Time stopped being measured in days. It was measured in pain.
Month one. Dorothea sat at the metal cafeteria table, staring at her plastic tray. A thick glob of spit slid down the side of her mashed potatoes. She picked up her plastic spoon, scooped around it, and forced the food down her throat. She had to eat to survive.
Month three. She was assigned to the laundry room. She was folding a rough cotton sheet when Rhonda walked by. Rhonda grabbed the heavy, industrial steam iron and deliberately pressed the scorching metal plate directly against Dorothea's forearm.
Dorothea screamed, the smell of her own burning flesh filling her nose. When she tried to show the guard the blistering, oozing burn, the guard hit her in the stomach with a baton and threw her in solitary confinement for a week.
Year one. The sirens wailed in the middle of the night. Black, choking smoke poured into the cell block from a fire in the kitchen. The guards panicked and locked the gates.
Dorothea couldn't see. The heat was unbearable. She heard a young girl-Jada, a nineteen-year-old who had shared her food once-screaming in the corner. Dorothea crawled on her hands and knees through the thickest part of the smoke, grabbing Jada by the collar and dragging her toward the ventilation grate.
Dorothea inhaled lungfuls of toxic, burning chemicals. Her throat felt like it was coated in battery acid. When they finally pulled her out, her vocal cords were permanently scarred. Her voice was gone, replaced by a harsh, grating rasp.
Year two. A massive brawl broke out in the yard. Dorothea tried to back away, but someone hit her in the back of the head with a padlock wrapped in a sock.
She woke up in the prison infirmary. A sharp, agonizing pain radiated from her lower back.
The prison doctor, a man with dead eyes, stood over her. "You took a bad hit to the kidney during the riot. It ruptured. We had to do an emergency removal to save your life."
Dorothea stared at the ceiling. She knew it was a lie. There was no riot near her. She had been targeted. Her kidney was gone, carved out of her body and sold on the black market by the people Alfredo paid to destroy her.
Her body was permanently broken. If she stood for too long, a deep, sickening ache throbbed in her empty side.
Year three. Rhonda was transferred to a maximum-security facility for stabbing another inmate. Before she walked out the gates, Rhonda looked at Dorothea. There was no mockery in her eyes anymore. Only a strange, twisted respect.
Everyone in the block knew. You could beat 926, you could burn her, you could cut pieces out of her, but you couldn't kill her. She was a cockroach.
The day her sentence ended, the heavy metal gates of Rikers Island buzzed open.
No one was waiting for her.
She walked out holding a clear plastic bag containing a pair of cheap jeans, a faded t-shirt, and forty-two dollars in prison wages.
The sunlight hit her face. It felt too bright, too aggressive. She raised a scarred, calloused hand to shield her eyes. She didn't feel free. She felt hollow.
She walked to the bus stop and stepped into the small public restroom.
She stood in front of the scratched mirror.
The woman looking back at her was a stranger. Her skin was a sickly, sallow yellow. Her cheekbones jutted out sharply against her hollow face. She was terrifyingly thin. Her hair was a dry, brittle mess of split ends.
She opened her mouth. "Dorothea," she whispered.
The sound was awful. It sounded like heavy sandpaper grinding against wood.
She reached into her pocket and pulled out her plastic prison ID card. The bold black numbers stared back at her. 926.
She dropped the card into the overflowing trash can.
She walked out of the bathroom and took a deep breath of the outside air. A passing truck blew a cloud of exhaust into her face, sending her into a violent, painful coughing fit. She clutched her side, waiting for the pain to pass.
She had nowhere to go. But she was alive.
