Under Attack

Arletta’s words hit me like a hot stone. I stared down at my hands and gasped—they felt heavy, hot, and when I blinked, Mr. Matsura’s blood was seeping through my fingers, pooling in velvet-red spots on the cement. I gasped and rubbed my palms furiously against my jeans, feeling the friction of the denim on my skin but still unable to get the heat of Mr. Matsura’s blood off of them.

Sometimes the devil just gets into you... .

The devil wasn’t in me—he was part of me.

Arletta took my hand and laced her fingers through mine. I expected her to recoil, to scream at the sight and feel of my bloody palms, but she didn’t, and when I looked down, my hand was clean—the only color coming from leftover smears of fingerprint ink.

“You’re going to be all right,” she said with a matronly pat of my hand.

I wished I could believe her.

I leaned my head against the cold cement wall and blew out a sigh. I tried to close my eyes, to imagine a better scenario, but each time I did my mind was flooded with images of Mr. Matsura, of his gaping mouth, of his ashen lips, the marble glass of his cold, dead eyes.

“I have to get out of here,” I mumbled, springing to my feet. “Is there a guard, someone?” I went to the bars at the front of the cell and gripped them, trying my best to rattle them, to make some noise.

“Hello?”

There were answering catcalls from the surrounding holding cells and then the creak of the security door. The catcalls died down, the chatter replaced by the thunk-thunk-thunk of metal against metal, by the click of high heels walking slowly, deliberately across the hard linoleum floor. I craned my neck, pressing my forehead against the bars, and gasped.

Ophelia.

She was poured into a sexy prison guard uniform that showed off her shapely hips. Her slate-grey top was unzipped to show the top of her breasts and I wondered why the other prisoners weren’t reacting. The whole cellblock was deathly quiet; the only sound was the thunk-thunk-thunk of Ophelia as she slowly dragged a tin cup against the jailhouse bars.

Her deliberate walk slowed when she reached my holding cell. As she passed I saw that her icicle-blue eyes were dancing with a sick kind of delight. Her red lips were plumped into a wicked grin. She stopped and we were nose to nose.

“You did this,” I spat.

Ophelia just wagged her head and broadened her smile, touching my nose with her index finger. “You did this,” she said, unable to keep the glee from her voice. “I have to say, little sis, the orange jumper looks good on you. Really sets off your hair.”

Heat surged in my belly.

“Looks like you were made for prison.” Ophelia wagged her head sadly. “Have a felon for a child—big disappointment for a lot of parents.”

“I didn’t do anything wrong.”

Ophelia’s elegant fingers trailed across her neck. “Tell me, Sophie, have you had any issues with your neck lately?”

“I—” But my voice was immediately choked by the heavy band tightening around my neck. I felt my eyes start to water and I tried to cough, to scratch at the nonexistent collar.

“You look so much like your mother when you do that.”

The choking feeling intensified and I clamped my eyes shut, seeing stars—and my mother’s eyes as she stepped forward and threaded a noose around her neck.

I opened my mouth, sputtering, and tried to step back, out of her reach, and when I did I stumbled, falling hard on my butt. The noose around my neck was gone and I gasped and breathed heavily, feeling tears spill over my cheeks. I blinked and looked around me; the grey blocks of the cell were gone and I was in an attic somewhere. My mother was in front of me, young and soft, just the way I remember. A tear slipped down her cheek. I tried to reach out, to say something to her, but I couldn’t move, couldn’t get my mouth to form the words. My mother stepped forward and threaded the noose around her neck.

I started to scream.

There were voices all around me. Some laughed, some uttered things like “newbie” and “fresh meat.” Someone else told me to can it.

Arletta was kneeling next to me, her arms around me, her dark eyes full of motherly concern. Ella and Asia looked on, Ella’s purple-rimmed eyes registering boredom, Asia’s a thinly veiled sadness. “Drugs,” I heard her mumble.

“Did you see her?” I gasped. “She was here.”

“Who was here, honey?”

“Ophelia.” I kicked back against the cement floor and struggled to stand up. “And my mother.” I felt the warmth from the rope around my neck. “She made me see—she made me ...”

“No one was here, Sophie. Just the four of us.”

Ella and Asia offered patronizing smiles.

“She’s making me crazy,” I said, rubbing my temples. “She’s not going to be happy until I’m in the nuthouse.”

“Drugs are a terrible mistress.” Arletta shook her head sadly.

“It’s not drugs,” I said, sinking my hands into my back pockets. My fingers touched a piece of paper and I tugged a business card from my pocket. I gaped at it. “What the—?” I turned the card over in my hand and shook my head at the raised gold lettering: Will Sherman, Guardian. I had a vague recollection of seeing him in the vestibule, but I couldn’t recall him ever handing me a business card.

And I would have remembered if it had said Guardian. I turned the little white card over and over in my hands, then bit my lip.

“I need to make a phone call,” I said slowly.

I called out for a guard, praying that Ophelia and her sex-crazed warden outfit wouldn’t show up again. I guess I was in luck as Officer Houston ambled down the hall toward me, his arms crossed in front of his chest, his expression wary.

“You need something?”

“Can I make a phone call?”

“You got your one call.”

“But there was no answer. That doesn’t count. Right?”

“Hey, Trevor!” Asia did a delicate finger wave in Officer Houston’s direction. She batted her heavily made-up lashes, raked her talonlike fingernails through her hot-pink hair. “I didn’t know you were working tonight.”

Officer Houston offered what I supposed was a grin to the ladies. “Didn’t know you were working tonight either, Asia. Hey, Ella, Arletta.”

“Can I make that phone call now, Trev—er, Officer?” I offered my sweetest smile, batted my eyelashes.

“Got any gum?” Asia asked him, her breasts thrust out in front of her.

Officer Houston pulled a stick of gum from his pocket and fed it through the bars to Asia.

“Look,” I whispered, “if you’re going to give them special treatment ...”

“Special treatment? It’s a stick of gum. And besides—Asia didn’t kill a man.”

Asia and Ella stiffened and shrank behind me.

“You killed a man?” Ella asked, her dishwater-blond hair straggly as it fell over her bony shoulder.

“No! No. The phone call, please?”

“Hands.”

“What?”

Officer Houston tapped his nightstick on a horizontal opening in the cell bars. “Hands.”

I set my hands through the slot and he clamped a set of handcuffs around my wrists, then sunk a key into the lock and escorted me out of the holding cell.

My heart beat with each ring of the phone. Come on, come on, answer, I silently prayed.

“’Yello?”