The processing room smelled like industrial cleaner and sweat. I stood in a line of women who did not look at each other, waiting my turn at a metal desk where a corrections officer with tired eyes checked names against a computer screen that had not been updated since 2015.
"Mitchell, Freya."
"Yes."
She did not look up. "Personal effects in the bin. You'll get a receipt."
I placed my wedding ring in the gray plastic tray. Watched it sit there, a small circle of white gold that had meant everything once. The officer tagged it with a number I would forget by morning.
They gave me clothes that did not fit. Escorted me down a corridor with fluorescent lights that buzzed like insects. The noise grew louder as we approached the cellblock—voices layered over voices, metal doors slamming, someone laughing in a way that sounded like breaking glass.
The officer who walked me in was younger than the one at the desk. She had dark hair pulled back tight and a name tag that said VASQUEZ. She did not speak until we reached my assigned cell.
"You're in 7-C," she said. Then, quieter, with a practiced neutrality that told me everything: "People know who you are. Keep your head down."
I met her eyes. "Thank you."
She looked at me for a beat longer than necessary. Then she unlocked the door and stepped aside.
The cell was six feet by eight. A metal bunk bed bolted to the wall. A toilet with no seat. A small desk that had been carved with initials and dates and words I did not read. My cellmate was not there—out in the common area, probably, or somewhere else in the labyrinth of corridors and locked doors that would be my home for the next sixteen months.
I set my bag on the lower bunk. Pulled out the battered leather notebook I had carried through every stage of my career. Ran my fingers over the cracked spine.
Someone down the hall was singing off-key. Someone else told her to shut up. A door slammed.
I sat on the edge of the bunk and began to hum.
It was a melody I had been working on before the press conference. Before Dominic's cold voice on the phone. Before I walked into that boardroom and gave them exactly what they wanted.
The notes filled the small space. Soft. Unfinished.
No one had heard it yet.
---
Rochelle started small.
The first day, my meal tray disappeared between the serving line and my table. I ate an apple I had pocketed from breakfast and said nothing.
The second day, I found pages torn from my notebook scattered across the cell floor. Lyrics I had written at 2 a.m., when the building was finally quiet enough to think. I gathered the pieces. Taped them back together with a strip of adhesive I borrowed from a woman two cells down who did not ask why I needed it.
The third day, Rochelle shoved me in the laundry corridor. I caught myself against the wall, shoulder first. The pain was sharp and immediate.
She smiled. "Careful, songwriter. Accidents happen."
I looked at her. Did not rub my shoulder. Did not flinch.
"I'll keep that in mind," I said.
That night, I pulled a second notebook from inside the seam of my mattress—a small spiral-bound thing I had bought from the commissary on day two. I wrote down the date. The time. What Rochelle had said. What Vasquez had been standing close enough to hear but had not acknowledged.
I was not reporting it.
I was documenting it.
There was a difference.
---
Nadia Osei showed up on day six.
It was evening lockdown. The cellblock was loud—someone arguing about a stolen magazine, someone else singing that same off-key song from my first night. I was sitting cross-legged on my bunk with a paper lunch bag spread flat in front of me, writing lyrics in the margins with a pencil I had borrowed and not yet returned.
The cell door was open. She walked in like she had been invited.
"You're Freya Mitchell," she said.
I looked up. She was lean, sharp-eyed, with hair buzzed close to her scalp and a scar that cut through her left eyebrow.
"I am."
She sat down on the bunk across from me without asking. Leaned forward. Read the words upside down.
I did not stop her.
She was quiet for a long moment. Then she said, "You actually wrote those songs, didn't you."
It was not a question.
I set the pencil down. Met her eyes.
"Yes."
She nodded slowly. Looked at the torn pages I had taped back together, still sitting on the corner of my desk. Looked at the bruise on my shoulder that had turned purple-green.
"Rochelle's got a contract," Nadia said. "Someone on the outside's paying her to make your life hell."
"I know."
"You're not reporting it."
"No."
She tilted her head. "Why not?"
I picked up the pencil again. Turned it over in my fingers.
"Because I'm building something," I said quietly. "And she's part of the material."
Nadia stared at me. Then, slowly, she smiled.
"You're a lot smarter than you look on TV," she said.
I smiled back. Just a little.
"Everyone is."
She stood. Paused at the cell door. Looked back.
"If you need anything," she said, "you let me know."
I nodded.
She left.
I went back to the lyrics. The melody was coming together now. Soft and sharp at the same time. The kind of song that would sound like a confession but cut like a blade.
Somewhere down the hall, someone was still singing off-key.
I hummed along.
