Chapter Thirteen
Catching a break was not something in Lorna's vocabulary, clearly. Her free hand lifted up and rested against one of her temples furiously massaging into its flesh. How the hell was she supposed to pull off coming up with some sort of an explanation that wouldn't implicate Annalisa to Nicky while the very Annalisa was in the room? She couldn't slip out of there, either, with Shani's still tending to the wound and of course the fact that she was a criminal in prison with no autonomy to leave just because she didn't want to face her problems head-on.
The only thing Lorna could do was hope to God Shani kept quiet about the information she had shared with her. She refused to get Nicky thrown into this mess she had with Annalisa. Hell, she was already risking Nicky's safety by having Nicky standing there in front of her with Annalisa just across the room with the chance of her peeking their direction and seeing such. Her hand rubbed fiercer against the temple it remained laying atop of. This had to be some sort of a hallucination or her mind playing tricks on her. She couldn't fathom how this was real. This was just her fucking luck. Absolutely her fucking luck.
Fate. This was her fate more so than her luck. Her bad choices had finally caught up to her and now she was doomed. But she couldn't understand why Nicky had to be doomed, too. Nicky was innocent in all of this. It wasn't fair that Annalisa was not only threatening her own safety but was also threatening Nicky's when Nicky hadn't done a damn thing wrong. Lorna swallowed a heaping wad of saliva, itching to make herself disappear from the room. Confrontation wasn't her strong suit. Facing reality wasn't her fucking strong suit. Honesty about dangerous conditions wasn't her strong suit, either.
Lorna had been so enthralled in her mind that she hadn't noticed the change in who was tending to her hand until she looked up and saw it was Nicky who now stood right beside her, both of her tender hands gripping onto her own. One applied pressure onto the paper-towel against her burnt hand while the other just cradled delicately around it. The Egyptian woman backed up some but still lingered a few feet away giving a concerned glance in Lorna's direction with a silent head nudge towards Nicky, who's back was to her. As if wordlessly informing Lorna to tell Nicky the same thing she had shared with her only moments prior.
Sucking down on her bottom lip, Lorna gradually shifted her eyes up onto Nicky once more. Air whistled out of her. Staring at Nicky made it easier to see the plethora of concern oozing from her face. The sight only secured a sharp pang in her chest. Guilt was quick to follow. Lorna let her teeth dig into the lip she had sucked inside of her mouth. "Don't worry about it, hon. I'm fine. Everything's fine, okay?" Lying was a natural instinct. And, in this instance, Lorna believed lying was the only way to keep Nicky out of harm's way.
Shaking her head, Nicky temporarily released one hand from underneath Lorna's injured one and used it to profusely wag at it. "How can everything be fine when ya clearly got yourself a burnt hand right here, kid? How the fuck did this happen? Please tell me ya didn't fucking burn yourself on purpose," she firmly interrogated the brunette while bringing her hand back down to once again cradle around Lorna's. A sigh came out. The questions weren't supposed to sound so anger-driven but that was exactly how they appeared to have come out.
The situation proved to only be worsening each passing second and Lorna had no clue how to talk her way out of it. And the fact Annalisa was in the nearby vicinity made the whole thing that much more challenging. The risk of Annalisa seeing the two of them together was high. Which meant the risk of Nicky's safety was also high. Lorna refused to jeopardize that any more than it already was. "I don't know, hon. I was just daydreaming and I think I mighta somehow turned the knob with my back or something. It—I didn't set out to burn my hand or nothin'."
"Even if I did believe that, which I don't, why would you have your hand physically sitting on one of the burners? Why would you put any part a your body on an object you know could easily fucking hurt you if it were to somehow be turned on?" Nicky threw out her questions. Lines scrunched up on her forehead as she tried to wrap her brain around Lorna's ludicrous explanation. The ludicrous explanation which Nicky knew for a fact wasn't anything more than utter bullshit.
