Orange is the New Black: A New Life

by hocktrekker

This is a work of fanfiction based on the Netflix series Orange is a New Black. The story begins at the point the series ended. I do not intend to make any money from this endeavor. If you make any comments, please do so. I enjoy relevant feedback and critiques. I apologize for any mistakes in any foreign language, especially my Spanish. Please let me know of the proper usage.

1. Chapter 1

Orange is the New Black: A New Life

Chapter 1 - Alex

Once, I was a rockstar. I moved heroin and money all over the world with ease. I lived well, ate well, partied hard, and soared. Now, I'm nothing. Well, not nothing. In truth, I am a class A bonafide felon. A convict.

Yes, that's right. I'm a fucking con, a con who has fucked over her life with more bad choices than a drunk taking a nap face down in a gutter during a monsoon. Even here, in prison, I haven't got it right, so now I am sitting on my bunk, waiting, alone.

I've given all of my possessions, what few I have, shampoo, a sliver of soap, black eye-liner, and such to Nichols; I guess you can say she's my best friend; actually, the only friend I have left in this dismal place. I have some funds left in my commissary. I've filled out the paperwork to have those funds, $23.01 total, transferred to FDC Cleveland, my new home for the next three or so years. I don't know how long the money will last as it will need to replace everything I gave away. Otherwise, I have nothing left, except for the manilla envelope filled with Piper's reasons she loved me, each written on a slip of paper; one slip for each week remaining of my incarceration. Then there's the wedding ring I still wear on my left hand. The ring, I twist it. My emotions catch, about to spill over. I've done that enough. I stare at it. It's not really a ring. It's makeshift, a fantasy fashioned by Nichols or Lorna, probably Nichols; it had been a large paperclip she or someone else found in some forgotten law book in the prison library. It transfixes me and as I spiral and slide into a cascading depression, I can only reflect on the total chasm my failure has dug.

I had the girl. Piper chose me. After all of the shit and fights and pain we had caused one another, I loved her and she loved me. She had asked me to marry her in Frieda's bunker as the riot above came to its violent end. I made her dream, no, our dream, come true the day she left. Nickols married us. Lorna was our witness, and then Flaca and Black Cindy, when they came into the Rec Room to set up for their radio show. However, my insecurities finally gave into Correctional Officer McCullough's flirtations. I cheated and then when McCollough spilled the beans and told Piper to let me go, Piper ran to the arms of the one woman I feared would take her away from me.

I called wanting to explain, but when Piper didn't answer, I knew that the worst of my fears had come true. It was the next morning when she finally answered her phone. I asked if she was at Zelda's. Her lack of response told me the truth. I didn't want to hash it out over the phone so I told her to come see me. She did, but she was late. It had been her bus, she said. It didn't come so she had to wait for a later one. The prison was going to cut the phones off and I went for the jugular. "How many times did you fuck her?"

"Just once. After I found out about you and the guard," she replied, emphasizing the pejorative title of CO McCullough. "How many times did you and her?" She stopped herself. She didn't really want an answer. She asked about the phone chargers McCullough had forced me to sell. Had that been the truth? I tried to explain, but again, she didn't want to hear me. She couldn't handle any more lies. "We have to be honest with each other," she said

"Okay," I agreed. I told her to ask me anything and I'd tell her the truth.

"Do you have feelings for her?" The sadness she had hidden beneath her anger slipped through.

I could see she was fearful of my impending response. I shook my head.

"Then why did you do it?"

"I think I was trying to protect myself because your life is out there now and I was scared that you would leave me," I said.

"Why would you think that?"

"Part of me always knew it was a possibility because when things get hard it's easier for you to leave."

"That's not fair."

"It wouldn't be the first time, Pipes."

"I don't believe that about myself."

My memory flashed back to the day I had heard from my aunt that my mom had died; it was the day Piper left me. I know it was because she was angry; I had broken my promise to her, twice. Piper no longer trusted me. She couldn't stay with me; she didn't. I watched as she pulled her suitcase and left our Parisian hotel room; then again early in our renewed relationship at the camp, even though she confessed her love for me, she had chosen to marry fucking Larry until he called iit off. Then again when we hashe was going through her gangsta phase with fucking Stella.

Memories of the pain and my distrust still resided in my marrow. Perhaps she thought I had worked through those feelings. I told her I had.

"So," she asked, "how do we solve it? I can't spend the next three years like this. How do I show you you don't need to be afraid?"

"You tell me you don't have feelings for Zelda."

She hesitated and finally admitted, "I can't lie to you." My heart broke. "So what are we supposed to do now? Is this something we can survive?"

"I don't know," I barely held back my tears.

"No matter what happens, Alex, I want you to-" and at the moment the phone went dead.

Visitation was over. The guards ordered us back to our blocks. The other inmates were getting up and leaving. Frankly, I couldn't take any more. I stood up to go. Piper knocked on the glass that separates visitors from the monkeys in the zoo with the black hand receiver she held. I stopped and turned back.

"I could never stop loving you," she said through the glass. Tears pooled in her eyes.

It didn't matter. At that moment, there was nothing either of us could do. Fighting to hold back my tears, I returned to my cell block and for the rest of the day stayed on my bed. Life was a fucking mess! Then, McCullough brought me the notice.

This whole fucking mess is McCullough's fault: the cell phones, the provocative undergarment she wore under her blue C.O. uniform shirt to carry the chargers, her confrontation with Piper at her brother's apartment, her telling me Piper was cheating after I had ended our affair.

I had waited in the supply closet. McCullough finally came in, late, apologizing for missing our meeting the previous day. She was tall like me, but with blonde hair, like Piper. Actually she was Piper's height, just a little shorter than my six foot length.

Before the riot and Piper's release I had barely noticed McCullough. Afterwards, she made me sell phone chargers for her. I felt sorry for her. Being violated by Maria and her flunkies in front of the vocal women crammed in the auditorium, and her imprisonment during the riot had given her extreme PTSD. She hated her job. She hated the inmates. So I said I would help her until she had paid off some debts she had. She smuggled the changes into the prison under her uniform blouse in a vest that resembled a corset. She increasingly wore sexy undergarments, which she flaunted as she stripped off her shirt and then the vest with the chargers. I admired the large tattoo of Texas that covers her back. She had been quick to tell me that she wasn't from Texas though. She said it meant "Hello, friend" in the Caddo language, which she had learned while studying Native American cultures as a child.

"It was crazy out there. You should have seen how many chargers we seized," she said when she finally arrived.

I halted her exposition. "We need to stop."

"I totally agree." She thought I meant smuggling the chargers into the prison.

"No, I mean all of it.

