Chapter 1 - Eight Seconds of Silence
“POUR IT ON HER.”
The water hit my face before I could stand. Cold soaked my prison shirt, streamed down my neck, and turned the dirt beneath my shoes dark. Fifty women watched Brandi Shaw empty her bottle over my head.
“Welcome home, princess,” Brandi said. “You planning to cry?”
I wiped my eyes. “You done?”
The laughter grew louder. I had arrived yesterday with one change of clothes, Dad's photograph, and an eighteen-month sentence.
A woman in a faded black tank top crossed the basketball court. Her name, someone whispered, was Rhea Vale. Brandi backed away without being asked. Rhea leaned near my ear.
“No one is coming to save you here.”
She turned. Her tank top slipped off one shoulder, showing a tattoo: a black eye with four numbers beneath it.
7310.
I forgot my wet shirt. I forgot Brandi. For three months I'd replayed Dad's final twelve-second video. A loading bay. A frightened woman being forced toward a white transport van. And the same tattoo on the arm reaching for her.
“Where were you on June sixth?” I asked.
Rhea stopped so suddenly another inmate nearly ran into her.
“Why that date?”
“Because my father filmed you that night.”
The laughter died. Rhea gripped my elbow—not to hurt me, but to warn me.
“What's your name?”
“Nina Calder.”
Her face lost its color. “Thomas Calder's daughter?”
“Yes. Is he alive?”
She looked toward the tower. A guard had stood up behind the glass. Rhea pushed me against the bench, close enough to make it look like another threat.
“If your father left you that video,” she said through her teeth, “you're already in danger.”
May you like
Then she slipped a folded scrap into my wet hand and walked away.
On it were six words: DON'T GO BACK TO YOUR CELL.
