With that, everything suddenly went dark. I couldn’t even process fully what the woman had said.

  I don’t know how many hours or days it had been when I awoke in a straitjacket locked in an all-white padded room. I can’t count how much time passed before I was let out to mix with the other inmates or patients, whichever way you wanted to look at the people there. I guess we were all property of the state and had at some point become patients. The area I had been moved to wasn’t set up like cells; it was dormitory style, but it was clear we were still in prison. COs guarded the doors, and there was a command center located at the back of the room, and the windows had crossbars.

  “Let’s go, Inmate Heiress. I ain’t got all day. Move it or go back to the room,” a CO screamed as I shuffled my feet trying to keep up.

  The odor emanating from my body was making me sick. I hadn’t had a shower since they had moved me from solitary to the padded room, where I had been locked down for the self-inflicted cuts on my wrists. I felt like I had to learn to walk all over again. My body ached in places I didn’t even know existed; pain even crippled the spaces between my toes. I had been drugged up and tied down for so long, it was as if my brain wasn’t sending signals to the rest of my body parts. A few times, I even stumbled, nearly spilling to the floor flat on my face.

  “Stop here,” the CO demanded. “This is your bed. Stay on your side and on your bed and there won’t be no problems. Got it,” the CO told me, dumping a blanket roll and a small basin filled with toiletries onto a tiny, unmade metal spring bed that had a thin striped mattress on top of it.

  I could feel a hundred sets of eyes on me. I didn’t connect with any of them. I collapsed onto the bed and closed my eyes. I didn’t move an inch. Suddenly a deep, comatose sleep overcame me before I could fight against it. I bet it was because they’d given me something again.

  “Please . . . no! Please . . . not tonight! I’ll do anything! Just don’t take me!”

  I was jolted out of my sleep, thinking I was having a nightmare. The sound of a high-pitched, screeching, pleading voice coming from my left told me I was awake. Although it hurt my head to open my eyes, I did, anyway. My eyes almost popped out of their sockets when I noticed two men in white coats dragging a woman from her bed. I sat up, my head throbbing. It quickly registered with me that the girl was fighting and crying, asking them to leave her alone.

  “What are y’all doing to her? Where y’all taking her?” I croaked through cracked, dry lips. My throat burned with every word.

  One of the men rounded on me and glared at me with the evilest light of fire in his eyes. “Shut the fuck up and mind your business before you get thrown back in the hole,” the white coat growled. He was serious too.

  “Please! Please!” The girl they were dragging out continued to cry as the men pulled her past my bed and off the unit.

  I struggled to my feet and rushed as fast as I could to the door, but a CO stepped in front of me and obstructed my view and movements. I started to push him out of the way, but I decided against it. I knew that I wouldn’t win this fight.

  “Go back to bed, inmate. Don’t be a troublemaker. It’s for your own fucking good,” the CO said, pushing me in the chest until I stumbled backward. I turned around in the darkness and began moving back toward my bed. It seemed like I was walking in slow motion. Walking on air.

  “Don’t worry. You’ll find out where they took her real soon, and then you won’t be so fast to want to know,” said a female voice in the darkness. I jumped; the eerie tone in the voice gave me chills.

  “What?” I squinted.

  The source of the voice moved closer to my bed.

  “I’m Shanta,” the mysterious voice said. Then she boldly flopped down on the end of my bed, which wasn’t allowed, I was sure.

  “The girl they just dragged out of here is Lena.”

  I looked at Shanta tentatively. I didn’t trust many people, especially other females in prison. I didn’t think there were any inmates more ruthless than the women. They were probably more dangerous than some men who were locked up for serious crimes.

  “When people introduce themselves, you usually follow up by introducing yourself?” Shanta said sarcastically.

  I could tell that she was a feisty one. “Misty,” I answered back.