"You mean us?"

"We are not an us," I had to rectify my fucking mistake. I felt awful about what I was doing to Piper.

"What about what you said in the shower?" she whined. It is where I had fucked her for the second and final time.

"I'm sorry I made you feel like it's something it's not."

"You know this is real," she said adamantly. She had elevated our affair to something it was not."

I said as gently as I could, "Maybe it could be if things were different, but I am married."

"To someone who can't be with you. What kind of marriage is that?"

"I don't know, but it's the marriage I'm in and what we're doing is not fair to Piper or to you."

"Bullshit!" She elevated her voice.

"Keep your voice down."

"You don't have to do this."

It was. I loved Piper. "I'm sorry."

I had tried to let her down easy and as I walked away I felt bad about leading her on, using her to soothe my own anxieties. I knew she was upset, but I had never thought she would go and confront Piper and tell her about us. I didn't learn about what she'd done until the next morning when she sent word for me to meet her in the closet.

"Thanks for coming," she had said, closing the door behind her.

I hadn't wanted to meet her, but I told her I had come because I knew she was in pain. I went on, "I'm sorry that I'm responsible, but I haven't changed my mind."

"I know you think we shouldn't be seeing each other any more, but it's because you won't let yourself be happy." Happy? Piper made me amazingly happy. I loved her. "You know you actually make me look forward to coming in this horrible place and I know you feel something, too. I've seen how you look at me."

"I have a wife." Whom I love very much, I should have added. I want to be with her.

"Why do you keep punishing yourself over and over again when you know you're never going to be enough for her?"

Her words fed my doubts and insecurities. "I can't listen to this, I'm leaving." I started for the door, but she stopped me.

"She's going to leave you. She was always going to. You know that. You know it in your heart." I walked around her and was almost at the door when she blurted, "She's seeing someone else."

I'd had enough and turned back to let her know. "You don't know that." I kept my anger in check.

"I saw them at her apartment last night. I wasn't planning to confront her, but when I saw what she was doing-"

Grabbing McCullouch's shirt, I slammed her back against the shelf of cleaning supplies. "Are you out of your fucking mind?" She stood sobbing. "You stay away from my wife."

Back in my cell, I used my illegal phone to call Piper. The rest is history.

So, Piper had come and I had left more depressed than ever. I needed to fix what was happening. I knew Piper loved me, She'd told me that and I didn't doubt her. I believe Piper has always loved me, just as I have always loved her. She's a phenomenal woman. Often irritating,narcissistic, needing to control events, but also fun, smart, caring, loving, fantastic in bed, full of contradictions. I need her. I want her in my life. She'd done that seven years ago and more recently, twice, through her journeys with Larry, her former fiance, and Stella, her fucking business partner with priviledges, had been complicated. Hell, I'd had my share of complex relationships as well; I remembered Sylvie, who I had left when I met Piper. All the twists, meanderings. The labyrinthine of our lives and relationships. Absently, I reflected on our histories as I sat on my bed.

McCullough entered my cell. "I told you to leave me alone!" I said angrily. "I thought I was pretty clear about that."

"Yeah. You were," she replied without emotion. "So I did you a favor. You're being transferred to another prison."

"You can't do that," I took the transfer order from her outstretched hand. "Are you crazy? You can't do that." I followed her as she left my cell. "I have to stay in New York. I have to be near my wife."

Before I could reach her or the door, McCullough turned and slammed her baton against the bars. "Back in your bunk!" she ordered, her eyes ablaze. "I think you might have forgotten where you were, inmate."

This is revenge. I know it. I'd told her I was done with what we were doing. Now, she's made sure that Piper and I can never see each other. We can never reconcile. Cleveland's hundreds of miles away. Piper can't drive that far. Fuck, she doesn't even have a car. Phone calls are too expensive. I have no money? Prison pay is only twelve cents an hour. And, there may be no way to even get a job. What's even available in Cleveland? Cleaning crew? Landscaping? Laundry? I'll never have the money to call her. That's why in the end, I gave Pipes her freedom. She didn't want it, but I set her free anyway. Now. I am lost. I am a void. I am–

"Inmate!"

I nearly jump, but don't when McCullough's almost commanding voice wrenches me from my musings. I push the bridge of my glasses tighter against my face.

"Come on," she motions.

Why her? Why not Copeland, Blake, Dixon, hell even Hellman would be better, but he's the warden now. He doesn't do such trifling duties. What the fuck! I want to scream. Instead I take a deep breath and I guess that takes too much time and McCullough comes into my cell and grabs my arm.

"Don't you fucking touch me!" I snarl and pull away.

"Stand down, inmate!" She takes her baton. She is poised to strike me. After a beat, she lowers her weapon and pulls handcuffs from her belt.

She spins me so that I face her and she slaps the cuffs on my wrists. They bite into my skin. "What the fuck? Are you trying to cut the blood flow from my hands?" I know they'll leave bruises.

"It didn't have to come to this," she says so only I can hear. "I loved you."

"I don't love you."

"Yeah. You love your wife."

"I do."

"Arms out!" I hesitate. "Now!" she growls. Her hand touches her baton. I do as ordered. She takes my mattress, pillow, blanket, and stacks them on my arms. She clamps my upper right arm in a vice-like grip and forcefully pulls me from my cell.

The C-block denizens have been watching the unexpected drama play out. They share whispers and gossip. Speculation abounds as to what is happening and why as we pass and I go into the hall. Some get it. I hear one gal say, "I saw them in the shower."

"Really?"

"Left immediately. No one saw me."

"... rape …"

We enter the hall and start our walk to Processing. "I hear she left you for that smoking ginger woman I saw her with." McCullough gloats.

My look says, Shut the fuck up!

"I'm sure she puts a smile on your wife's face," she continued, accenting "wife" in a condescending way. "See, you should have stayed with me."

I don't take her bait.

"Did you really expect her to stay once she found out you cheated?" I grit my teeth. "I saw that she came to see you after I gave you your transfer notice. Was that when she told you to fuck off?"

I want to punch her. I want to yell, I set her free, you bitch! I told her to go. I told her that I wanted my freedom. Fuck that! I didn't want my freedom. I wanted; no, I don't want my freedom. I want Piper. I want her so badly. I want to hold her, to hug her so tightly that we merge into a single being. I want to feel her kisses. I want to kiss her so deeply that I possess her.

"You know, I can forgive you," McCullough's voice softens.

"Forgive me?" I stop. We are in a part of the corridor with no doors. It is empty.

"The sex we had was so good. The way you touched me. The way you kissed me."

"You still don't get it. I never meant to use you or hurt you, but I missed Piper. I got off on you because, because," I lie because I I don't know, "I pretended that you were her."

