"You have no idea how much I hate this," Becky complained to Bayley.
"Probably about as much as I do," came the reply.
The two women were dressed identically for their first stint on cleaning duty, in blue overalls that had seen better days long ago, and yellow rubber gloves. For the past half hour, they had been scrubbing tables and mopping the floor in the C Wing dining area. It had been a thoroughly miserable experience, made even worse by Alexa Bliss taking verbal jabs at them over the counter from the kitchen area, where she and Nia were also attending to their cleaning duties.
As if hearing homophobic slurs directed at them wasn't bad enough, Bayley looked up and saw Ms Vega unlocking the C Wing entrance gate. The fact that Vega hadn't gone home yet after the end of her shift was a surprise, and not a pleasant one.
"Heads up. Vega." Bayley mumbled, making sure not to look directly at the diminutive, but vicious woman.
"Christ," Becky groaned, immediately working more vigorously with her mop, feeling the need to look like she was hard at it.
"Well, well, well," Vega said theatrically as she walked slowly among the tables, inspecting their cleanliness. Bayley feared the worst, since it was her handiwork that was under scrutiny.
"Not too bad," came the surprising verdict. Vega even gave an approving nod as she reached the two inmates.
"Thanks, Miss," Bayley said, somehow managing a smile that she definitely didn't mean.
Vega's attention shifted to the floor that Becky had been mopping. She scanned over it, from right over on the far side near to the gate, all the way over to where they were standing. "Not bad, Lynch," she decided, before pointing nearby. "Oh, you missed a spot down there."
"Where?" Becky asked irritably, knowing full well that she hadn't.
"There," Vega insisted, still pointing.
"There's no dirt there," Becky said.
Vega gave Becky's mop bucket a hefty kick, sending it over onto its side and spilling the filthy brown water all over the floor. She looked at Becky with a smug grin on her face. "How about now?"
Bayley could see that Becky was livid, and understandably so. She reached out and gently put a hand on her girl's arm - a reminder not to do something stupid. That was exactly what Vega wanted to happen, so that in turn she could inflict a punishment of some kind.
"You'd better get on that," Vega suggested, walking away, with the smile still on her face. She headed over to the side of the kitchen and unlocked the gate that led to corridor that was off limits to prisoners, leading out to the delivery entrance.
Becky looked at Bayley, straight fire in her eyes. "I never thought I'd hear myself say this, but one day? I want the chance to kill that fucking bitch."
"I hear you," Bayley said, taking her hand and squeezing it. "I wish I could kill her too. But we need to keep our heads down. You made that deal with Stephanie to get us out of this hole. Until then, we need to suck up any shit that gets thrown at us."
"I know," Becky sighed. "As much as I hate it, I know you're right. I need to focus on the fact that Stephanie will help us, and that one day we'll both be free, and we'll be together. I don't know how many palms she'll have to grease to make that happen, but that's her problem. She wants the BL-04, she knows the price."
"Speaking of Stephanie, It's nearly ten AM," Bayley said, glancing at her watch. "It's time you attended to the little, uh, job she gave you."
Becky nodded. "Yeah. Thank god Vega got out of here! I'd better go."
After stripping off her gloves and dumping them on one of the tables, Becky headed for the entrance to the kitchen. The task she had been given by McMahon was to hand an envelope to a laundry contractor, who would allegedly be waiting at the rear kitchen entrance, which apparently wouldn't be locked as it should have been. It all sounded highly unlikely to Becky, but Stephanie was the boss, sadly.
As she walked into the kitchen, Becky saw that she was going to have to walk past Alexa Bliss, who was currently cleaning one of the work surfaces, dressed in the same manner as Becky and Bayley.
Sensing someone's presence, Bliss spun around, immediately effecting a confrontational stance when she saw Becky. "Get back out there, dyke!" she demanded. "This is my kitchen, not yours."
"What are you, ten?" Becky asked mockingly, pushing past the little witch.
"Don't touch me again!" Alexa raged.