  “Wait? Misty Heiress?” Shanta asked like a lightbulb had just gone off in her head. “I watched your story on the news,” Shanta said in an eerily cheerful tone, which I didn’t think was healthy. It was like she admired me. “You don’t look exactly the same, but I could surely tell it was you. Wow . . . I’m locked up with the infamous Misty Heiress.”

  That statement made me uncomfortable, but if it was going to sell the story that I was dangerous and shouldn’t be fucked with . . . then so be it.

  Shanta moved so that I was able to see her face in the faint light. I surveyed her up and down. She was average at best from what I could see. Her face had quite a few scars on it and her hair looked like it hadn’t been combed in a while. I guess you could say she looked just as rough as I did at that point.

  “So I guess you’re here for trying to commit suicide too?” I asked, nodding toward the old, dingy, blood-stained gauze on Shanta’s wrists.

  “Something like that,” Shanta replied, touching her wrists like she was discovering her bandages for the first time. “And so did Lena. That’s why we were chosen for this area and everything that happens here . . . ,” Shanta said. Her voice seemed to trail off, and she turned her head away, as if she didn’t want me to see the emotions in her face.

  “Chosen for this area? What do you mean? What happens here?” I asked. I wanted answers.

  “Chosen to be in the medical-testing area. You don’t know what happens here? Well, I’ll tell you. Torture happens here,” Shanta replied, shaking her head. “They fucking torture—”

  “Inmates! Get in your own bunks!” a CO barked, cutting off Shanta’s words.

  Shanta jumped up from my bed and got ready to rush away to her own bed. Before she left, she turned back toward me. “We all got chosen because they think we don’t have people that can protect us or care about us on the outside. Whatever they know about you, they will use against you. You’ll see. Good night, Misty,” Shanta said cryptically.

  I tried to keep the conversation going, but Shanta didn’t say another word. She just scrambled back to her bed. I wasn’t awake when Lena was returned to the dorm-style room, but even in my dreams, I felt like I could hear Lena sobbing like her entire world had just ended. It wasn’t until I got up the next day that I saw the blood droplets leading from the door to Lena’s bed. Yeah, those doctors were definitely poking her with all sorts of needles last night. Damn!

  Every day after that, as soon as my eyes opened in the morning, I could not control the tears. I hadn’t heard from Anderson since I’d given him the information to contact my mother. That worried me to all hell. All I could think about was that he might have betrayed me. He might have gone and found my mother, and then took all of the money from her, knowing damn well there would be nothing I could do from inside the prison.

  Thinking about my mother being put in danger all over again because of me was enough to send me into a lifelong depression. The worst of it, though, was being stuck and powerless because this system was so corrupt and fucked. That shit made me boil inside from anger. I regretted ever cooperating with those fucking agents because it hadn’t done me any good. I was still kicking myself for that move. I had taken the full fall for the murder and then, on the urging of my stupid lawyer, pled guilty.

  Somewhere deep down inside, I had held out hope that I would get some help getting out of here. It never happened. I started thinking it was never going to happen for me. I was going to be here until I turned old and gray, or until they killed me with whatever it was they did in this place.

  I lay back down on my bunk and just cried. What I had found out since I’d been moved out of solitary was that the unit I was on housed women that were at high risk for either being injured in general population or at risk of harming themselves. The open-style dormitory was part of the infirmary unit inside the women’s prison. Most of the inmates said that it was a front for the unit where they tested out drugs on humans. So far, it had been three days and I hadn’t gotten pulled yet. I knew that once I did, shit might get very hectic for me. I just hoped that Anderson came through and I would see his sister soon. She hadn’t come and identified herself to me yet.

  “Misty, what’s good?” Shanta called out to me.

  This chick was a bit more cheerful than you could imagine an inmate being, but I guess maybe she figured there was no use in being down and out. We were here and that shit wasn’t changing, so we might as well make the best of it.

  Shanta had interrupted my negative thoughts. I watched her approach from the other side of the room. I wasn’t in the mood for anyone with a bubbly personality. As Shanta got closer, she could tell I had been crying.

