Kelly Meding - Another Kind of Dead

It wasn’t that I’d inherited an out-of-shape body, just an out-of-practice one. I was curvy but trim. My muscles didn’t thrum with the same taut power I’d once possessed, or the flexibility I’d acquired over six months of hard training. I didn’t look forward to taking up that regime again—I kind of liked the softness of my body now. Rounder hips, fuller breasts, definitely more feminine. For the first time in my life, I felt like a woman.

“Well, I’ll be damned,” Milo said.

He was staring out his driver’s side window. I squinted out, curious. A dozen yards away, a man had exited the cafeteria. Dressed in familiar black slacks and a white, buttoned-up shirt that seemed to weep for its missing tie, he paused on the steps and consulted a leather binder.

Light glinted off the white-blond hair of the silver-tongued recruiter who tracked down and brought trainees to Boot Camp. The man who had negotiated my release from prison with the promise of a more fulfilling life.

Bastian.

The fucker.

I can survive another twenty-eight days in Hell. After all, I’ve lived in it for seventeen years and eleven months. One more month is nothing, and then I’ll finally be free. Free of Juvie, free of adults who don’t understand me, free of rules and restrictions and walls. I can do anything.

In twenty-eight days.

As quietly as I can in my thin slippers, I pad down the chilly corridor, knowing full well I’m not supposed to be here. The plain globe lights are set to nighttime levels, giving the faded blue linoleum floor a sickly tint. Not my fault I drank too much juice at dinner and have to pee after lights-out. Okay, yes it is. Still, I’m not pissing in my bed. Haven’t done that since I was four.

No one stirs in the rooms I pass. Soft snores and occasional whimpers drift out through the doorless frames. Took me a long time to get used to sleeping with an open door and lots of light, not to mention three other girls in the same room. Doesn’t bother me so much now, not after three-plus years here.

The bathroom is at the far end of the corridor from my room, naturally, practically next to the watch room. Blinds are shut, though, so Joanie Willis, the overnight guard on weekdays, is either watching a movie she shouldn’t be or entertaining one of the night guards from the boys’ block. I don’t hear anything like heavy breathing or wailing as I slip past, so probably a movie.

I’m careful about the door—it likes to squeal sometimes. I know the layout by heart, so I don’t bother with the lights. I just cross six steps straight ahead, then make a sharp right. My palm slaps a stall partition. I creep inside in the near-pitch, tug down my pajama bottoms, and do my business. Feels great. I’ve been holding that too damned long.

I don’t flush. Someone will be pissed in the morning (no pun intended), but it makes too much noise. Can’t risk it when the battle’s half-won. I emerge from the stall at the same moment the door opens. My stomach knots. Fear roots my feet, even though common sense screams to hide. Several shadows move inward, and then a bright beam of light hits me in the eyes.

I gasp and look away, spots of color dancing behind my eyelids. The door creaks shut. Slippered feet whisper across the floor, moving toward me. Panic hits like ice, chilling me inside and setting my hands shaking. I backpedal until my ass hits the cement wall. I’ve been in my share of fights, sure, but never in the dark.

The light beam tilts toward my feet, and beyond it are four shapes. Girls from my hall, girls who hate me for one reason or another. The biggest girl, six inches and a good thirty pounds on me, is also the meanest. Her name is Lana. She picked a fight with me my first week here because I refused to kiss her shoes. Literally, kiss her fucking shoes. We tussled; I smashed her face into the wall and broke her nose. After that, mean or not, she liked to let her “girls” pick on me.

Those girls are with her now. Alicia hates me because I have straight blond hair, while hers is shit brown and frizzy. She cut a huge hank of my hair off once, so I put ice cubes in her bed half an hour before inspection, which got her tossed into the Thinking Room. Standing next to Alicia is Rowan—who likes to brag about the dogs she killed and skinned to get her here—and a bony corpse of a girl named Cathy. She hates me because her friends do, but we’ve not had it out personally. Yet.

“You aren’t supposed to be here, Evil,” Lana says, her voice a hoarse whisper.

I bristle. I hate the nickname. “Neither are you.”

“Sure we are. We came to give you a good-bye present, since you’re leaving us soon.”

Alicia skirts closer to me, getting within spitting distance. Something long and thin is in her hand. “Going to be eighteen soon,” she says. “Can’t have you leaving us without breaking you in first.”

A tremor rips down my spine. “I’ve had enough fucking things broken since I got here,” I snarl, hands balling into fists at my sides.

“We don’t mean bones.” Alicia brings that thing out from behind her back and into the beam of light. It takes me a minute to understand what it is—a plunger—and what exactly she means to do with it. Holy fuck!

Irrationality strikes hard, and I bolt. Right at Cathy, who doesn’t expect me. I knock her sideways into Rowan, dart left, and get past them. I’m almost at the door when Lana slams into me sideways. I shriek as we tumble to the floor, kicking and scratching. I get a handful of her hair and pull hard. A lot of it breaks and she shouts.

A foot kicks me in the head, and I see colorful lights. The flashlight beam is streaking all over the walls, making it hard to understand what’s happening. I punch out, scratch at flesh, fight back against the weight pressing down on me. Someone’s sitting on my chest, someone else tries to hold my legs still, but I’m kicking and flailing. I connect—I think it’s Rowan from the grunt—and her body falls away.

No, no, fucking hell no! I’ve kept them away from me this long. I start to scream, hoping to lure in any guard close by— why the hell hasn’t anyone heard us by now? —but fabric is shoved into my mouth. Foul and scratchy, maybe a sock. Hands on my legs again.

I go limp, which seems to surprise them. Then I shock the shit out of them by twisting my entire body, fast enough to dislodge Lana. I keep twisting and roll until I hit a wall. A hard cylinder is by my hand—the flashlight. Someone must have dropped it in the confusion. I grab it and swing at the nearest thing to me, which just happens to be Alicia’s head. She drops like a sack of stones, blood spurting from her mouth.

“Bitch!” That’s Cathy, and she trips over Alicia in her haste to get to me. Falls hard and cracks her own damned head on the tile floor. Moron.

The hard wood plunger pole smacks into my belly. Didn’t see that coming. I double over, gasping, tears stinging my eyes. Another blow across my spine sends me to my knees as fire blossoms in my lower back. A foot swings at my head; I react on sheer instinct. I grab the ankle and pull, tripping the owner into falling on her ample ass, then clamp my teeth down on her calf. Hard.

Lana shrieks and kicks with her other foot. She connects with my shoulder, and I bite harder. Blood floods my mouth, thick and metallic. Her next kick combines with Alicia’s swing with the plunger, and I let go. Spit the blood at Alicia and somehow duck her next brutal blow, then use my entire body to bowl her over. Her shoulder strikes first with a solid crunch. The plunger skitters away.

A boy from my first foster home once called me a scrappy fighter. I guess this is what he meant.