Chapter 60 "Light Out"
Ember
The card game started, and Ember tried to focus on the rules Shanice had taught her. But her mind kept wandering to Maya and Adrian and Kelly, probably back at campus right now, living their normal lives. To her mother, who'd shown up at the arraignment but had barely looked at her. To the evidence Detective Monroe had shown her, the security footage she couldn't explain.
To the ten years stretching ahead of her like an impossible desert she had to cross.
"Ember." Tasha's voice broke through her thoughts. "Your turn."
"Sorry." Ember played a card at random.
"Girl, you can't just throw down any card," Rosa protested. "You gotta pay attention to what suit is being played."
"Sorry," Ember repeated. "I'm still learning."
"It's cool. You'll get it." Rosa collected the cards from that round. "So where you from originally? You got that small-town vibe."
"Hollow Creek," Ember said. "It's about three hours from here."
"Never heard of it."
"Most people haven't. It's pretty small."
"You got family there?" Tasha asked. "Someone who's gonna visit?"
Ember thought about her mother's cold expression in the courtroom. "Maybe. I don't know."
"That's rough." Becca spoke for the first time in a while, her voice soft. "I got nobody. My family disowned me when I got arrested. Haven't heard from them in two years."
"What about you?" Rosa asked Sienna. "You got people?"
Sienna shook her head. "My parents kicked me out when I was seventeen. Haven't talked to them since. No siblings. No family. My ex was basically all I had, and look how that turned out."
"Damn," Tasha muttered. "That's harsh."
"It is what it is." Sienna played a card, then looked at Ember. "What about friends? You got friends on the outside?"
Ember thought about Maya's tear-stained face in the courtroom. Adrian's shocked expression. Kelly's determination.
"Yeah," she said quietly. "I have friends. I don't know if they're still my friends after everything that happened, but... I hope so."
"They'll stick around if they're real ones," Shanice said. "Real friends don't bail when shit gets hard."
The game continued, and slowly, Ember felt some of the tension in her shoulders ease. This wasn't home. This wasn't normal. But it was something a small circle of people who weren't actively hostile, who were willing to include her in their game, who treated her like a person instead of a number or a crime statistic.
It was more than she'd expected on her first day.
The two hours of rec time passed faster than Ember had thought possible. Before she knew it, another buzzer sounded longer, more insistent than the previous ones.
"Lockdown," Shanice announced, standing and stretching. "Time to head back to our cells. Count's in fifteen minutes."
"Count?" Sienna asked.
"They count us four times a day to make sure nobody escaped or died," Tasha explained. "You gotta be in your cell when count happens. Miss it three times, you lose privileges."
The common room emptied as women headed back to their cells. Ember and Sienna walked together, climbing the metal stairs to the second tier.
"Thanks," Sienna said as they reached Ember's cell. "For helping me today. For including me. I know you didn't have to do that."
"I know what it feels like to be new and scared," Ember said. "If I can make it even a little bit easier for someone else..."
"Well, you did. So thank you." Sienna smiled a real smile this time, reaching her green eyes. "I'm glad I met you, Ember. Even if the circumstances are completely fucked."
Ember found herself smiling back. "Yeah. Me too."
"See you at breakfast?"
"Yeah. I'll find you."
Sienna continued down to her own cell, and Ember stepped into hers. Shanice was already there, settling onto her bunk with her book.
"You made a friend," Shanice observed.
"Maybe. I don't know." Ember climbed up to her own bunk, the thin mattress creaking under her weight. "Is that okay? I mean, is there like... politics about who you can be friends with?"
"Some. But not with fresh fish. You're both new, you're both young, you're both clearly not gang-affiliated. Nobody's gonna care if you stick together." Shanice turned a page. "Actually, it's smart. Like I said allies matter."
A whistle blew in the corridor, sharp and commanding.
"Count!" an officer's voice called. "Everyone in your cells! Stand by your bunks!"
Ember climbed down quickly, standing next to her bunk as instructed. Shanice stood by hers, her posture relaxed but alert.
Officers moved down the corridor, stopping at each cell to count the occupants. When they reached 2-17, one of them made a note on a tablet, then moved on without speaking.
The whole process took maybe five minutes. Then another whistle.
"Count's clear! Lights out in fifteen minutes!"
"You should use the bathroom now," Shanice advised. "Before lights out. Otherwise you gotta stumble around in the dark."
Ember used the toilet, trying to ignore how exposed she felt with Shanice right there, able to hear everything. Privacy was clearly a luxury she'd have to get used to living without.
She brushed her teeth with the cheap toothbrush from her toiletry kit, then climbed back into her bunk.
Shanice turned off the small lamp on the desk apparently they were allowed to control that and climbed into her own bunk.
A moment later, the main lights dimmed, leaving only a faint glow from emergency lights in the corridor.
The prison didn't go completely dark. Ember supposed that made sense they needed to be able to see if something happened during the night.
But it was dark enough. Dark enough to feel isolated, trapped, alone despite Shanice's presence just a few feet below.
Ember lay on her back, staring at the ceiling inches from her face. The sounds of the prison at night filtered through the walls and the door muffled conversations, someone crying softly, a guard's footsteps echoing on metal stairs, the constant mechanical hum of ventilation.
This was her life now.
For ten years.
Or seven, if she got parole.
The number felt impossible. Incomprehensible. How could she survive this for seven years, let alone ten?
"Ember?" Shanice's voice drifted up from below.
"Yeah?"
"You gonna cry all night, or you gonna try to sleep?"
Ember hadn't realized she was crying until Shanice mentioned it. She wiped at her eyes, feeling the wetness on her temples.
"Sorry," she whispered.
"Don't apologize. Everyone cries their first night. Just try to do it quietly. Crying keeps you awake, and you need sleep. Tomorrow's gonna be just as hard as today."
Ember nodded in the darkness, even though Shanice couldn't see her. She closed her eyes and tried to will herself to sleep.
But sleep didn't come.
Instead, she lay there in the darkness, listening to the sounds of the prison, feeling the thin mattress beneath her and the cold air from the window above, and thought about everything she'd lost.
Her freedom. Her education. Her life.
And somewhere, deep in the back of her mind, she could swear she heard it
Rosanna.
Ember opened her eyes, staring at the dark ceiling.
Down the hall, in cell 2-19, Sienna was probably lying in her own bunk, thinking similar thoughts. A girl whose life had been derailed by circumstances beyond her control. A girl who, like Ember, was just trying to survive.
Maybe that was enough for now. Just surviving. One day at a time, like Shanice said.
Eventually, exhaustion won over anxiety, and Ember felt herself drifting. Not quite sleep, but something close to it. A grey space between waking and dreaming where the sounds of the prison faded and everything became distant and muffled.
Her last conscious thought was of Sienna's smile tentative but genuine, a small moment of human connection in a place designed to strip that away.
At least she wasn't completely alone.
At least there was that.