  “What’s the matter, Misty?” Shanta asked, sitting down on the end of my bed. She knew that she was breaking the rules, but she didn’t seem to care much about rules. I could tell that already about her.

  I sat up. I didn’t really feel like talking, but I did, anyway.

  “I just feel hopeless. They won’t let me do shit! They won’t even let me make any phone calls. Nobody is explaining shit to me. I thought I had a friend who would help me, but I haven’t heard shit from him,” I said in an almost inaudible whisper.

  Shanta listened intently, her head moving up and down as she looked me in my eyes. Suddenly her face softened. “This is what happens to us all when we first get here. You’ll feel hopeless, but it will wear off, Misty. They will wear you down and drug you up until you forget all your worries. You just have to be strong and pray that one day . . . something gives. Or that someone comes in here and saves us,” Shanta said in a calming voice, which did make me feel better.

  “I don’t want to wait for one day. I can’t live like this. I have to do something about this,” I told her.

  “Do what? What could you do to change your situation? We’re outnumbered,” she continued nonchalantly.

  It was as if she’d already given up, so I knew that I couldn’t count on her. Then I looked around the room at the other inmates lying in their beds, looking oblivious. Most of them were so out of it that they’d burst into laughter or start singing without being prompted. It was their La La Land. So I figured that Shanta was right about us being outnumbered. But then my gut feeling rose up in me and told me not to give up. I could still get out of here.

  9

  ENEMIES ALL AROUND

  It was my fifth day on the new unit, and I awoke to a piece of paper on my bed. My face immediately crumpled into a confused frown when I saw it. I picked it up and it was a note.

  Misty,

  Don’t think you got off easy with what you did. We are everywhere and we won’t rest until you get what is coming to you. Life always has a funny way of bringing karma to those who deserve it. You’ve fucked over a lot of people in your time, and that is going to be returned to you one thousand times over. We have eyes everywhere. We see and hear everything. You thought you had an ally in Officer Anderson, but guess again. We find out everything. Good luck with trying to survive everything we have in store for you.

  My entire body felt frozen like someone had injected my veins with ice water. My heart throbbed so hard, it threatened to choke me. I read that note, over and over again, and each time, a different emotion grabbed hold of me. I finally looked around the dorm to see if anyone was watching me read, but I didn’t notice anything different. All of my housemates were just waking up or busy doing their routine to get ready for the day ahead. My stomach swirled with nausea.

  I didn’t know if that note was from Terrell’s family or Ahmad and his crime syndicate. What I did know was they had gotten to Anderson. I could only pray that he was still alive. And my mother too! I’m so stupid! I could’ve led them straight to my mother through Anderson! The thought made me lean over and dry-heave. Oh my God! I trembled.

  I didn’t know what to do in that moment. It took me almost an hour to get myself together before I left my prison bunk. I made sure I took out that note and read it a couple of times. It had now become fuel for my fire and my daily motivation to keep going, although I wanted to give up totally. I needed my enemy’s words to remind me that I had been through worse and had gotten out of it. This time wasn’t going to be any different.

  I had learned a long time ago from my grandmother that faith could bring you through anything. Being locked up like this, I wasn’t always convinced that faith was a real thing. I had started giving up on God, and maybe that’s why things hadn’t improved. I don’t know, but there was no scarier feeling than being trapped inside the prison and unsure who your enemies were. I felt like a sitting duck at all times. I also felt like I didn’t belong there at all.

  I looked at myself in the scratched prison bathroom mirror and shook my head in disgust: Misty Heiress, former fly girl, was standing in a prison bathroom looking like complete shit. I had unkempt hair, which looked like dried tumbleweed, chipped and bitten-down nails, ashen pale skin, and without a person in the world who could help me out of this shit. My mother was God knows where by now. The thought made me bend at the waist over the sink, this time stomach bile came up.

