9. Scarred
"Not such a good look, is it?"
Nicky had searched everywhere for Red, having heard the Russian had finally been returned from Max, where they had taken those deemed most to blame for the worst of the riot. She was even starting to feel just a little put out that the woman she thought of as her mother hadn't sought her out straight away. Then she stuck her head into the bathroom block, just to check, and caught a glimpse of that distinctive red hair.
But, with her head scarf removed and her fingers raking through what was left of her fiery locks, it was plain to see that Red still bore the tell-tale signs of her brutal run-in with Piscatella. At least the angry wounds where she had been all but scalped had healed, although it would take a lot longer for the bald patches to be covered by more than a delicate fuzz.
Red's resigned gaze met Nicky's in the mirror.
"Not how you had imagined seeing your fierce mother, huh? This stupid old woman would have a hard time keeping you on the straight and narrow."
"Don't say that, Red," Nicky tried, coming closer. "That's not what you are. Not to anyone, but especially not to me. You're still here, still standing. After … After everything. Fuck, what he did to you! I wanted to stop him – you have to know that. I wanted to, but-"
"You do not have to feel guilty, Nicky," Red insisted, still speaking to their reflections as she moved to tie her head scarf back in place. "What could you have done against such an animal?"
"At least Alex tried."
"Nicky …" Red sighed, in that way that always made her prison daughter think of proper moms, who tried to both soothe and scold at once. Not like her actual birth mother who was usually too preoccupied to do either.
The older woman turned and held out her arms, allowing Nicky to walk straight into them and hold on for dear life, relishing the chance to just be a little girl again, if only for a moment or two.
"I wish things could just go back to how they were," she murmured.
"Life was never rose-tinted, Nicky," Red said. "Not in this god-forsaken place. Not ever. Now, come. Walk with me. Tell me what I've missed."
"This is all I need …" Dallas muttered to herself, as she set off down the hall - not entirely sure which way she should be going, but still determined not to let the hurdles thrown up get in the way of her aims.
She'd left a couple of the guards in her office, wrestling with an old couch she'd convinced them to help her haul out of a storage room where it had been discarded since Fig apparently redecorated her own lair. COs Stratman and Ryder. Or Blake. She hadn't quite managed to remember which was his last name yet.
Leaving them to it hadn't sat well with her, in case it fuelled their apparent thinking that their manliness had been required to come to the aid of some delicate little damsel in distress. But the pair of them, at least if first impressions were anything to go by, seemed to mostly keep their brains in their biceps, so she figured there was no point wasting them. Besides, she didn't have time to think about sorting out her newly commandeered furniture when Mercy hadn't shown up for her hastily rescheduled appointment.
Dallas had been so hopeful that the girl would actually give it a chance. And that had been the grounds on which she'd helped get her out of solitary after all. They'd agreed that, after an hour or so to get resettled back in the dorm, Mercy would give counselling a fair shot. Strike while the iron's hot, so to speak.
So, after all that effort getting through to the fiery inmate, Dallas wasn't going to simply give up on her.
Too many people seemed to have done that already.
"Yo, you wanna watch where you're walking, lady."
The automatic apology came to Dallas' lips before she realised what had happened. She'd been so busy thinking about the best approach to take with Mercy, when she finally tracked her down, that she hadn't been watching where she'd been going and had rounded a corner only to head straight into the path of a group of loitering inmates.
"Yeah, you better be sorry," one of them all but snarled, making her companions smirk on either side of her as all three of them looked her up and down.
"Hey, you that counsellor they all talkin' about …" one of the women - with short dark hair, seriously questionable dental work, and a glint of interest in her eye - said. "I heard you pullin' all kinds of favours already. What we gotta do to get in on that, huh?"
"Uh, that's not what-"
"Oh, so we ain't good enough for your preferential treatment. What, 'cause we ain't part of that little dyke club? We ain't got nothin' you want, Blondie?"
Already on her guard, Dallas tried to step back in the face of the sudden hostility, only to find the others had circled to close in behind her. She took a breath, to keep both her nerves and her temper in check.
"Look, I don't know what you've heard, but that's not how it works," she tried, her hands held out in what she hoped was a placating fashion. "All that's on offer is counselling, and places are limited, so …"
"So you gonna get me on that list, bitch. Zirconia. Like the diamonds. Write that shit down."
Dallas bit her tongue against correcting her on the diamonds line, simply shaking her head as she made to push past the inmates and be on her way.
The mood changed, spiralling downwards, the instant a shiv slid from its hiding place up a sleeve.
"Not so fast, lady," Zirconia warned, the words clearly threatening even as she smiled. "One wrong step, one shout, and this is over. You know I ain't playin'."
The other two inmates acted quickly, one of them barking an order to move things off the main hallway, flanking Dallas and forcing her into the nearest bathroom. And the counsellor had no real choice but to comply, stumbling just a little in her heels as she was made to back up and just hoping that going along with things would at least stop any of them lashing out before she'd had a chance to think of a way out of this.
Her heart was already racing along with her mind though. The last place she wanted to be stuck with a bunch of angry inmates was somewhere isolated and where they could easily block the only way out.
The worried blonde eyed the makeshift weapon, quickly realising it was a toothbrush with a razorblade melted into the end where the bristles should be. It might not have looked that impressive, but all it had to do was nick an artery and it would prove how deadly it could be. Could she grab it before it came to that though …?