Only two possibilities could explain how the burn on Lorna's hand came to be. Either Lorna intentionally caused it herself or another inmate did it to her. Neither reason made the circumstance any better. Neither were good in Nicky's mind. And, still, no matter how the burn was caused Nicky remained puzzled as to why Lorna had her hand sitting on the damn burner to begin with. At some point Lorna must have at least considered burning her hand, why the hell else would she place her hand there?
There were numerous things Lorna did that she had no explanation for. Why did she spend an entire year pretending to be in love with Vinny when secretly all she wanted was to be with Nicky? Why, after hearing of her son's death and Vinny's divorcing her, did she pretend for months that everything was okay and normal in her life? Lorna couldn't answer either of those questions. The majority of her decisions were insane and she couldn't give a reason for them—not a decent one, anyway. It had to be because of her faulty mind. That seemed to be the only plausible excuse.
Two fingers snapped right there before her eyes instinctively causing Lorna to jump out of fear the culprit was Annalisa. But Nicky was the only person standing there directly in front of her so it shouldn't have been a worry in her mind that the person who had snapped their fingers could be anyone other than Nicky. Once she composed herself, she swallowed a bout of saliva pooling around the bottom of her mouth and forced out a breath. "I don't know, hon. I just, erm, I wasn't paying attention is all. Let's just drop it, please—"
"Drop it? You want me to drop it?" Nicky echoed Lorna's statement in the form of a question.
She watched as Lorna meekly nodded her head and rapidly her heartrate began to rise. Her teeth grinded together in attempt to hide the boiling fury. The stubbornness of the woman she loved Nicky silently vowed would one day be the reason her heart pounded its way right out of her chest. An urge to slam her hands against something was strong but she had to remind herself both hands were needed to tend to Lorna's wound.
Witnessing the conversation take place from where she stood a few feet away, Shani couldn't take knowing what actually happened and keeping silent on it for any longer. She cautiously stepped forward letting her body lean against the rim of the counter separating her from the pair of them. Fingers tapped along its surface in the means to gain their attention. When both eyes were on her—Lorna's frantic and desperate for her to not say anything and Nicky's inquisitive to hear what she had to disclose—Shani swallowed down the apprehension and opened her mouth to speak.
"I'm sorry, Morello, but I can't not say anything," she cautiously started off, giving an apologetic gaze in Lorna's direction. A temporary bout of guilt came over when she saw Lorna visibly shake at her revelation. But the guilt faded soon enough. Her head turned and eyes fixed themselves sadly onto Nicky, who she could easily make out the clear frustration seeping off of. "She didn't do it to herself, Nicky. She told me that blonde girl," Shani paused for a second pointing her finger at the very blonde over near the pantry, "Damiva, did it."
Lorna's eyes widened. She finally found it within herself to squeeze her hand from out of Nicky's grasp, though it caused a throbbing ache to course through said hand immediately which she chose to ignore, and began backing slowly away from Nicky and Shani. It was a pointless move because she knew at this point there was no plausible way out of this. She already dug her grave too deep and now she had to lie in it. Panic set in and all she could do to keep herself together was focus on each breath coming in and out of her.
Nodding her head, Nicky shot a gracious glance Shani's way before returning her focus onto Lorna who she now noticed was trying to worm her way out of there. Air was drawn slowly in through her mouth. Nicky inched gently closer to Lorna and reached both of her hands to cradle protectively around Lorna's wounded one. "Kid, is there somethin' going on with you and Annalisa? Is she threatening you or some shit? You gotta tell me what's going on, okay?"
Fear intensified. Lorna turned her head scoping the area for where the infamous Annalisa was and inhaled a sharp breath. This was dangerous territory. Annalisa was far enough away to not be in earshot but she still remained in the vicinity which gave her the opportunity to observe them together if by chance she had a second to do so between whatever tasks Mendoza was giving her to complete. Gradually her eyes shifted onto Nicky once again and she felt her feet shuffle against the tiled floor.
