Free Game

Chapter 1

Louisiana Correctional Institute for Women

February 2020

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                   Staring off into the distance in her small cell, Nyema was spacing out thinking about the near future. Two days, in just two days she would be walking free. The thought was insane for her to think about after all this time and didn't even seem real, but it was happening and she wasn't sure if she was ready. After five long years, she was going to be a free woman again, and couldn't thank anyone but God for that. 

"You in the stars over there, Pretty?" Angela, her cellmate for the past 3 years, questioned. 

Giving her a quick glance, Nyema let out a low laugh and just shook her head, letting her silk pressed hair swing around. "Nah, just thinking about what I'm gonna do not locked up in here no more."

"Girl" Angela drawled out before sitting up right. "What ain't you gone do is the question? You gone be free girl. Get out, and live yo life."

"I mean I'm gone do all that, but it's gonna be a lot of shit that's changed, and I don't know if I'm prepared for it all." She admitted, more so to herself than her celly who was perplexed by the sudden emotion. Who wouldn't be concerned after spending five years behind bars, leaving their entire family behind, and fucking up everything they had worked so hard for.

               Five long years ago Nyema was ripping, and running the streets at the tender age of 20 looking for the next big thing that was going to land some money in her hands -her, and her homegirl of three years, Ebony. Only knowing fast cash from being dancers at one of Lousiana's hottest Exotic Dance clubs, Club Spades, since the age of 18, and then hanging with all the hustlers she met in the club trying to get up on game. Those same hustlers would land her in the lap of some big deal men who weren't shy about letting her know she was way too smart and beautiful just to be a dancer, but rather a bitch on their arm. Giving in, Nyema found herself fucking on some of the biggest and baddest from around the way. Big names came with big money, and her sexual experiences were being compensated with stacks of money, way more than she could've imagined making in the club. The boat loads of cash had her riding around in the flyest cars, taking care of her people, and making a name for herself.

               It was easy; getting hooked to the rush of fast money in such large quantities. A girl who was only breaking eight hundred a night was now making over three thousand dollars a day, and you couldn't beat that. There was no one who could blame a young girl who had started from the bottom of Baton Rouge wanting to get herself, and her family financially stable, or so she thought. A lot of money came with a lot of haters well before she knew it which turned her, and her right hand, Ebony into spectacles, and eye candy for men they had no business getting wrapped up with. Just thinking on those days would send a chill right through Nyema. They were days she didn't think about fondly, and she wanted to put behind her more than anything upon her release.

"Yea," Angela finally responded. "Prison will do that to you. Ruin you so bad that you don't even know how to operate in the real world, but you different Nyema. You been in here five years and leaving with a bachelors degree. I'm sure you got plenty of connections. You can get out of here and actually do something with yourself.; you got better odds than any of us bitches in here."

            Nyema knew having a degree under her belt would do her some good wether it meant early release or landing a job once she got out, she knew it was gonna be something she needed. Regardless, her education was one of the only positives from being locked up, and a job wasn't her true concern. She was more worried about the relationships she had ruined over the years due to her incarceration.