clamped awkwardly over her head. "Jesus Christ."
Finally, reluctant but realising it was the only way any of them were getting any sleep at all, she took matters into her own hands. Although it was awkward with one arm still in cast, she found her glasses and put them on before slipping down from her top bunk in her oversized grey nightshirt. She stuck her feet in her commissary-issue flipflops to pad out of her cube and into the one next door. The one that was still empty, save for a solitary figure curled up on a bottom bunk.
"Mercy? Mercy, you gotta quiet down or you're gonna end up in the SHU and, trust me, the way these bitches are getting wound up, that's probably the best scenario you can hope for here."
"I can't be here, I can't!" the younger woman sobbed. "How can I be back here?"
"It's shit, I know. But you gotta deal. If you want to stay sane in here, you gotta find a way to get right with it quick. Then you can do your time and get the fuck of here – for good this time."
"I p-promised I'd wait for her. I promised her and … and I couldn't. I didn't w-want to be alone. I promised her and I cheated her and now she's d-dead."
With a sigh, Alex sat down on the edge of the bunk, raking a hand through her sleep-tousled dark hair. "Tricia."
"Everything in this place just reminds me of her," Mercy Valduto ground out, forcing herself to sit up and wiping ineffectually at her red-rimmed eyes. "It's like she haunts it. Like she haunts me."
"What happened to Tricia wasn't your fault, you know."
"Wasn't it? She wouldn't have ended up back on that shit if I hadn't abandoned her. I can't get that out of my head. They even put me in her fucking bunk. I'm losing my mind here. I can't sleep, but when I do for like five fucking minutes when I'm so beat I can't see straight … I see her. I see her everywhere, Vause. Am I losing my mind? I actually think I'm losing my mind!"
"Shut the fuck up – we're trying to sleep here!" came another yell.
"Ugh, I swear I'm gonna strangle that trailer-trash bitch myself," Alex vowed, rolling her eyes. "Listen, maybe it'd help if you got out of this cube … Since I got back, I don't have anyone in with me yet. Heard a rumour more transfers are on their way, but until then, why don't you just move on in? Can't promise a room with a view, but it's gotta be better than being stuck here alone with your memories, right?"
"The guards'll never go for it."
"Fuck the guards," Alex said darkly, glancing down at her broken arm, remembering all too clearly the sound of bone snapping under Piscatella's vise-like grip. She'd heard it even over Piper and the others screaming. She still heard it in her dreams.
Mercy wasn't the only one battling ghosts.
The ringing in her head slowly cut through the fog of sleep and Dallas groaned as she fumbled for the source, still caught somewhere between waking and sleeping.
Her phone. Her phone was ringing.
She sat up in the darkness, her heart rate kicking up a gear or two as she went from confusion to irritation to fearfulness. She'd fallen asleep on the couch while reviewing her paperwork and it was the middle of the night. No one ever called with good news in the middle of the night.
Grabbing her phone from the coffee table, scattering files in her haste, she answered it without so much as a glance at the caller id. "Hello?"
No one spoke.
"Hello?"
Still no one spoke. She knew they were there just the same.
Her breath catching in her throat, she pushed her rumpled hair back from her face and sat back against the cushions, almost as if she feared the caller could see her. At some point, she'd taken a break from working to at least take off her make-up and change into the pyjama shorts and little tank top she had on under the robe she pulled tighter around herself. She now felt strangely vulnerable in her own home.
"I know someone's there," Dallas said, hating to hear the tremor in her voice.
She did though – know they were there. Even though there was no answer, no heavy breathing. There was just … a presence. One only made threatening by the refusal to engage and by the advantage of anonymity.
Once, she would have dismissed it as a prank. Maybe even twice. Three times was a pattern though.
This was the fifth call in the last week.
"Call back and I'm calling the cops," she finally snapped, abruptly cutting the call, only to sit trembling in the darkness as she clutched her phone.
It didn't ring again that night. But she didn't sleep either.
To be continued ...