"I plead the fifth," Lorna found herself commenting. It didn't answer Nicky's queries nor did it cause any more lies to spew from her mouth. In the moment the statement felt like the safest thing she could say. Lying to Nicky was becoming an exhausting, guilt-driven, chore. She didn't like lying to her or keeping her in the dark but she loathed even more the idea of being the reason why harm or worse could be caused to Nicky.
A deadpanned chuckle sounded through Nicky's windpipe. Her head shook distastefully, irritation flooded her veins just as blood would, however, her eyes peered with nothing other than compassion down into Lorna's. "That doesn't apply here, babe," Nicky gently told her, bringing the hand she cradled in both of hers up to her lips and delicately pressed them over its flesh in a soothing kiss. "You need to answer my questions honestly. You know how dangerous Annalisa is and if she's threatening you, I need to fucking know. Are you scared to tell me—is that why you're not being real with me, doll?" Despite the fury itching to release itself, Nicky kept her voice as soft as possible.
Again Lorna drifted her eyes back towards where she previously witnessed Annalisa's presence, making sure the inmate had still been oblivious to their conversation and when she was certain Annalisa was she returned her gaze onto Nicky. "No, she's not threatening me. She, um, she's threatening both you and me, hon. That, that's," her words gradually became muffled from the sniffles that started to force their way out of her in the midst of her response.
Lorna paused so that the sniffles would ease up enough for her to continue in a more precise manner. "I uh I didn't want ya to find out, hon, because I er I wanna protect you. I don't want anything to happen to you, Nicky—"
Arms encircled securely, protectively, around Lorna's faintly tremoring body which rapidly halted her from speaking any further. Nicky rested her head delicately against the top of Lorna's that now had been tucked into the crook of her neck. Hands rubbed soothingly along the length of her spine in a repetitive motion. "Baby, who's gonna protect you then? You can't fucking deal with this shit alone. I admire your determination but kid, come on, you know it's not safe to deal with a dangerous person like Annalisa by yourself," Nicky honestly stated, bringing Lorna even closer to her at the mere thought of Annalisa's cornering her in the prison where no one else could see them.
While Lorna realized Nicky was right she also knew if the pair of them were caught together like this by Annalisa both of them could be facing harm or possibly death. Nicky didn't understand, she told herself, because if she did she would understand why Lorna didn't tell her. She would understand why Lorna needed to do this on her own. Her own safety was of no importance—what mattered more to her was keeping Nicky in one piece. If it meant risking her life than so the hell be it. Her life was meaningless at this point anyway. If Annalisa killed her it would be a justified consequence for all the hurt and heartache she had caused Nicky.
"But, but Nicky she threatened to shiv you if-if I told ya. If she sees us together, she'll hurt you and I don't want that. Can you just pretend like this never happened? And just please go back to doing what you were doing. I don't want her to touch you, hon. I love you too much to risk your life," Lorna cried out, her eyes desperately gazing up into Nicky's. Her arms gave a quick, loving, squeeze to Nicky's neck before releasing altogether. She tried to move away but Nicky's arms did not let go of her. They only tightened and pulled Lorna even closer.
"I appreciate you wanting to protect me, doll, but believe me I can handle the bitch if she tries to come after me," Nicky softly assured the younger woman who she refused to let out of her grasp.
And she meant what she said—she could handle Annalisa's wrath, the threats and shit. Nicky knew how to fend for herself but Lorna? She shook her head. Lorna appeared too meek to fend off a person as calculating as Annalisa and there was no way in hell that Nicky would allow her to even entertain such a damn idea.
Shoulders rose up as air came in through her nose. Upon exhalation of said breath the position of her shoulders returned back to normal. Nicky kept one arm wrapped fiercely around Lorna's waist but released the other one to be able to use her hand to lovingly lift Lorna's chin with in order for their eyes to effortlessly peer directly into one another's. "I'm not going anywhere, Lorna. I know you're scared but I'm not walking away, pretending things are fine, and then giving that bitch the chance to go after you a second time."