"That's not true."

Tears pop into her eyes and I am sorry to have caused them, but I'm not really. She is the reason I am leaving New York. She is the reason I've destroyed Piper.

She insists, "You love me."

"No, I love Piper. I always have and I always will."

McCullough flicks the tears from her cheeks and her pained look flares. "Fuck you!" Her hand grabs my arm, her nails piercing. She yanks and without another word my forced march resumes.

We pass B-Block and I sneak a peek. I see crazy Lolly sitting with Suzanne, Crazy Eyes in their pink prison-issue, at one of the tables, talking. Poor Lolly. More regrets. More guilt.

Back at camp, she'd found Aiyden, Kubra's hitman, choking me with his belt in the greenhouse where I had volunteered to finish putting the tools away after our shift. My murder was punishment for having testified against Kubra in Chicago. She'd kicked him off me. As I caught my breath and rubbed my throat, she continued to kick him and smash his face with her prison-issued boot. Maybe it would have been better if Aiyden had killed me. Piper would definitely be safe and Lolly wouldn't have confessed to his murder, a murder she did not commit. Later that evening, when everyone was asleep, I feigned needing to use the toilet and snuck back to where Lolly and I had hidden his "body". Seeing him unable to move, but staring at me with large open eyes, I took the toilet paper I had used as a prop to get by the guard, rolled it around my hand, and smothered him. In the morning, Lolly and I found Frieda Berlin, one of Red's gardening friends, standing over the body she had uncovered. She helped Lolly and I dismember his corpse and bury it under the newly planted tomatoes in the prison garden. Lolly never knew what I did and went to Psyche at our camp's maximum security facility down the hill.

Lolly still fills my thoughts when we enter Processing. McCullough takes the bedding from my arms and throws it into a large cream canvas industrial laundry cart. I pull my envelope close. She drags me into Holding. Holding is nothing more than a room with a cage with thick bars and two benches. It isn't big and it already has four other inmates, including Aleida Diaz.

At the camp Aleida Diaz, not to be confused with her daughter Dayanara, whom everyone calls Daya, was a resident of Spanish Harlem. She is a petite woman in her late-thirties. Her hair is brown and hangs below her shoulders. She wears the khaki uniform of D-Block, a contrast to the dark blue of C-Block where I have been housed. After Red lost control of the kitchen back down at camp, Diaz worked there with Mendoza and the rest of the Spanish Harlem in-crowd. Since I worked in the laundry and then in landscaping, I only saw her on the line where she dished out whatever slop was being served in the cafeteria. In MAX, I haven't seen her at all. I'd heard that a week or so ago, she tried to kill Daya – I don't know why – and that she'd been taken to the Secure Housing Unit, affectionately known as the SHU.

She is currently shouting at CO Stefanovic. "I want to know what's going on? No one's told me nothing! I have rights!"

"At least you've got a quiet one," Stefanovic tells McCullough. He is tall and athletically built, with a dark complexion. He unlocks the cage.

"Yeah, but she's a mother fucker," McCullough replies with a laugh, acting like she's one of the guys. "We're kicking her ass to Ohio." She shoves me inside without removing my cuffs.

CO Dixon enters. An older black woman wearing pink with dark utilitarian glasses and hard eyes walks with him. I don't remember seeing her before. Except for those from the old camp up the hill, I don't know any of the old timers in Florida, the name given to the B-Block because that is where the elderly, psyche patients, trannies, and before Carol and Barb's self-inflicted murders, those in need to extra protection are housed. Dixon adds his inmate to the crowding cell. "Why's Vause still in cuffs?" he asks

"Assaulted a CO," McCullough stares at me as she lies.

"Well, perhaps you deserved it," Aleida says to McCulloch and then the rest of the guards. "The way you treat us. I gotta see my daughter. She needs me."

Stefanovic slams the cage shut. "Young barely stopped you from killing her. I think he should have let you. She's a fuckin' guard killer."

Still hugging my manilla envelope closely, I ease towards the right side and lean against the wall; I hate being crowded like this.

"I said, I have rights," Aleida moves towards the door.

McCullough hits the cell door with her baton. "Shut the fuck up, inmate! "

Diaz's rich brown eyes blaze. "My daughter is in Medical."

"You put her there," Stefanovic replies.

"She needed disciplining," Diaz explains. "You all know," she stares at the guards. "You know and you turn aside."

"Know what?" asks McCullouch.

"This smuggling shit," Diaz explains.

McCullouch does her best to look innocent. She's not very good at it. She looks at me knowing that I could rat her out.

Diaz keeps on with her accusation, "And you got her hooked. She used to be sweet. Drawing and talking about boring shit. Now, since she's come in here, she's just an evil junkie and you – this place made her like this. You! You beat her. It wasn't her fault that Humps bastard had a gun. She was defending herself."

"She had the gun. He was on his knees," McCullough challenges. Daya had pointed the gun at her as well, or so she told me.

"Why did he have a gun? Huh? He wanted to shoot someone. Maybe shoot more than someone, maybe all of us. You treated us like shit!"

"That's because that is what you are," counters Stefanovic.

"That might be true, but not my Daya. She was sweet and I – I don't even recognise her any more and now she's bringing her little sisters into her operation. I can't let her do that. I might be a bad mother, but fuck. This place's already ruined one kid, I ain't gonna let her or it or you ruin any more!"

"Well, little mami," replies Garza, "you ruined your chance of doing that. Hellman's gonna fly your ass to the other side of this fuckin' country. Your kids'll probably be dead by the time you ever get back to New York again."

"Hell, both of you might be dead," McCullough laughs and slaps Stefanovic on the shoulder and shoots a snarky glance in my direction.

At this Diaz rages, flinging herself at the door. "Fuck you!" she yells at the top of her voice. "Fuck you to hell!"

The COs leave laughing and bantering with one another. The six of us are left to our own devices.

Time flies or inches by. I believe I have been in this cage for hours, but maybe it also could have been only a handful of minutes. The lights are always on and the room has no windows. Diaz paces and yells though no one responds. My stomach grumbles. Lunch passes, so does dinner. We've had no food, no water. Fine, because we only have one filthy metal toilet. So far, only the old thin black woman has given up her dignity and used it.

At first I stand, then sit. The COs bring several more prisoners and add them to the cage. How many transfers are taking place? This wave is mostly from Florida, including one who looks to be a hundred years old with short frizzy gray-white hair, a Pennsylvania Dutch apple face and half a dozen broken teeth. She looks spaced out, like she is on a psychotic or has dementia or Alzheimer's. She walks unevenly and leans against C.O. Dennis for support. I give her the piece of real estate on the bench I have been using. "Here," I guide her. The woman stares blindly into my eyes. Then gives me a sweet little smile and toddles to where I have been resting my ass, and sits.

