Takeover by Diana Dwayne Read Free Book Online Page A

listen to two women make up stories about how badass they are until the sun comes up; I guess I just haven’t had a chance to feel lonely until now. It’s a feeling that I can hardly believe hasn’t always been there, just waiting in the dark for the proper moment to reassert its dominance.
    I can’t sleep.
    The lights have been out for hours now, and I can’t stop thinking about Mr. McDaniel. It’s not necessarily that I miss him, or even that I’m sad that he’s gone; I’ve just grown accustomed to seeing that vein in his forehead bulging multiple times every hour. It may not be the most pleasant or inspiring memory, but it’s about all I’ve got.
    What I really miss right now is sleeping next to James. Tonight was supposed to be the night. To be honest, I’m not quite sure how he had done it: made it so long without pressuring me into sex. For a while there, I was beginning to have suspicions that he was cheating on me, but that was just my ten-years-later-and-still-a-teenager brain kicking in. We’ve slept together, but we haven’t slept together. You know what I mean.
    I’d give anything to be in his arms right now, assured that all of this mess was just an elaborate nightmare, and that everything in the world is going to be okay because he is him and I am me. That’s what I’m forcing into my mind at the moment anyway.
    The reality is that Sam snores, Nicolette won’t stop rolling over in her sleep and there’s a ventilation shaft that leads to the other cells, through which I can hear one of the inmates on the level below talking either to herself, to one of her cellmates or in her sleep. When I say ventilation shaft, of course I mean a few holes bored into the concrete walls, providing just enough air for the three of us to not suffocate. There’s not a drop of comfort anywhere in these pale walls, and I am seriously wondering if I’m going to end up like one of these inmate girls, driven mad by the realities of imprisonment.
    From what Sam and Nicolette were saying earlier, a lot of girls that “come in” for the first time are like me: timid, unsure, feeling like this is the last place that they belong. Then some time goes by, maybe the girl even gets let out, but there’s something about being stuck inside of these walls that breaks a person down. It’s like everything about this place is intended to breed criminality, psychosis even. I haven’t been in this cell for twelve hours, and I can already feel a part of myself starting to pick up the chains that I’m being told to wear for a lifetime.
    It’s not a pleasant feeling.
    Finally around—well, to be honest, I have no idea what time it is—I fall asleep, but my torment doesn’t let up for a minute. Whether a few hours or a few breaths have passed, the next thing that I know, I’m back in my chair, outside Mr. McDaniel’s office, and I’m just waiting for him to come out screaming, but he never does. I don’t know why that’s what’s making this a nightmare, but the silence on the other side of that door is more terrifying than any tirade he’s ever thrown on me.
    When I wake up, it’s still dark outside, but the lights in the cell are on. Sam tells me to get up, that it’s time for food, but I don’t want to eat. There’s something addictive in the food. I don’t know if it’s the unpalatable taste of sulfur in every bite and every drop of water, or if it’s some other chemical they’re putting in there, but I’m not the least bit anxious to pump myself full of that crap.
    “You’d better eat somethin’,” Nicolette tells me. “If you don’t, they gonna put you on suicide watch like that guy Billy Sanders.”
    “Billy Sanders?” I ask.
    “You know... that Irish guy that was elected to their congress that they put in jail over there. He went on a hunger strike and died in prison.”
    “Bobby Sands,” I correct. “He was a member of the Provisional Irish Republican Army, and they were protesting the fact