Nicky's comment shouldn't have surprised Lorna in the slightest. Technically, it didn't. What the comment did, however, was only yield a deeper pang in Lorna's chest. This whole interaction was the reason why Lorna longed to have not had Nicky find out about her beef with Annalisa. Nicky would refuse to let her handle it alone. Nicky was refusing to allow Lorna to be the protector for once. Lorna wasn't at all worried what would happen to herself—she just wanted Nicky out of this and as far away from harm as possible. But now that seemed to be the impossible thing.
Her breath temporarily got caught up in her throat causing her to sputter into a coughing fit before finally having the ability to breathe normally again. Lorna gripped her uninjured hand pleadingly onto Nicky's arm, pulling on it until Nicky was looking her right in the eyes. "Just promise me one thing then, hon, okay?" She asked and once a nod was received, she proceeded the conversation, "Don't let Annalisa know you know. Don't threaten her back, please. I don't want her to do anything to you. I really wanted to take care a you for once, hon, and now that ya got involved I feel like I just fucking failed you again—"
"First of all," Nicky interjected with a hand being held up in Lorna's face, "you have not fucking failed me. Okay? Don't fuckin' talk like that, kid."
Eyes were sternly, yet lovingly, peering down into the shorter brunette's slightly panicky ones. The panic quickly caused Nicky to bring the hand she held in front of her face down to frame around it in a soothing manner. Fingertips caressed softly from the top of Lorna's cheek, right below her eye, all the way down to where it morphed into the jawline.
Lips fell into a disheartened frown. "You're precious for wantin' to take care of me, doll. But you can't just take on someone like Annalisa all by yourself and not tell me. We both gotta take care of each other, yeah? If we want to rebuild a relationship then we have to deal with things like this together. You can't keep this kinda shit a secret. I know it might seem like a romantic idea to you and I get that, kid, I do and in a romance novel that would be real romantic for one partner to do something like this to protect the other but this is fucking real life and prison. Not just Litchfield prison, babe, but max with women who've fucking murdered people. This keeping threats from other inmates shit to try to protect me isn't a safe decision. It could get you killed and I'm not okay with that outcome. I don't want you to put yourself in fucking danger. So don't do this again, got it?"
A timid nod of the head had been the only acknowledgement Nicky received. Nicky sighed and shook her own. She traced her thumb away from Lorna's jawline, over towards her chin using it to gently raise Lorna's head up towards her own. "I need you to use your words and promise me you won't do this shit again, yeah? This is important," she sternly commanded.
"Fine," Lorna reluctantly muttered, her lower lip inverting inwards between her teeth. Eyes closed for a moment as she huffed out a frustrated breath. "I won't do this shit again." The statement repeated in a rather deadpanned tone of voice. God forbid she take care of things for the both of them, she bitterly thought to herself. Why couldn't Nicky just let her take care of this alone? Lorna chewed violently onto her lip at the mere comment Nicky made about the romance book shit. That wasn't at all why Lorna wanted to keep Nicky out of it. This wasn't just some damn secret romantic fantasy she had. She truly, whole-fucking-heartedly, wanted to protect Nicky for one damn time.
Lorna swallowed down the troubling thoughts and worked hard not to allow any of them to come out. She was in no mood to start an argument with Nicky. It wasn't like Nicky said any of that out of wanting to pick a fight with her, she calmly reminded herself. A sigh exited out of her. She looked down at the ground noticing how filthy it was and physically shuddered. It left her feeling somewhat grateful she wasn't the one having to eat the slop prepared in that kitchen.