I walk over to where Diaz has come to rest. She is leaning against the cell door, talking mostly to herself. I lean against the bars and hold the manilla envelope to my chest."

"What you doin' here?" she snaps.

"Transfer." I say quietly.

"Where's your blonde girlfriend?"

"Out."

After a moment of contemplation, she nods. "Good for her," she speaks quietly, but as she continues her voice rises in volume. "Some bitches have all the privileges. Get to be with their families. Hey! Get me outta here! I gotta be with my daughter!" She is back on her rant, at least for a few minutes. Then she quiets again. Leaning her head on the bars she waits. We all wait. Some have whispered conversations wondering what's happening, asking about friends in other blocks. Those conversations ebb. Women who have seats on the benches lean back and close their eyes. The old woman who has my seat, her head droops. Others start sitting on the floor. A couple curl into balls and snooze.

I stay silent, stand, lean against the bars. I hug my envelope. My mind reviews in loops of varying lengths the many ways I've fucked my life up. I close my eyes, more to keep anyone from seeing the liquid I know is pooling in them. One tear escapes and I quickly brush it away. My nose starts to run. I have nothing to wipe it with except the sleeve of the white undershirt I wear to keep the polyester of my blue shirt from making my skin raw. I use it to wipe my nose. We keep waiting. I keep standing. I bend my knees and lift my feet. Diaz has let herself sink to the cold gray concrete. I surreptitiously remove a slip from my envelope. Piper's handwriting. The way you giggle when you fart. I've read this one several times since I broke up with her and I can remember the times we joked about my giggling farts and farting in general. I put the slip back in the envelope and take another. The smoldering way your eyes draw me to you when you want me to come. My eyes linger on it. I replace it and take another and then another. I should probably stop doing this. It is definitely not helping my depression, but I'm addicted and cannot stop. I need to see her writing and the reasons she loved me. Many are about sex. God I love having sex with that girl. Having sex with her, touching her boobs, kissing her, making her come, talking to her, sharing my world with her, loving her, wishing I was with her, sitting next to her, having lunch with her, having sex in the chapel, having sex in Lolly's time machine, sleeping outdoors in a backhoe, snuggling together in a bunk, having sex in the closets, having sex during the riots, yes, trying to hook up in a shower, wishing she were with me instead of helping Taystee with riot stuff and art installations, fucking, holding hands, fearing for our lives when Piscatella kidnapped the family, tortured Red, and broke my arm, playing chess and cards, walking together, taking stupid magazine quizzes about peaking, loving her. Fuck! I love her so much! Why did I ruin everything? I flick a tear, sniff quietly, and wipe my nose.

"What's that?" asks Diaz.

"Gift from my wife," I say without thinking.

"So you got married?" She points at the paperclip ring on my left hand.

"Prison married, yeah."

"It's a fucking paperclip."

"That's all we had."

"What'cha going to do?"

"Fucked it up."

She stares at me. Finally, she says, "Shit happens."

I close the top of the envelope. I am going to bawl.

"I seen you two enough. You fight. You make up. That's what you do. That's life," she says to me. "That's me and Daya," she looks out beyond the bars. "We're family. She gotta know I only did what I did 'cause I'm her mother. I gotta make her see, get her to change before she kills herself or ruins her little sisters or brother. I love her, but it's so hard to say. They come into your lives as little cute babies and you love them, but they also ruin your life. They full of shit and contradictions. They go from sweet and while that drives you crazy, it's better than bein' mean and a gangster. Daya's a gangster now. She got worse. Maybe it's all the shit. Bennett fuckin' her. Her fucking Pornstache so Bennet wouldn't lose his job, and then Bennett leaving her. I know that broke her. It had to. She'd trusted that guy. Then she shot that guard. Now she sells and takes drugs. I miss my sweet, head full a' shit Daya. What could I have done? I don't know." She rambles more. I listen. It is all rhetorical and there are no answers. Slowly, like a wind up doll she peters out.

I lift my legs and squat. Damn my legs are tired. The benches have no more room. Maybe I should have kept my seat. No, my butt had been going numb, plus the old woman needed it more than me. She couldn't have stayed standing this long nor should she be forced to sit on the concrete floor. She's dozing now, her head tilted back against the wall. Those without a bench have sunk to the floor like Diaz. Perhaps, I should do the same, but the floor looks hard and cold and dirty. I wonder when the girls in janitorial cleaned here last? Perhaps it was yesterday or perhaps it never is really clean. So, I stand and I stand and I stand forever. My stomach growls. Suddenly, I have to pee.

I look at the toilet. Women on the floor block my path. I would need to step over them to get there. Do I really have to pee that badly? No. I don't want to pee. Thinking about peeing, now I have to pee even more. Why is that so? Perhaps I'll simply wipe the urge from my mind by willing it. Stop thinking about it. Yea, like that's really going to happen. I can't do that. I have too many thoughts. A kaleidoscope of thoughts and regrets and wishes that will never come true. And now I have to pee. I really need to –

"Up bitches!" Someone slaps a baton against the door jam leading into the holding area. CO Garza enters along with COs Copeland, Alvarez, Dixon, Stefanovic, Dennis, and, I cannot believe it, McCullough. She is back. Why? Is she working overtime? Alvarez, Garza, and McCullough have their batons out. Garza smashes his forcefully against the cell door.

"What the fuck!" Diaz cries out and shakes the fingers on her right hand.

"I said get up!"

Copeland sings, "It's time to go bye bye."

The women immediately erupt with questions as they shake off sleep and drowsiness. A couple of pink attired women help the centenarian looking dementia slamming baton has frightened her. She is screaming as she tries to rise from the bench and has fallen. They are also yelling at the guards.

"Where are we going?"

"Why do you always have to be so mean?"

"No one's told me anything."

"I have to stay. My daughter's here. My kids! You can't do this. You can't take me from my kids!"

Nervously, I watch the women with me, the baton wielding COs, especially McCullough who keeps glancing in my direction as I help the pink ladies with the old woman. "It's alright," I say to the old woman. I don't like the look in McCullough's expression. Then my eye catches CO Alvarez. He has a tripod and a camera case. He disappears into the processing area.

"Back back," CO Copeland waves the guards off. "Okay gentlemen, we can take it from here." Copeland is short and squat with a double chin. She has ginger hair, which she wears tied back in a tight assed bun. She is really pale with red cheeks. "Up, up ladies. Your bus has radioed. It's only a few minutes out. Time to get going." She opens the cage.

