Just Business

Chapter Eight: Persephone

2009

The drive to the prison was agonising, I started to think back to what has happened over the last month in my head. I took the fall for my father's stupidity and now I would have to pay the price for seven years. For the organisation my father is working for, he was committing false accounting, money fraud, and he couldn't get out of it, not with how much he worked to get where he was. I never understood why he asked me to do it or why I agreed, his last words to me as I was cuffed and taken away were, 'in good time I will repay you'. My mother didn't understand and just couldn't look at me, thinking I betrayed the family and stole from them. My youngest sister Darcy wasn't even present so I couldn't say goodbye to her. But my younger sister, River, was in tears sobbing against my mom and trying to fight the guards to see me and give me one last hug. They granted her that and she didn't want me to go but I had to. I gave her a kiss on the head and promised to see her soon. That never happened.

As I arrived I had to go through all the checks as they made sure I smuggled nothing inside, I had to give up everything I had on me and then I was given an orange uniform to wear, was given the necessities and escorted to my new home for seven years. I was left alone for a moment as I sat on my bed, and it finally dawned on me, as I curled up and cried by myself. A month after I had been there, I was figuring out how things worked around the place, and I was moved to another part of the prison where I would get time to go outside and bunked with another woman. I had eyes on me all the time, I figured they knew what I did to get here but I overheard a conversation and they all thought I was attractive and that started to scare me.

I was only 20 years old, probably the youngest here and I had no one to rely on or help me through this, I had made no friends or enemies yet thankfully. But as an older woman started to approach me, I knew that was about to change. She eyed me up and down as I was sat on the ground against a wall.

"You're the new kid around here aren't you?" she asked, and she crouched down to get to eye level with me. I just nodded, too scared to speak up. She was around her late thirties; she had dark black short dreads and her olive skin shone under the sun. Her dark eyes burned into me as I noticed the slit through her eyebrow. She had tattoos all over her body and was very toned which I noticed on her arms as she wore a white tank top.

"What's your name and answer with your last name, that's how we address each other here?" she asked, and I cleared my throat and spoke to her.

"Black" my voice trembled, and she nodded and then stood up and held a hand out to me, I didn't do anything for a moment, and she didn't move so I took her hand, and she helped me up.

"I'm Remington but call me Remy" she said, and I nodded to her and held my arm in front of my body as I still didn't know what she wanted. "Come say hi to some friends of mine yeah?" she asked, and I shook my head, and she came closer, and I took a step back but was met with the wall. "Look kid, you got time here I can tell, you want to make friends sooner rather than later and I'm offering you a way here" she said, and I frowned at that, she must have been here longer than most people. I slowly nodded and she escorted me to her friends who welcomed me, and I tried remembering their names. There were ten other women so I would have to learn as the days went on.

3 months after being in prison, I was getting to learn the ropes as I found out that the girls I was hanging out with were sort of the 'popular' group and I noticed other people making requests to the girls I was with and then repaying them with food or items that they needed. I never did any requests yet, Remy just kept me at her side and told me to watch and learn from the other girls and that's exactly what I was doing. I was lucky that my bunkmate was one of the girls in this group, Miller she was a riot, always loud, but she had your back when needed. A week ago I was corned by three girls from another block and Miller came to my rescue and threatened them all which they didn't care about, but she got me out of there safely, so I trusted her from there on out.