Nodding, Nicky sighed out of relief and felt safe enough to tuck Lorna's head back against her chest. Her arms squeezed tight around her body for a long, quiet, moment. She pressed her forehead softly on the top of Lorna's head keeping it in its spot and sighed a second time. "Good girl. We'll both take care of and protect each other. No more keeping secrets, either of us," she mumbled against the brown hair spilling onto her lips from the way her face was positioned. "I love you so fucking much, baby," the declaration whispered gently so that no one other than the woman in her arms could hear.
Despite the frustration, Lorna settled into the embrace and allowed her own arms to encircle around Nicky's upper torso. Her face pressed deeper into Nicky's chest and she lovingly let her lips peck against it. "I love ya more, hon."
Late in the night—some might consider it the wee hours of the morning—Lorna found herself unable to sleep as she lie on her bed staring wide-eyed up at the metal of the top bunk covering her bottom one. The snoring of her bunk-mate only added to her difficulty of being overcome by sleep. It sounded like the woman had transformed into a damn freight train with how god-forsakenly loud her nose snorting was. Lorna exhaled a deep breath and placed a hand on either side of her cheek, smashing them both inwards to display how much she loathed this current situation she was in.
Eerie footsteps suddenly were heard outside of the cell. Lorna felt her throat constrict slightly and a thick formation of saliva came to be at the tip of the inside of her mouth. She reached for the wool blanket bringing it as far up as it would go without tearing any of the stitches. It covered the entirety of her body with only her eyes barely peeping out over the top of it. She hoped the footsteps were just one of the COs patrolling the cell-block but the knot which had melded into her gut told her otherwise. She despised her gut for always being right in making her worry. She didn't want the footsteps to belong to anyone besides a CO. Especially not Annalisa.
The steps grew nearer and the knot in Lorna's gut deepened tremendously. Something about it made her skeptical the person outside of her cell wasn't just one of the officers'. When said person finally came to the doorway of her cell, by the sound of a hand tapping against the opened wooden frame of it, Lorna found her suspicion to be confirmed. It was certainly not a CO walking about but none other than Annalisa. Annalisa who now stood leaning against the open door to Lorna's cell peering in at her with the darkest of eyes. Of course, Lorna thought. Of course, she bit down on her tongue, of fucking course it was Annalisa.
Her meek self wasn't going to get her anywhere. She needed to stop coming across so damn meek and timid. Lorna knew that was one of the more prominent reasons she had gotten into the situation to begin with. The meek and timid in prison were always the ones to easily gain the attention of the sickest of inmates first. Even her brother and sister had warned her of that right before her trial almost three years prior now.
"What do ya want, Damiva?" Lorna tried to sound confident but deep down the fear was eating every last one of her nerves. Her gut was twisting and turning with apprehension as to why the blonde could possibly have come to her cell in the middle of the night. Had she dug herself further into a pit with her by speaking to her in such a callous tone?
That was entirely why Lorna couldn't be anything besides meek and timid. Those were just part of her natural characteristics and to go against them felt incredibly strange and vastly difficult. Made her worry even more for the consequences of being so bold towards whoever happened to be on the receiving end of it.
Taking joy watching Lorna sit on her bed in fear the way she was now, Annalisa didn't say anything immediately off the bat. Instead she continued to just stand where she was, her back resting against the charcoal door, eyes not once moving from Lorna's. Lips gradually formed into a smirk the longer she stayed observing the brunette. The blatantly terrified brunette. She drew in a breath while lifting her arms and folding them up over her chest. The hold Annalisa knew she had over Lorna was thrilling to her. Like the high heroin and meth used to provide her with.
Allowing several unnerving moments to pass—mostly unnerving for Lorna than herself—Annalisa slowly glided her way towards the brunette stopping right near the edge of her bed. The perfect spot to have easy access to reach over and touch a hand to one of Lorna's cheeks. She wasn't gentle about it, either, harshly grabbing at it and forcing Lorna's face to turn towards her own. When their eyes met, Annalisa's smirk widened. "Me and you need to have a little chat, Morello. Come with me," she spoke calmly despite the menacing expression lurking in the back of her blue eyes.