Diaz pulls herself up using the bars framing the door. Holding my envelope to my chest I look around. Some of the women, legs and back dead and achy from sitting so long on the benches and concrete floor are struggling to stand. I reach out a hand to a small black woman with cornrows whose leg goes out from numbness and almost falls.

"Thank you,"she says.

"Sure," I nod.

She walks out with a couple of others, a younger black woman who is a little on the hefty size and a Latina of the same height and weight. All are quiet and subdued, except Aleida, who is again wanting to know where she is going. "I can't go anywhere. I got kids. I gotta make sure they don't screw up their lives."

"You mean like you?" Garza retorts.

The centenarian woman plops back on the bench.

"Come on, guys," I hear Copeland say to the male guards. Why are they even here? I know the answer to that. Naked women. We have to strip for inspection. These guys are shameless. "Get out. You know you can't be here when we do the strip search."

"Hey," I reach out to the old woman. It takes a few beats before the woman acknowledges my presence. "We have to go."

"Go?" she asks, totally lost. "I do have to go." She stands unsteadily to her feet and totters to the toilet. She pulls her pants down, sits, and pees.

I look away to give her some privacy, but when she finishes, I decide that I will relieve myself, too.

"Hurry up!" McCullough orders. She is looking right at me.

"This woman needs help. The woman struggles to stand. She really needs a walker. Why doesn't she have a walker? Her pants remain down around her ankles.

"I'll help," says Dennis. "How you doin', Betsy?" She uses the woman's first name, a rarity. She pulls the woman's pants up. "You gotta come with me." She guides the old woman out of the cell.

"You, too, Vause," McCullough gestures with her baton.

"I just want to pee first."

"You should have gone earlier."

"I didn't want to step on anyone." I motioned to where my exiting cellmates had been sitting and laying down.

"Get out!"

"I have a right to use the bathroom."

She gets into my face. "You only have the rights I say you have!"

I stare at her. My bladder is about to explode. I step towards the toilet.

McCullough grabs my right arm and yanks.

I stumble and catch myself, but as I turn from the bench on my left, her baton smashes hard against my right shin. The force of the blow radiates up my leg. Before I can do anything a second and a third blow connect. "Stop!" I yell as I fall. A fourth strikes my shoulder and arm. I hit the bench with my left hip and the floor with my left knee. In total humiliation, my bladder fails me and releases its contents. Then, as if this attack and the humiliating consequences aren't enough, she snags my envelope, which somehow has stayed in my hand. She opens the flap and shakes Piper's messages into the toilet. "You won't be able to take these with you."

"No, you can't do that! Those are mine!" I cry with desperation as I scramble to grab her arm to pull it away from the toilet. "That's all I have left."

She turns and slams her baton against my right side and then she hits me hard a second, third, fourth, and fifth time; then, she flushes the toilet. She tosses the envelope to the floor. "Now, get up!" She demands, her baton poised to beat me some more.

When I hesitate, she strikes me across my back, whack, whack. I fall. She kicks my side and yells Piscatella's go to lines, "You're a fuckin' criminal and you're going to do what I tell you! You got me! I'm in charge! Me! Not you! You got –"

Several COs race in and pull her off me. "Calm down, McCullough.".

"Don't let the PSD get –" Dixon says as Garza and Stepfanovic yell for her to stop.

McCullough comes to her senses and the assault ends as does her screaming.

Copeland is standing in front of the cage again. She says nothing. Garza sees her and explains, "Vause had an accident."

"Yeah," agree Stefanovic, Dennis, and Alvarez.

McCullouch nods, "Vause fell and peed all over herself."

The COs, who have agreed on their story, wait to see Copeland's reaction. My fellow felons, only stare and exchange quick glances as they take in the tableau that consists of me on the ground in a puddle of my urine and McCullough standing over me with her weapon still at the ready and a hank of my hair in her other clenched hand.

"I guess so. Let's go. The bus's going to be here soon. Let's go," Copeland turns the rubberneckers away from the cell. The inmates keep turning back. So do some of the guards. "Come on gang. The bus is coming. We have stuff to do."

Garza grabs the arm McCullough's baton has assaulted and yanks me up from the floor. My entire torso and my legs rebel. Agonizing pain rips along my right side. My legs tremble and suffer. My feet scramble to find purchase. Garza's hand lets go. I slam to the concrete, knees then legs. My hands hit the pee and slip out from me. I land prone and pee drenches my front.

Stefanovic laughs. "What's wrong? Can't walk, Vause?"

"Clumsy cunt." Garza grabs my injured arm again. His hand squeezes tight and he says as he pulls me upright, "God, you stink." .

The front of my shirt and the whole of my pants, socks, shoes, hands, and arms are drenched.

McCullough, bolstered by the reaction of her colleagues, takes the other arm and helps. "What would your precious wife say if she saw you like this? Eh, Vause?" Her hand squeezes hard.

"You're hurting me," I push with my feet and stand and then follow as the two correctional officers pull and drag me out of the cell.

"Careful there, Vause," says Alvarez. He is aiming the camera at me.

"All right, ladies," I hear Copeland's voice as I am half dragged and half walk into Processing. "Get naked."

She addresses Gaza, Dixon, Stefanovic, and Alvarez. "Guys," Copeland's voice sounds like a sigh. "You know you can't be in here."

"McCullough needed help," Garza lets my arm go.

McCullough does as well. Miraculously, I stay somewhat erect.

"Sure," I sneer. I shake out my arms and force myself to straighten up and keep more tears from falling. I will not give them any more satisfaction. Fuck them! Fuck! I wish I could kick them all where it would count.

I see Alvarez fiddling with the small digital camcorder on a tripod just as Copeland asks, "Alvarez, what is that?"

"Warden Hellman said he needed a video for training. Apparently, we're getting some new guards, and he wants something to show the proper procedure for processing transfers," He pushes his thin black glasses on his nose.

"Are you sure?" asks Copeland.

"That's what he said. I guess it's something PolyCon wants."

"So who's going to work the camera? You guys can't stay here," Copeland asks.

"I will," volunteers McCullough.

Copeland seems satisfied. Alvarez shows McCullough what to do and leaves. Once he leaves, Copeland orders, "Come on ladies. Get undressed."

"That includes you, Vause," McCullough adds as she walks past me and smacks her baton against my right leg. I contain a fuck you, bitch! yelp and remain standing. "Garza's right. You stink."

The other women are looking at me, a couple with pity, but most with indifference, thankful they had not been anyone's target. I try to stand straighter.

