Chapter 17
May wasn't sure how many days had passed, because she hadn't slept yet. She knew that she should, but it was like she was undergoing some sort of prison initiation. Every time her eyes shut, a guard would rattle her door, or call out to her. When she was so exhausted that she'd slept through one of them shouting directions at her, she'd been put on half rations as punishment. Her medical training told her it was just a matter of time before she had a mental break, if she hadn't already. In fact, it seemed like she had lost big stretches of time. The guards would switch off the lights, plunging the inmates into total darkness, before switching them back on again. There was no pattern, no rhyme or reason to it, and it managed to further confuse May.
"Inmate!" a guard yelled.
May pulled herself to standing, turning around to face the door with her hands at her side.
"Approach the cell door," the guard ordered.
May walked to the door and turned around, linking her fingers together behind her back. She felt hands grip hers and then she felt handcuffs fastened to her wrist, the bands squeezed together, past the point of pain, enough that May would have worried had she wanted to become a surgeon. She was sure that by this point nerve damage had been done.
A blood curdling scream shook May out of her stupor. May hadn't heard anything like it before, it sounded like someone being murdered. May heard men's laughter, and a coldness began to seep into her bones.
I think I'm going to die now, May realized. She would have cried, but why should she? It wouldn't help.
"Is this the one?" she heard a man ask.
"Yeah," the female guard answered, opening May's cell and pulling her out. May tried to resist, her heart hammering in her chest as she came to realize what the screams signified, but she was so weakened by lack of food and sleep, that all she managed to do was stumble into the man's arms.
He was soft, and smelled strongly of cologne. May could feel him, hard and erect, pressed against her stomach, and she tried to pull away. The female guard laughed, and May saw the guard press a wad of bills into her hand. He started dragging May away from her cell, and she made her body limp. The sudden dead weight of her body threw the guard off balance, and he fell to the floor with her, as he tried to hold onto her.
"Damnit," he hissed, gripping her ankle as May attempted to push herself from him.
"Help me!" she called out to the female guard. This couldn't be happening to her. Surely a woman would never allow another woman to be raped.
"Sorry," the guard threw out over her shoulder as she walked away.
May was on her own. She kicked out a foot at the guard, catching him between the legs. He twisted at the last minute, allowing her foot to just graze off his crotch. He didn't say a word, just kept pulling her toward him, until he could grip her waist. May bucked and arched, but it didn't do any good. He just wrapped her up, and dragged her down the hall. She screamed out as the guard dragged her through a set of doors and into a corridor that May recognized as the way to the infirmary. The guard brought her through the doors, and the nurse looked up.
"Need the room?" she asked nonchalantly.
"Yes," the guard replied and hoisted May onto the table. Before May could resist, the nurse was strapping her down, keeping her arms pinned underneath her as she used strong velcro straps to fasten her down around her waist.
"Together or apart?" she heard the nurse ask.
"Apart," the guard answered.
May kicked at them as each person grabbed an ankle and forced her legs apart.
"No no no!" May screamed, tears rolled down her cheeks and into her hair. She thrashed her head from side to side. She managed to catch someone with her foot because she heard someone's quick exhalation.
"You sure you want her awake?" the nurse asked.
"Nah," the guard answered, "I prefer them out."
May saw the nurse approach her, a needle in hand. She continued to thrash, even though she knew it was hopeless, and let out one last long scream, as the needle was inserted into her neck.
Her eyelids started to droop and she continued to cry out, until her voice was only a whimper.
She saw the nurse's hand outstretched and the guard slapped money on her palm.
She tried to keep her eyes open, and her body moving, to fight as long as she could.
"I may have given her too much," the nurse said thoughtfully.
Her voice sounded farther and farther away, and the darkness was starting to suffocate May. It was harder to breathe, but a sense of peace fell over her. If she couldn't breathe, then she would die. That was okay with her; she didn't want this life. Before her eyes closed, she recalled Jericho's eyes. She focused on his face, on his voice. She pictured him talking to her about books, and his confused look as she talked about The Great Gatsby. As she thought about him, his face changed, morphing from confusion to anger. She didn't want him to be angry at her, but he was so beautiful with his eyes blazing fire and his eyebrows drawn together.
Beautiful, she thought.