Page 3 of On Your Life

A woman sits behind the booking desk tapping at her keyboard with the kind of boredom that comes from doing the same soul-sucking job everyday.

The officer holding my arm tightens his grip, fingers digging into my bicep hard enough to make me wince. I can already feel the bruise forming.

She glances up at us like we interrupted something important, then pushes back her chair with a dramatic sigh.

“Step this way,” she huffs.

The chains around my wrists and ankles clatter together as I shuffle toward the desk. One by one, she grabs my fingers and rolls them through black ink before pressing them onto a sheet of paper.

The ink is cold and sticky, staining the creases of my skin. Before it can even dry I’m yanked in front of a camera mounted on a flimsy tripod.

I always wondered what it was like to get a mugshot, back when jail was something that happened to other people. It used to be funny to think about what face I would make, or if I would be one of those people that went viral for being too pretty in my booking photo.

Nothing about this is funny now.

The cheap silver camera feels like a gun pointing straight at my face. I don’t even get the chance to smooth my hair or wipe the fear from my expression before the blinding flash halts my vision.

Then I’m moving again. I feel like I’m on a conveyor belt in a factory, processed instead of seen. No one explains anything to me. No one looks me in the eye. Hands shove me from one station to the next until a metal door slams behind me and I’m left alone, on a concrete bench in a holding cell.

The ache in my arm throbs in time with my heartbeat. Angry red fingerprints bloom beneath the sleeve of my jumpsuit. I’m in an actual prison jumpsuit. I fucking hate orange.

The room smells like stale piss and vomit with a hint of bleach that failed to cover either.

I pull the fabric of my collar over my nose, but it reeks just as bad, carrying the sweat and fear of everyone who wore it before me. My head snaps to the side when I hear yelling ricochet through the corridor outside.

“Get your fucking hands off of me!” a high pitched voice screams. “I didn’t even do anything!”

If that argument worked I would be at home right now, curled up on my couch with a blanket and a bad reality show playing in the background.

Instead, I’m here. My life is about to be a living hell. Not just because I’ve been sentenced to spend the rest of it behind bars, but because I’m now known as a convicted murderer.

And according to the state my victim wasn’t just anyone, he was a corrections officer. In prison that makes me more than just a murderer, it makes me a target.

Chapter 2

Kira

Ican literally see fossilized shit stuck to the wall beside the filthy silver toilet. It feels like bugs are crawling beneath my skin just standing in this cell. Even the air in here feels dirty, thick with a musty odor.

The space is small. Two bunks are bolted into the left wall, and a tiny desk with a stool secured to the ground sits on the opposite side.

My closet is bigger than this entire room. I thought my setup in jail was bad but at least I had a damn mattress instead of a mat that could double as a dog bed. There isn’t even a ladder to reach the top bunk. I grunt as I hoist my bag over my head and toss it on the metal frame.

Between the two bunks, being higher feels like the safest option. From up there I can see the entire room, watch anyone who comes through the door, and if shit somehow goes sideways maybe I’ll have half a second’s warning.

For now, the bottom bunk sits empty. A small win for me because I don’t have it in me to play nice and try to make small talk with a criminal.

The sorry excuse for a bedroll unravels the second I let it go. It springs open like it knew I was trying to stay unnoticed and sends my toiletries flying across the room. They clatter onto the concrete floor and disappear beneath the lower bunk.

That’s what I get for wanting even a single moment of peace. My pulse pounds in my temples as I crouch to find the shitty supply of products.

They handed me a toothbrush, with no toothpaste, and a bottle of body wash. No shampoo or conditioner. No lavender scented soaps. My skin is never going to recover from this.

Seriously fuck this place.

As if things couldn’t get any worse, someone rounds the corner and pounds on my door hard enough to make me jump and bang my head on the metal frame. My spiral comes to a temporary halt.

“Hey killer. Welcome to B pod,” a raspy voice greets me.