The women are not undressing. Copeland gives her orders again. "Come on ladies. The marshals'll be here soon. Why don't we give everyone something clean to wear before they go? Who knows how long it will take to get where they're going? Dennis."

"Sure." Dennis, a white woman with black hair in her late-thirties or early-forties, replies. I remember seeing her at camp after the guard walk-out. Maybe a couple of times in C-Block. Because she knew Betsy's name, maybe B-Block is where she spends most of her time. She leaves Betsy and walks behind the counter into a small caged room with racks of shelves holding prison garments and other stuff. She takes an armload of orange Department of Corrections jumpsuits, combat bras, and granny underpants. "Gotta be nice to the marshals."

"Get your clothes off!" McCullough yells. She smacks the baton lightly in her hand.

The women start to undress.

I slide off my Toms. That's what Piper calls the slip on cloth shoes with no support, we wear here at Max. Toms were purportedly given by a big assed, high priced accessory company to barefooted street urchins as if that were the way to get said kid out of poverty. No kid, even someone dirt poor, would want these. They are covered in my piss so they smell strongly of urine. These, however, are not Toms; they are super cheap knock-offs. I take off my glasses and look for a place to set them down. I don't see one so I put them next to my sock covered feet. Quickly, but with a grimace, I pull my shirts off over my head. Damn that hurt. I glance at my side, shoulders, and arms. They are black, blue, purple, and yellow brown. I snatch up my glasses and put them back on. It is cold.

"Undergarments and pants, too, Vause." McCullough says from the camera, its tally light red. She aims it at me, tilting it so that it captures my embarrassment. I glare. I would snarl if it wouldn't get me another beatdown. I don't want to be part of whatever obscenity the guards have decided to put together. "Get going! All of it, Vause!"

"Ignore the motherfucker," Diaz has moved over to me. She speaks to me quietly. Then, her voice crescendoes, "Fucking guards play with us like we're their little toys. We got rights. You can't be filming her like that!" Diaz points at the camera. McCullough turns the camera on Diaz. "This ain't some stripshow for somebody's entertainment!"

"Shut up!" The tally light goes off. McCullough walks over to Diaz. Her baton is at the ready. McCullough towers over the smaller woman. Diaz holds her position.

"You had better stop being a fucking smart ass," growls McCullough. "You don't want to earn the same treatment as Vause?" McCullough slams the baton against my bruised ribs and legs again. I buckle, but don't fall completely.

"Fuck you, Bambi!" I grit my teeth.

Several inmates chuckle.

"Bambi? Like the deer?" Diaz smiles wickedly. So do some of the other inmates.

"Bambi?"

"Fuck you!" McCullough attacks me again.

This time, Copeland intervenes. "McCullough," she elevates her voice only slightly. My tall blonde abuser pauses and looks at her shorter senior. "McCullough, don't you think that's enough?"

"Fuck you!" I huddle on the floor.

"Did that hurt, inmate?" McCullough sneers.

Copeland motions towards the tripod. "McCullough, camera."

McCullouch sniggers. Giving me one more whack, she returns to the camera and moves it to the head of the line so that each naked woman appears fully in frame.

"Come on, ladies," claps Copeland. "The sooner you're naked, the sooner we can get this done and you can dress again."

Standing, I pull off my bra. With some difficulty, fearful of losing my balance I take my soaked pants and underwear off; finally, the socks, which are also wet. I do stink. My hands, arms, ass, thighs, and feet feel sticky. I wish I could shower. What's even worse, with the cold air of the room against my damp skin, I think I might have to pee again. Thank God, I haven't eaten anything since breakfast. I cover myself to the best of my ability with my arms and hands, not just for modesty, but because I am fucking cold.

"Line up, ladies." McCullough orders. She has gone behind the camera and turned it back on. The red tally light is blinking and then produces a sustained glow. "Come on, Davenport."

The old woman has not removed her clothes yet. The woman stands away from the view of the camera so McCullough does not bother to turn it off. McCullough marches over to the old woman and wrestles with her as she doesn't want to remove any of her clothes. She fusses and fights back.

"Let me," Dennis intervenes. "I work B-Block pretty regularly. This is why she's being transferred. Litchfield's already given too many compassionate releases of late. Hellman and Polycon want to spread the problem around a bit. Let others take care of Davenport and the other nut jobs.

Dennis and McCullough roughly pull off the woman's shirt and pants. They wrestle her for her undergarments, shoes, and socks. She screams and is in full panic. Dennis shoos McCullough away and after some time calms the old woman down and is placed in the line between Diaz and me.

Like me, all of the women in line try to maintain a modicum of modesty by placing our arms across our breasts and genitals. Davenport simply stands. The only other person who is not covering herself is Aleida. She takes a brash, don't fuck with me stance. "You're all motherfuckers!" she declares. I should't give a fuck, too, but I can't.

"Okay ladies," Copeland walks to the first person in line.

McCullough focuses the camera.

"You know the drill. Lift your arms." The poor woman, an older heavier set woman of medium height with gray hair raises her arms as if to do a half jumping jack. "Open your mouth. Stick out your tongue." Copeland uses a tongue depressor to move the tongue around to search for hidden I don't know what. She searches the woman's hair and scalp. "Lift up your breasts." This woman has medium-sized breasts. I look over at the camera. McCullough has it pointing so it captures everything. "Okay, turn around. Squat. Pull your cheeks apart. Cough." The woman does as ordered like a trained circus chimp. "Up. You can turn around. Get your travel togs from CO Dennis. Next," Copland orders as the woman walks over to Dennis, who hands her an orange jumpsuit with the DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS stenciled on the back in big black letters. She also receives a long-sleeved undershirt and her shoes. I notice Dennis doesn't give her any socks.

The next woman steps up and goes through the same routine as the first. A third, fourth, fifth, and sixth woman take their turns. Then it is Diaz's turn.

She has been berating the COs, calling them everything in the book. "Malditas perras. Yo tengo derechos.¿A dónde me llevas? No puedes llevarme contra mi voluntad. Yo tengo derechos Necesito ver a mi hija. ¡Mierda! ¡No me toques! Fuck! Don't touch me, bitch!" When she steps up to Copeland she spits in her face.

Copeland merely wipes the spit away, but McCullough is up in her face. "You do that again and I'm going to put a mask on you. Do you understand?" McCullough slams her baton on the counter. Everyone jumps, especially me. Diaz is only one person away from me. The poor old woman who stands between the two of us, puts her arms over her head and cowers, sinking to the chipped linoleum floor..

Under McCullough's harsh gaze and readied baton, Diaz defiantly goes through her paces. Dennis hands her clothes and motions to dress. Dennis helps the old woman up from the floor and guides her to stand in front of Copeland.