"Don't even fucking think about it," one of the hard-faced inmates warned, as if she had read her mind.
"What's the matter, Blondie? You scared? I kinda like that," Zirconia smirked, moving in close and letting the tip of the blade trail down Dallas' cheek.
The counsellor realised she was holding her breath, her entire body tensed and her fists clenched by her sides. "Didn't you learn anything from what happened here?" she ground out. "From the riot? You'll end up in Max."
The inmate laughed that off, dismissing the suggestion with a casual wave of the blade that at least saw it lifted from her target's face. "They ain't even got room for what they got down there. Besides, you good at getting people out of places they don't wanna be. Fair's fair, Little Miss Counsellor."
Backed into a corner, literally and figuratively, Dallas' heart sank and she let her head tilt back against the cold, hard tiles, still trying not to show that she knew just how desperate her situation was. Even though she did.
She absolutely did.
"Like it'd kill them to change one fucking light bulb …"
Muttering to himself under his breath, Luschek – for once – had a valid reason to be headed to the staff room when he wasn't actually on a break. Yet another bulb had blown apparently. Probably a side effect of buying the cheapest replacements going, but that was so-called efficiency savings for you.
Still, the place would probably be empty, so he definitely wasn't above sneaking a quiet ten minutes to himself while he was at it. Twenty if he was really lucky. He'd take whatever he could get, if it meant not having to listen to inmates griping at him for a while. Or worse, Caputo. Or worse still, Fig.
No sooner had he laid a hand on the break room door than he heard voices from inside though, and his head dropped in weary exasperation. So much for that.
"Fuck," came the groan. "That couch must be lined with lead or some shit … No chance in hell I'd have agreed to lug it all that way if I'd realised she wasn't sticking around to show her appreciation …"
Stratman. And someone else as well, only Luschek couldn't make out the voice. Oh well, he shrugged. At least it wasn't anyone important. And by that he meant someone who might rat him out for downing tools. He didn't have much of an issue with most of his fellow COs and those who were newer were easy enough to get along with, for the most part.
"A little bit inappropriate? You gotta be shitting me, dude!" came a laugh of disbelief. "You really gotta lighten up. I'm handing out compliments here - it ain't like I insulted her … Hey, all I'm saying is if she feels like rewarding me for my services, I'm more than happy to help break in that couch …"
"Gentlemen," Luschek interrupted, with a nod for his colleagues as he strolled into the room. "Working hard, or hardly working?"
"S'up, Luschek," Blake replied, jerking his head in the direction of Stratman. "You're just in time to have to listen to Stratman's theory on why he thinks he's got a shot with the new counsellor."
"That so?" Luschek asked, hoping he wasn't doing as piss-poor a job at sounding casual as it sounded even to his own ears.
"Whatever," the guard in question drawled, flipping off his friend as he spun a chair backwards and sat down straddling it. "I'm telling you, once I turn it on ... those panties gonna drop. It's just a fact."
"Facts … What even are they these days?" Luschek tried to laugh it off, but his brain was struggling to come up with a witty alternative facts line when all he could hear was Nicky's voice in his head.
You got competition from the stripper.
Fuck.
"Look, why don't you put the blade down and think about this for a second?"
Dallas knew that was a long shot, but she wasn't really expecting the riled-up inmate to comply. She just wanted to stall a little. Buy herself some more thinking time. It wasn't like there was any point hoping someone else would come to the rescue. She was more likely to see another inmate than a guard, and chances were that would only add to her problem.
"Don't need to think," Zirconia drawled. "The way out's easy, Blondie. You get me on your little list and you get me the fuck outta this place, the way you did for that Valduto bitch."
"I got her out of SHU after she'd already been there a week," Dallas argued. "I didn't get her out of jail. I didn't get her special treatment. She shouldn't have been in there. I'd have done it for anyone in the same position, but I can't just-"
Zirconia got right up in her face again, pressing the shiv hard against her cheek. Hard enough to draw blood, Dallas realised with a little gasp of pain.
"This look like a face that wants to hear can't?"
She could lie. She could tell them everything they wanted to hear. That they were on the counselling list. That she'd get them some kind of clemency deal. She could lie to get the fuck out of here, to save her skin.
But she couldn't make it happen. Not without bumping someone off the list who needed to be there. Someone with a genuine need, someone she could maybe help. So, even if she was willing to lie to get herself out of a hole, she'd only end up digging herself deeper in.
Dallas closed her eyes, but only for a second. Then her mind was made up.
"I … I'm not going to lie to you. I can't do what you want."
Zirconia managed to look both shocked and furious that she hadn't gotten her own way, her face contorted in a snarl of frustration as Dallas guessed she was left facing some tough choices of her own around how far she was prepared to take this.
"Stupid puta!" she all but spat. "Be a shame to fuck up that pretty face … Don't mean I won't."
Dallas' green eyes locked on the angry woman in front of her and her own face hardened, even as that small drop of blood slipped like a tear down her cheek.
"Do it. But you won't see daylight this side of sixty," she warned. "Then who'll be the stupid puta?"
With a howl of anger, the blade left the counsellor's cheek, but only so Zirconia could draw it back to lash out – the razor glinting under the harsh fluorescent lights of the bathroom.
To be continued ...