Spider in the Corner of the Room (The Project Trilogy) by Nikki Owen Read Free Book Online Page B

curled up like a foetus in the corner. I want to turn into a ball and block it all out. I am scared in here, in this place of loud, screeching sounds. The guard strides ahead and I force myself, will myself, to just keep going without doing what I usually do, because in here, I know they won’t understand. Nobody ever does.
    I subtly sniff the air, detecting the smells as we walk. Sweat. Faeces. More urine. The scent of cheap perfume. Above me, arms dangle from metal rails, hanging, swinging like monkeys from a tree, around them animals pacing everywhere like lions and tigers, the predators, the purveyors of their territory. Gum is chewed like bark, whistles are called out like the howls of wolves. Faces peer down. Mouths snarl. Teeth and stomachs are all bared. The only similarity between me and the other inmates is that we are all convicts. All marked: Guilty.
    The guard takes me across a flaking mezzanine floor, suspended one storey up from the ground. I count the levels. There are four floors to this prison, all housing forty cells, each with two inmates. That is eighty multiplied by four, equalling three hundred and twenty inmates. Three hundred and twenty women with hormones. All using toilets with no doors.
    Once at Dr Andersson’s office, I am instructed to wait. The guard stands by my side, glaring, eyes like slits that make me nervous. I tap my foot in response; she barks at me to stop. I scan the area and see that rooms branch off from this corridor, door upon door stretching out every way, as far as my eye can see, strong, black doors, menacing, like ground soldiers, troops on watch. In the midst of it all is one door different to the rest, red, polished. It stands out, more refined, more elegant than the others. The plaque on it is partially obscured by the glare from the strip lights, but I can just read the first line:
Dr Balthazar.
    To my left, Dr Andersson’s door opens.
    ‘Ah, Maria.’ Dr Andersson is standing in the doorway. Her hair hangs down past her shoulders, glistening like a lake, her make-up in place, lips a slice of crimson. So different to me, my bare sallow skin, my shorn hacked-at hair, bitten nails. I feel suddenly small, insignificant. Forgotten. I touch my cheek.
    ‘Glad to see you looking better,’ she says.
    ‘I do not look better,’ I answer instantly. ‘I look worse than ever.’ The guard keeps her stare on me. Dr Andersson supplies me with a brief smile.
    ‘So, Maria,’ Dr Andersson continues, clearing her throat, taking a few heeled steps, ‘we have our meeting now. Couldyou come with me?’ She nods to the guard and the three of us proceed through the corridor.
    We arrive at the red door and halt. Up close it almost gleams, the polished finish reflecting like a mirror. I catch sight of myself and gasp. Eyes black with dark circles, mouth downturned, lined, hair matted to my head, shoulders dropped. Already the prison is beating me, changing me, as if the priest’s death is slowly scratching its rigor mortis into my skin.
    A buzzer sounds. I jump.
    Dr Andersson pushes open the door. ‘Okay, we can go in now, Maria. We are meeting Dr Ochoa—the Governor.’
    I glimpse at the plaque on the door now fully visible: Dr Balthazar Ochoa. I mull the name over.
Ochoa.
It means ‘wolf’. It is a Spanish name—Basque.
    Which means the Governor somehow, in some connection, is Spanish.
    Like me.
    When we enter the office, the man from the corridor when I first arrived at Goldmouth is sitting at the desk.
    I immediately halt, surprised. ‘What are you doing here?’
    ‘Maria,’ Dr Andersson whispers, ‘this is the Governor.’
    I look at Dr Andersson then back to the man behind the table. ‘You are Governor Ochoa?’
    He stands, looms over the table, a shadow casting across it. Up closer, he is taller, older, his skin more tanned. Two strips of grey bookend his ears and, when he smiles, wrinkles fan out from his eyes, soft, worn. And his eyes, they are deep brown, so dark that