"Don't stand in my way then, genius." Becky rounded a corner, approaching the blue painted wooden door that needed to be unlocked if the job was going to be a success. She hoped like hell that Bliss wouldn't follow her, either to see where she was going or to throw some more abuse at her. Either way, it would be a huge problem.
Putting a hand on the door handle, Becky took in a deep breath, willing it to be unlocked. Slowly, she pushed the handle downwards. It moved! The door was indeed unlocked!
Becky opened the door cautiously, then risked sticking her head out into the corridor. There was no sign of any guards. A man in a green work shirt with a name and logo for a laundry company on it was walking her way, pushing a large laundry cart ahead of him. Unsure of how the handover was supposed to go down, Becky simply pulled the envelope out of her overalls and stood there with it in her hand. She had no idea what was in it, and she didn't care, so long as she didn't get caught with it in her possession.
The guy approached, neither quickening nor slowing his pace. He didn't even look at Becky or acknowledge her presence. However, as he walked by her, he made his hand available for her to put the envelope into, which she managed to do without either of them dropping it. Covert operations were definitely not her thing, she realised. It was pathetic how fast her heart was beating, and she was literally sweating in her overalls. But she had done the job!
Now that the deed was done, Becky closed the door and hurried back around the corner, simply focussing on getting back to Bayley with the good news. Bliss was still standing there cleaning the work surface. "What the hell are you doing in here anyway?" she demanded aggressively.
"Just looking for something," Becky muttered offhandedly.
"The cleaning cupboard is over there, idiot," Bliss said, pointing to the other side of the room.
Becky couldn't have cared less about the little homophobe's stupidity. Saying nothing more, she walked through the kitchen and back out into the dining area, where Bayley was busy mopping up the dirty water that Vega had spilled all over the floor.
Noticing Becky approaching, Bayley stood up and leaned on the mop handle, an anxious look on her face. "How did it go?" she asked.
"Like a dream," Becky reported.
Before she could go into any more detail, Becky noticed Stephanie McMahon walking down the stairs from the cells on the upper floors. It didn't take much brain power to figure out that McMahon had been up in her cell, keeping an eye on the time, and was now coming down for news of the exchange.
"Well?" Stephanie asked abruptly of Becky once she was in earshot without raising her voice.
"I did the job," Becky reported, surprising herself by feeling proud of the fact.
"No problems?"
"No problems," Becky confirmed. "I handed the guy the envelope, and no one saw me do it."
"Excellent," Stephanie proclaimed. She even smiled. "There will be more envelopes to hand over."
"Whatever you need, so long as our deal holds up," Becky said.
Stephanie seemed irritated that her sincerity was being brought into question. Both Bayley and Becky filed that away in the back of their minds. McMahon was a real piece of work, there was no doubt about that, but she apparently considered herself a woman of her word. Questioning her in that regard risked angering her, and that would not be a good idea.
"I said you had a deal, didn't I?" Stephanie said icily.
"Yes, sorry," Becky backtracked as quickly as she could. "I was just trying to say that anything you need, I'll do."
Stephanie fixed her with a glare. "Oh, I know that, trust me. From now on, that applies to both of you. If I tell you to walk in front of a train, you ask me what direction I'd like it to be going in."
"I hope you don't mean that literally," Bayley said as a weak attempt at humour.
Apparently a sense of humour was distinctly lacking in Stephanie. She gave Bayley a blank look for a second before taking a quick look around the dining area and turning her nose up at the work they were doing. Cleaning was definitely a long way beneath someone of her standing, in her opinion.
"Get your little jobs done, then get your asses up to my cell," Stephanie ordered. "We've got things to do."
Bayley and Becky shared a look. Neither of them could remember feeling so belittled as they had been by that comment, and Stephanie had done it so effortlessly, too.
"Wow," Bayley muttered when Stephanie was safely over by the stairs.
"Just focus on the fact that we'll be out of here soon," Becky said. It was becoming a mantra for them, and something to cling on to. There was light at the end of the tunnel. It was just a matter of how long it was going to take to get there.
A/N: Thank you to everyone who reviewed last time!
Stephanie certainly seems confident that she can get Bayley and Becky out, to fulfil her part of the deal. How do you think she will do it?