Dear Delilah West

Chapter Fourteen

I wake up in prison.

Of course, I was expecting it, but it still comes as a shock. To wake up on a roughly made, uncomfortable bed; to the unwelcome sight of concrete walls and steel bars. To the damp, stale air and depressing atmosphere. To the claustrophobic feeling of being ten floors underground.

I look around the room, and discover that, to my surprise, I am in the same cell as Missy. Well, not quite – we are separated by a row of vertical bars that stretch from the floor to ceiling – but it would have made sense for them to put us where we can’t communicate with each other. But hey – I’m not complaining.

Quite the contrary to the bars on my left, the wall to my right, and the one behind me, are made of solid, impenetrable concrete. No holes, no cracks. No weak spots. I sigh, and sit back on the bed.

The bed isn’t too bad, actually. It’s uncomfortable, sure, but at least it has a mattress. And decent blankets. And a pillow. I’ve heard about much worse conditions, in places with a lot less dangerous people.

The place is also quite warm, considering we are so far underground. It is slightly chilly, but that can be easily fixed by wrapping a blanket around myself. I wonder why they even bother with heating. We are prisoners, after all.

At the front of my cell are bars identical to the ones separating Missy and I. I can see across the hallway to the cells across from us. The half-cell directly across from me is empty, but the other half of it is occupied by a sleeping man. He looks like he is in his mid-thirties, early forties. I’m not sure.

In the cell next to the man, which is separated from him by a concrete wall, is a young woman. She looks around twenty; maybe younger. She has short blonde hair, mussed up, and sits with her back to me, on a chair. She seems to be reading. Reading? In a prison?

I close my eyes for a moment, and then look over at Missy. She is asleep, with her back to me. Despite what happened last night, her shiny black hair is perfectly straight, and looks as though it doesn't have a single knot in it. Probably doesn't.

Suddenly, a loud voice echoes down the concrete passage.

“Stand against the back walls with your hands above your head! And don’t try anything – I’m armed!”

The woman with the short hair rolls her eyes. She mutters something that sounds like: “Food rounds.”

She is right.

Missy wakes up at the yell, and sees me against the wall. Without a word, she copies me. The man who was sleeping across from us does the same.

It takes a long time for the people to reach us, which leads me to believe that we are a fair way down the passage. This will not work to our advantage if we attempt to escape.

Food is delivered first to me, then to Missy. I have to admit, it is a lot better than the thin soup back at the other prison that I met Leanna in. It fills me up, and I actually feel satisfied – well, as satisfied as you can be when imprisoned ten stories underground in a four pace by four pace concrete cell.

After we eat, Missy and I talk. We just talk, about random things, but eventually the conversation topic turns into escape.

We toss ideas back and forth like a ball in a tennis match, but we come up with nothing. We can’t burrow into the concrete floor – and even if we could, we would still be a hundred feet underground. We can’t get out through the door – it’s locked, and we have nothing to pick it with.

Eventually, the inevitable happens.

“Missy,” I say nervously, awkwardly.

“What?” she snaps. She was thinking hard, and I broke her concentration.