MISCHA STOOD AT THE door of her cell at 12:45, S.O.P when moving about the prison. Stand at your cell fifteen minutes before your assignment----work, library trip, visitation, whatever----and wait for the guard to escort you where you needed o go. Her shift at the infirmary began at 1:00.347Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡPZM4X48ZWQ
Her brain was buzzing from what Sebastian had told her this morning. Not the end of the relationship, of course, but his comments about her behavior at the Monte Carlo Beach Hotel on the afternoon before President Diderot's murder. It was what they called a Freudian slip, in the heat of the worst kind of argument----one between unhappy lovers, in which the rawest of emotions are prone to surface. Sebastian hadn't even realized he'd said it. He apparently had no idea what he'd just revealed to her.
She thought about it over and over. Yes, the evidence presented at trial established that they had spent some time at the hotel swimming pool. But there weren't any photos of them. Zilch. And there wasn't any mention of them flirting with anybody, or of her wearing a bikini. Nobody had said one word about how they'd conducted themselves at that pool.
No. Sebastian would have had to see these things himself, personally.
Sebastian had been in Monte Carlo that day!
Mischa didn't know how to process that information. She didn't know what, exactly, it meant. He never told anybody, that much was clear. In fact, he'd lied about it. But what did it mean? She hadn't, for even one second, considered the possibility that Sebastian---her boyfriend----no, it couldn't be! No!
No?
All she knew for sure was that certain avenues, previously closed to her, were now open. She needed to talk to Rihanna.
Mischa was handcuffed and frisked and escorted to G wing. She gave her ID number to the guard stationed there and then walked the corridor unescorted. She passed a door on her right, which led down to the underground parking garage for the prison staff, accessible only by a key card and monitored by a guard at a secure booth. She walked past another door that she'd been told was a fire escape. She stopped at the red line before the infirmary, where another guard was stationed in a secure booth, complete with a weapons arsenal, security cameras looking inside the infirmary, the works.
"Hi, Mischa." The guard was named Henriette. She liked her. One of the decent ones who treated them civilly, either out of compassion or because she realized that they were easier to manage when treated with some measure of respect.
After a loud, echoing buzz, the door marked INFIRMERIE released with a hiss.
Mischa squinted into the bright light and fought of the impulse to gag when she inhaled the wretched smell of bodily secretions and powerful disinfectant. It was like not showering for a week but bathing yourself in perfume. Like riding a cab in New York City.
The beds were filled as usual. Pack two thousand people into a space reserved for roughly half that many and even the most mundane virus or malady turns into a raging epidemic. Plus, being sick gave the prisoners an excuse to get out of their cells. But it cost them. Unless you were really sick, getting the okay to visit the infirmary was just like everything else at JRF----not free.
Mischa saw Rihanna at the far end, wrapping a bandage on an Arab woman's foot. Her shift was ending. The warden didn't allow them to communicate, so they tried to arrange their shifts so they never worked together. It wasn't a perfect system, but typically they only saw each other, as they had now, in passing.
"Hey." Rhianna whispered in her lovely Caribbean accent. Her fingers touched Mischa's. "I heard what happened. You okay?"
Everyone had heard about Felice. She was a favorite around JRF. "Living the dream," said Mischa. "You?"
She wasn't in the mood for humor. "Movie night," Rihanna whispered. "I'll save you a seat. Love you."
Movie night. Mischa would tell Rihanna tonight. She would tell her what Sebastian had inadvertently blurted out to her. The black pop diva would help her figure this out.
"Love you back. Get some rest." Their fingertips released.
Mischa quickly went about her assignments. This job, the chance to help people, was about the only thing propelling her forward now. She did some bandage wraps. She helped flush some minor wounds. She fetched some drugs from the pharmacy across the room for the nurse. One hour passed. 2:00 was a shift change for the guards, and out the window she could see various cars driving up the ramp from the underground garage. Pulling up to the large main gate. Swiping their key cards to open it. Waving to the attendant, who was raised ten feet off the ground in a fortified booth. Driving off to freedom, once the gate opened.
Another half hour later, Mischa heard the commotion as the hydraulic door buzzed open. She had her back turned to the entrance. She'd been helping a nurse dress a laceration on an inmate's rib cage when one of the other nurses shouted, "Urgence!"
Emergency. Not uncommon. They had a suicide a week in JRF. Still, she turned, as guards and a nurse wheeled in an inmate on a gurney.
"Oh, God, no." Mischa dropped the gauze pads she'd been holding. She started running before the realization had fully formed in her head. The shock of black hair hanging below the gurney. The look on the face of one of the nurses, who had turned back from the commotion to look at her, to see if it had registered with her who the new patient was. Everyone knew the four of them as a group, after all.
"Rhi," she whispered.
The guards saw her coming and restrained her. She fought them, tried to break through them, as the doctor worked feverishly on Rihanna. Mischa cried out as the guards wrestled her to the floor, slamming hear head against the cold tile.347Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡJpdfG0EsU2
This was too much. Overload. Not Rihanna too. Not Rihanna!347Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡxxLau0msOk
Mischa fought and screamed and pleaded. The doctor stopped working on her and called out the time of death and she shouted and kicked and felt something inside of her die, something that would never return.347Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ2je0OYyYCo