  My life had changed so drastically over the past six months, and for damn sure, it hadn’t changed for the better. Sometimes I think the fact that I was in this predicament—sitting in prison, with no hopes of getting out—was karma for what happened to Jillian, my grandmother, and Mrs. Mabel. Yeah, I fucked everyone’s life up, and people I really loved lost their lives behind my actions.

  Like I said, I think my situation is karma, but at other times, I think this is just a temporary situation to teach me something—a situation I will bounce back from and come out even better than before. I have to admit that wasn’t the thought I had most, though. Most of the time I was thinking I’m doomed and I’m going to die in prison with no family to even claim my body for a proper burial.

  No matter what, though, I couldn’t help but obsess about my past life. Sometimes it made me smile, but other times, it made me want to cry to even remember it all. I had the type of life people worked hard for. I had gone to school and got my degree. Gotten a good job in a pharmacy and was living the life that sometimes seemed impossible when you’ve grown up in the hood. No one expects any of us to actually put our minds to something, especially school, and then actually achieve it. Every person in my family, including Jillian and my grandmother, was proud of me. I was one of the first to do it in my family. I just knew I’d be the example for everyone else around me.

  Yeah, my life was on the right track and going smoothly. I had gone from being a have-not to being a somewhat-have. And that doesn’t mean I was, by any means, rich, but I was working and could get myself whatever I needed without depending on the system or my family or a no-good man, for that matter. I was living as an independent woman and loving it.

  In fact, the day my life changed for the worst, I had been on my lunch break when I got a call from Jillian—who, by the way, is dead now and partly to blame for the way shit blew up.

  It all started the day she first asked me to grab more than a few pain pills for her, after her car accident. This time, Jillian said something to me that would change everything forever.

  “I’ve got a homeboy who will pay top dollar for twenty to twenty-five Vicodin pills.”

  I had balked at the idea, and at first, I told her, “Hell no!” But as things go, I ended up being a major part of a black-market pill mill, anyway.

  Ain’t that about a bitch? I had gone from trying to be a square, on the straight and narrow, to wearing prison-issued clothes, white half-size-too-small Keds tennis shoes, and sleeping on a metal bed with a paper-thin mattress. That was a far cry from my apartment, which I had been so proud of, which I had worked hard to furnish and decorate all by myself.

  I closed my eyes and fought back the round of tears that threatened to fall every day when I woke up facing the dank gray walls surrounding my bunk and the crowd of women I had to rub arms with, all day, every day. Reality was a bitch, but so was reminiscing over the past.

  Two days after I received that crazy note, I awoke to my name being called frantically from a distance. I looked in the direction in which my name was coming.

  “Misty . . . Misty Heiress! Girl, get up!”

  I heard her voice before I could fully see her. Shanta was huffing and out of breath as she rushed across the dorm toward my bunk. Her eyes were all bugged out and sweat was wetting her hair line.

  “Listen, I gotta tell you something,” Shanta said, winded.

  I was still rubbing sleep and tears out of my eyes when she had rushed over. It was an alarming way to be woken up.

  “What? What could it be, this early in the morning?” I growled, seriously annoyed that she was bothering me.

  Shanta huffed and took a minute to catch her breath. We had grown close over the time I had been there. She seemed more loyal than most, and she seemed to be able to hold her own. I had learned from Sandra while I was in county that you could make connections in prison, but not friends. And you could use those connections to your benefit if you needed to, kind of like how I did with Shanta.

  I had only gotten close to Shanta because she seemed to know shit about everything that was going on. I don’t know who gave her the information, but she was usually right. My first few days there, I was weepy and real sensitive, because I wasn’t ready to accept my fate and because I couldn’t come to grips with the fact that Anderson might have betrayed me. But I learned from her real fast that bitches are ruthless, and if I didn’t stop with all the weak shit, I would get eaten alive—even on this unit where everyone seemed to be much calmer than in general population.