"This is why I love B-Block so much," Dennis says. "It might be slow, but I like it that way. Little drama. Occasionally, someone, especially when one of the psych nut-jobs goes off, we can have some noise, but they're normally medicated so it's quiet and drama free."

"That would drive me nuts," counters Copeland as she looks through the old woman's hair. "Turn around." Copeland physically pivots the woman and then presses a hand on her shoulder so she squats. "Cough." Nothing happens. "Cough, inmate." Again nothing happens. I can see the wheels turn. "Okay," she helps the woman back up. "No use bothering with her any more." She hands the woman over to Dennis. "What would she have in contraband? Okay Vause," Copeland orders. I step up to take my turn. "We've been here before," she says. We have. She searched me when I came to Max after my surgeries from the broken arm Piscatella gave me during the riot. "Arms out."

I hear an odd whirring sound. McCullough is zooming in. "Tongue out." Copeland checks my tonsils. She lifts my long, flat, black hair and runs her hair through it. Her fingers definitely do not belong to Cate Blanchette or my wife or any of my other lovers or girl friends. I do not like it and as soon as she removes her hands I flip my hair back out of her reach. "Let me see under your breasts. Lift them up, we're all big girls here. Turn around. Feet bottoms. Bend over and squat. Spread'em! Come on, Vause. Wider Vause. Cough. Louder. Okay. Turn back around." She sends me to Dennis to get clothes and finishes the humiliating ritual of processing out for transfer with the last two inmates.

Orange jumpsuit, undershirt, granny pants, bra, no socks and Dennis orders me to put the pee soaked shoes back on my feet. The jumpsuits only come in three sizes. I get the largest, which means it is too wide and not long enough. The crotch rides up my ass and the bottom pant seam barely reaches my ankle. I pull at the crotch area wanting the garment to lengthen, but it doesn't.

"Don't we get socks?" Diaz asks.

The old woman sits on the floor as she tries to put on her underpants. She grunts and whimpers. No one seems to notice so I squat down to her level. "Here. " I take the undergarment and double-check to make sure it is going on properly and put her legs through the openings. "Stand up," I say gently. I lift to help her up, but she is unwieldy. A second pair of hands arrive and help her stand. The extra hands belong to the elderly tall black woman from B-Block. "Thanks."

"Sure," she says matter-of-factly.

Together we help the old woman with her bra and then with the bottom half of the jumpsuit.

"Vause, finish dressing." McCullough stands over me.

"I'm helping."

"Get your shoes."

"Can't I get a fresh pair."

"Perhaps you shouldn't have peed all over yourself." McCullough laughs and walks away.

CO Dennis arrives. "You heard her. Get your shoes." More roughly, she pulls up the old woman's jumpsuit and tugs the undershirt over her head.

"They're soaked in pee?"

"Everyone else is wearing their issued shoes. No special privileges."

I repeat my earlier argument., "But they're soaked in pee."

"Watkins," she says to the black woman. "Finish dressing Betsy." To me, "Get you shoes or I'll be giving you problems, too."

When everyone is dressed and placed in a second holding cell, this one in Processing, the male COs return. Alvarez goes to the camera. A couple of the other guys angle to the camera; obviously Alvarez is playing what McCullough recorded.

"Too bad most of the transfers are old Floridians," murmurs Stefanovic.

"Yeah who wants to see –," Garza stops.

"Guys," Copeland's tone is full of her annoyance at her compatriots' adolescent hijinks." Alvarez, put that away. Garza, travel restraints; Stefanovic, help. "

Garza and Stefanovic go into storage and bring out two large yellow plastic storage bins.

"It's been a while since we've had this many transfers moving at once," comments Stefanovic.

"Not since the camp closed," Alvarez says.

"They used all the ones they had up at the camp and over half of ours," adds Dennis.

"Perhaps we'll finally get some stability."

"Fuck! They're all tangled,"

Chains clank as the COs pull them from the bin and untangle them. I watch and listen as they work.

"We're actually pretty stable," says Copeland.

"Yeah," Hellman's gonna set things right. Got the SHU back up and running."

"Yeah. What the fuck was that closing SHU down anyway?"

"I hear most of B-Block will be moving soon. Psych and elderly are too expensive to house. Corporate's working on a deal with the BOP to move them. Won't eat into profits as much. These girls are the first."

"That means fewer headaches."

"Hey, I like the B crowd. They are so much easier to deal with."

"I saw Hellman walking around with some woman from corporate."

"Yeah, I was with them. Linda Ferguson."

"She got caught up in the riot. Did you see her, McCullough?"

"What's she look like?"

"Medium height, dark shoulder length hair."

"I don't know. She wasn't with the hostages."

"I heard she ended up in Cleveland and was found among the rioters who were transferred there."

"So what were they doing?"

The phone at the counter rings. "Processing. Copeland." She answers.. "Right. We just need to chain them up."

"Measuring cells to see if they could add more bunks. They want to add more hard core felons. More money."

"Geesh! That'll mean more work."

"And possible riots here, too.

"You crowd too many people together, the possibility of violence goes up."

"Hey guys, the marshals are here. I'm going to let them in," says Copeland and goes out front.

"If we start seeing more inmates or a tougher group, we'll need to make sure that we get Fantasy Inmate up and running again," said Alvarez.

"And pit the blocks against one another again," adds Garza.

"I like it without the war," says Dixon.

McCullough agrees.

"That's because you guys are still dealin' with the PTSD from what those animals did to you. Isn't that right, Vause? Diaz?."

"I was out," Diaz replies.

I don't respond though in my mind I say, I was nowhere near that shit..

"Well that was a chore. Ready to go." Alvarez drops the chain he has untangled. He looks satisfied with a job well done.

"Okay ladies. Time to get your chains," McCullough she walks over and unlocks our cage.

Stefanovich joins her, "Line up. Time to go bye bye."

I find myself in a surreal fog, an observer as I slide into the line. I hear a couple of grumbles, but mostly everyone is quiet, except Diaz, whose tone of voice has lost its defiance. She pleads now, "You can't do this. Please, I have to stay. I need to protect my kids and watch my daughter. Please."

"Shut up!" McCullough's baton catches Diaz on the left leg and then on her right side.

Copeland opens the door and returns with three marshals.

"Is that necessary?" The large burly marshal asks.

McCullough spins around, wide-eyed at having been caught.

"She's mouthy," McCullough explains while over her Diaz tells her story.

"See how we're treated," Diaz says, holding her ribs and trying to stand. I give her my hand to help. "No wonder, my sweet girl's become a cruel junkie and dealer."