Lorna didn't even have the chance to protest with the rough sensation of her body being forced up by Annalisa's grabbing a hard hold of her hand and all but yanking her out of the bed. She could hardly even process what the hell was going on from how fast she had to walk to keep up with the taller inmate's speedy pace.
It wasn't until they were entering inside of a familiar closet that Lorna finally could take in a sufficient amount of air again. Annalisa's grip had released—but in a rather violent way that naturally caused Lorna's body to clunk down against the hard floor—and Lorna timidly sat right where she fell, pressing her spine into the wall directly in back of it. She placed a hand onto her chest to try to help her racing heart to slow back down into a normal rhythm again.
Eyes were wide with trepidation and slowly did she avert them up onto the blonde who seemed to be towering over her. "What do you want?" The words came out between breaths of air. This whole ordeal was incomprehensible to her. She couldn't figure out how Annalisa was able to get away with walking the cell-block in the wee hours of the morning let alone come into her cell without a single CO stopping her. Unless Annalisa somehow paid them off. Which also didn't make sense to Lorna because where the fuck would she get money from?
The changing expression on her face brought a chuckle out of Damiva. She reached down and grabbed onto the neck-hole of Lorna's shirt using that to force her back up. She hadn't released her grasp only tightened it when Lorna was standing in front of her. "I warned ya not to talk to Nichols, didn't I? I made that pretty fuckin' clear."
How calm Annalisa's voice always appeared to be left an uncomfortable sensation in Lorna's gut. She couldn't understand why Annalisa spoke so calmly yet had some of the evilest intentions. Maybe that had something to do with why she had been in max this entire time and not Litchfield. Annalisa must have been a sociopath of some sort. A possible murderer? Lines creased up in wonderment upon Lorna's forehead. She both wanted to know what the blonde had done to get sentenced to max but also didn't want to know because it would only worsen her fear of her.
A thickness was felt in Lorna's throat and the increasing saliva hadn't done a thing to ease said sensation in the slightest. She swallowed numerous times but the feeling remained. Eyes shifted away from Annalisa; staring at her only made the thickness worse. Either her life was about to come to an end by the hands of the blonde standing before her or it was going to be shared with her that something had been done to her beloved Nicky. No matter which occurred it wouldn't make the agony any weaker.
Lorna felt a faint constriction in her throat from how tight of a grasp Annalisa had on the collar of her shirt. She wanted desperately to push herself away from the taller inmate but she couldn't find the strength to accomplish such a task. "Please just leave Nicky outta this. She's innocent. You can do whatever ya want to me just don't touch Nicky, please." Desperation intensely inflected through her voice as she all but begged for the love of her life's life.
The despairing pleads innately led a chuckle to squeak through Annalisa's windpipe. She released her hand from Lorna's shirt collar and brought it over to grasp around one of her cheeks instead. With a violent gesture she used her hold on Lorna's cheek to forcefully move her face back in direction of her own. Her other hand raised up in front of Lorna's face, waving it in her eyes, showing her a familiar butter knife. Particularly the butter knife she caught Lorna using to cut herself with just several days earlier.
"Oh, god, Morello—I haven't even talked to your damn precious little Nicky," she mockingly assured her, lips remaining in the smirk they had settled into immediately after her previous snicker.
Momentary relief slid through her veins. It was short lived once she realized what Annalisa was dangling before her very eyes. The same butter knife she had snatched from the ICE kitchen to slice through her skin in this very closet the evening Annalisa barged in on her and started this whole thing between them. Lorna's eyes widened vastly.
Annalisa laughed once more, touching the tip of the butter knife to Lorna's chin. "Thought ya might like seeing this," she stated patting her palm against the flattened part of the knife. For a brief second her eyes darted towards the door then right back onto Lorna. "I had something a little different in mind. Since ya can't seem to follow orders and want to be with Nichols so bad then I think she oughta know the truth about you. You're Emo Morello."