Shifters Pen

3

I’d had 24 hours to absorb the fact that I was a skinwalker now. Letters had been sent to my work and landlord. I doubted anyone would report me missing though. I didn’t have any family. None that I talked to. None that came to the funerals. I had aquaintances at work, but no real friends. Sadly, I wouldn’t be missed.
  Asterion showed me an image of a man. “This is Joe Branson. He will be your cellmate. He is a Lycan. His test scores show him to be closer to moving to the next level out of Shifters Pen than many. He may look fearsome, but he has a conscience.”
  I blinked, “Wait, I’m sharing a cell with a guy?”
  Asterion didn’t blink. “Most cultures in the world choose males to be their religious figureheads. That includes the Navajo people. Every skinwalker I have ever seen has been a man. Further, women don’t usually get together in groups and say “let’s go kill people”. That’s a man thing.”
  “What about the vampires?”
  “Female vampires do not last as long as their male counterparts. They soon come to the realization that drinking blood is disgusting, messy, and taking life. Females are made for giving life, not taking it. Even the undead women know that. They let themselves get caught and killed, or kill themselves.”
  “Werewolves?” I asked in desperation.
  “Once every 20 or 30 years I will get a female werewolf. She will have come under attack on the full moon, usually guarding her pups. I have never seen one leave, and don’t have any in my roster. So, unless you want me to just go ahead and make your cellmate Luke Tillerman-”
  “No. No thanks.” He was bad news. That had been made perfectly clear. “Joe Branson, huh?” I looked at the muscular African American man. I was nervous, scared.
  “Remember, only you can work your way out of the prison. No one else can. Once I take you in you are there, until you die, or find your way out.”
  I frowned, “Wait, how do you leave?”
  He smiled, “I was the first one to find my way out. Once you know it leaving is easy.”
  I wore an orange jumpsuit. He held his hand out to me, “Are you ready?”
  I took a deep breath in, then out, swallowed, and took his hand. I was terrified, but this way I wasn’t hurting my students, or neighbors. I wasn’t sending a tornado through my apartment complex or striking the principal with lightning. I wasn’t killing myself. That was worth something, right?
  Asterion did not head for the door, but the opposite wall. He pressed a button and lights flashed orange. “That means they all report to their cells, immediately.” There was a long tunnel, which was kind of dark. Then we were through it.
  There were 4 levels of solid steel doors. They didn’t even have slits for food trays. I felt reassured. No wendigo would be slithering into my cell and eating me. Yay?
  Asterion said, “Your cell is in 4D. 4th floor, section D. Each corner has a letter. Each section of each floor gets locked down in the evenings.”
  I heard a man howl, “Someone’s getting a tour! Sounds like fresh meat! Two in one week!”
  Men behind other doors started making similar sounds and taunts. My heart thundered.
  Asterion pointed to a letter D over a locking door in the hallway. The hallway went for a while. I was hearing men’s voices, but nothing came from behind the door we stopped at. He opened the door with a card.
  And there was Joe Branson. He was an immense man. And he was not pleased to see me. “Oh, you gotta be joking! Nah, just take her somewhere else. Why you doing this to me man? You suck!”
  Asterion asked him, “You gonna behave, or you gonna be hungry Joe?”
  Joe shut up, glaring at us.
  Asterion pointed from me to Joe. “Lucy, this is your cellmate Joe. Try not to kill each other.” Then he was out the door, it shut, and I was on my own.
  Joe watched me. He sniffed the air, “Well you don’t smell like no vampire at least. The bottom bunk is mine. Anything you don’t eat in 5 minutes is mine. What are you anyway?”
  “Human, for one more day. Skinwalker scratched me up. If you don’t mind I am going to enjoy the last few hours of that in silence.” I clumsily clambered on the top bunk. I had always wanted a bunkbed as a kid, but now, as an adult I could see it was going to be a pain in the ass getting in and out of it.
  Joe asked, “Aren’t you even worried about what I did? Curious what I am?”
I leaned over the bed with a scowl, “This. This is why I never had roommates. Shut. Up. Your are obviously not a man gifted in the art of subtlety, so I will say it again. Shut up.” I rested my head on the crappy little pillow.
  I heard him chuckle. “You got balls. I’ll give you that.”
  I grabbed the pillow and smacked him in the face with it. “But I do not have any patience today!”
  For a second he was stunned into silence. Then he stood up. And up. He had to be at least 7 feet tall and built like a linebacker, and he was not happy. “Did you seriously just do that?”
  For one moment my heart squeezed in terror. Then I laughed at him, and did it again. “You should see the look on your face.” He was shocked.
  Then he grabbed his pillow and held it with both hands, eyeing me. Either he would smother me with it, and my life would end with me still human, or- Wham! He slammed the pillow across my face in retaliation.
  I couldn’t let that slide and hit the side of his body with the pillow. It would be impossible to miss him. His pillow thumped down on my back. We traded pillow blows for a couple of minutes before he seized my pillow. I glared at him, “No fair! You watch out. You sleep below me. If they give us beans you are a goner.”
  Joe leaned against the far wall, which was all of 4 feet from the edge of the bed. He laughed. “Okay. I might forgive the Warden. Don’t you have any questions or anything for me?”
  I thought about that. “I don’t even know what to ask. Have you ever seen a skinwalker shapeshift?”
  He nodded, “Plenty of times.”
  “Is it like a bone breaking transition, or just like poof! and they are something else?”
  He blinked, “Poof? You really got no clue, do you?”
  I shrugged, “I think he had recently been a snake. He smelled like one. Then the tornado threw debris.” I showed him the bump on my head. “I woke up with Hermes and some lady checking me out. They found scratches on my back. Now I’m supposed to turn into some evil thing, and that’s just not me. I want to be me. But the cursing people and weather magic can be kept at bay, here.”
  Joe frowned. “You came here on your own, didn’t you?”
  I nodded.
  He took a deep breath, and let it out. “I have been here for almost 8 years. If there’s one thing that I have learned while being here it’s that the only thing that makes a person evil is themselves. If you want to be evil, then you will be. If you want to be a badass with power, then you will be. If you want to live with yourself and your actions, then you must take ownership of, and control of your actions.”
  I nodded.
  He tossed my pillow at me. “I’ll shut up. You think on that.”