"Enough, Diaz." Garza takes her arm more gently than he would have and moves her off to the side. He fastens steel cuffs around her ankles, wrists, and then to the chain he places around her waist.

The COs shackle the others while Copeland takes care of the paperwork and chats with the heavy set marshal, who has joined her at the counter. The other two marshals watch. One is a graying woman of medium height and fit, looking like a distance runner and the other is a paunchy young black man. He holds an automatic rifle.

As each inmate is shackled, the guards return to the holding cage. Dennis works on Davenport. The old woman watches, her expression perplexed as Dennis snaps on the cuffs. When she is ushered back to the holding cell, she stumbles and falls. She emits a sharp cry as her knees and hands smack the cement floor. Without any sympathy, Dennis lifts her by the arm and moves her into the cell.

"Get up!" Dennis commands a previously chained inmate sitting on one of the benches.

Without complaint the woman stands. "Here, Betsy," she helps Dennis seat the woman.

The assembly-line efficiency of shackling us into travel chains moves quickly. "Get over here," Dennis barks at me.

Thank goodness, Dennis, not McCullough, I think.

"I'll take her," McCullough blunts my moment of relief.

"Okay." Dennis goes to one of the last unchained inmates.

"Stand still, Vause."

I had only moved to where Dennis had pointed. McCullough kneels and snaps the cuffs to my ankles. They are tight and rest just below the bruises her beating left. Rising she does the same to my wrists, but tighter.

"That hurts," The moment I open my mouth I regret it.

"Too bad," she replies. She fastens a chain to my waist and attaches the cuffs to it. "You can't have that."

At first I do not know what McCullough is referring to. McCullough grabs the finger bearing my paperclip wedding ring.

"No, you can't have that," I protest. I pull to get my hand away.

"Give it to me."

"No. You can't have my wedding ring. I can have a wedding ring."

"I said give it to me, inmate!" The baton shoots open in her hand.

Garza leads his last inmate to the cell and turns to watch. Everyone is watching, the Litchfield COs and inmates waiting to see if McCullough will put me down yet again.

"What's the problem?" The female marshal speaks up.

"CO McCullough is trying to remove a piece of contraband from inmate Vause," explains Alvarez.

"It's my wedding ring," I tell the marshal.

Copeland pipes in, "Vause, you're not married."

"I married Piper when she got out."

"A fantasy marriage," retorts Copeland. "It's not legal."

"So what? She's my wife. This," I gesture to the ring, means everything."

"But you cheated? Isn't that right, inmate?" McCullough smirks.

"You know I did!"

"Nichols was bragging everywhere," Alvarez backs McCullough with a total lie.

That was more than two years ago when Piper was being an ass. "Fuck, Nichols married us! McCullough wrestles the ring from my clenching fist. "

"See, not married."

"Don't do that. Don't!"

McCullough's baton smashes once, then again and again and again until the hand opens and the ring leaves my finger. McCullough is triumphant.

Alvarez takes the ring and pulls the outer end up. "This could be used as a weapon," he holds the tip up for everyone to see.

"If a prisoner is married," says the bulky marshal.

"She's not," chirps McCullough.

The drama has ended. I am bent over, my eyes closed. My distressed hand has joined my left side and leg in pain. With less padding and smaller bones, the hand has suffered the worst. It throbs and stings. It has already started to swell and change from its usual pale Irish complexion to an abstract canvas of blacks, purples, and blues. I stand and hug it close. I want to cry, but absolutely refuse. Not again. No, not again. I am going to be strong. Damn it, Vause strong! I am going to get through this. I am going to survive. I am going to survive! Be strong! Be strong! That is the mantra I play in my head to the swirling sound of rising nausea. I take a deep breath.

The guards pull my fellow inmates out of the holding cell and in a single file they lead us from Processing out the back door where a large gray school bus waits beneath a yellow yard light and a late-November blizzard, the first of the year. We don't so much walk as shuffle. It is not uncommon to trip or to have the arctic metal tear out little chunks of skin.

And, the metal is icy. I am more than cold. Snow falls in sheets obliterating everything within view. Billows of steam boil from our mouths and noses instantly freezing and mixing with the snot from runny noses to create elongating icicles. I use my shirt sleeve to wipe my nose, which already feels raw; it burns.

The bus door has yawned and frozen open. Hopefully, it will not be as cold inside as I am now. The marshals and COs move us towards the door.

"We've got this," The female marshal dismisses the COs.

All of them turn and go back into the warm building. Before she leaves, McCullough stops and speaks to the young black marshal. He holds an automatic rifle at the ready. I don't hear what she says, but he nods his head as she speaks. When she is done, she glares at me one last time and disappears back into the prison.

The older male marshal carries a valise, walks to the head of our line, and places the pouch on the front seat closest to the door. He steps back down and waits at the steps with the driver. The woman marshal stops each inmate and performs a cursory search of her own, just to make sure that we haven't hidden a weapon since our last search only minutes ago. When she finishes, she sends the inmate to the bus door. The ankle chains do not have enough play for our feet to reach the first step. The older male marshal helps each woman into the bus. The black marshal watches.

The freezing air numbs some of the sharper pains, however, most of my wounds stab, ache, and radiate out along the nervous system as my body's only defense against the cold is to shiver. We should be wearing multiple layers, a coat and warm, fleece-lined snow boots. As it is, none of us have a jacket, socks and I am still wearing my thin pee saturated shoes. The wetness rapidly freezes into ice. If I don't get my feet and toes warm, I will have frostbite.

I am one of the last on the bus. Several seats already have women. The driver has been watching them from the door. Diaz sits next to a window a third of the way back. The black guard, who follows me onto the bus, shoves me into a window seat across from her. He goes further back and opens a caged area where I see the silhouettes of other prisoners. He looks forward, his gaze focuses on me.

I like the idea of having this space to myself. However, I have no room to stretch out my injured leg or my back. I know that I have to or I will end up a Tin Woodsman, frozen into a statue of searing cramps and throbbing aches.

The driver takes his seat and starts the engine. The female and chunkier male marshals climb in. Each counts. They seem to concur on the number. The female marshal closes and locks the cage door that keeps us separated from them.

"Good to go, Clint," says the woman. She sits in a jump seat next to the driver facing back at us. The male officer sits in front next to the door in the seat where the valise was dropped.

The bus's front lights come on and reflect off the falling snow. The door closes. The bus rocks as the parking brake releases and the engine goes into drive. The bus starts to move. It heads down the drive to the main prison gate where it pauses. After a moment, the gate rolls back. Another movement of gears and the bus advances. It passes out through the conduit that I once thought would lead to freedom. I am leaving, but it is not toward freedom. I am simply leaving Litchfield … and Piper.