I did, strands falling loose around my shoulders, catching the cold fluorescent light.
“Now bend over. Spread your legs. Cough.”
I froze for a heartbeat before complying, face flaming, humiliation burning hotter than any fire.
I bent at the waist, hands on my knees
The cavity search was thorough, precise, unyielding—a violation I could not control, hands invading places no one had touched without consent since... since him.
The memory gripped me, tight, suffocating, and I almost gagged. But I forced my focus back to the present, counting each second until it was over.
“All clear.”
The words were clinical, almost antiseptic.
Ramirez stripped off the gloves and tossed them into a biohazard bin with a soft thunk.
She handed me a fresh set of prison garb: coarse, scratchy underwear, an orange jumpsuit labeled CDCR INMATE across the back in stenciled black letters, thin socks, and velcro sneakers that looked at least two sizes too big.
I pulled the jumpsuit on, shivering as the fabric scratched my skin, every fold a reminder that this was now my reality.
Shoes too large, socks thin and rough, the prison-issued uniform tight in all the wrong places—it was a uniform not just of compliance, but of erasure.
Of stripping away identity.
I caught a glimpse of myself in the small, grimy mirror in the corner of the room.
My reflection was pale, hollow-eyed, cheeks hollowed by exhaustion and fear. This was not the woman I remembered being. But it was the woman who had to survive.
I’d lost weight these past weeks—meals missed, sleep abandoned, stress gnawing at me like a parasite that never slept. Even my bones felt sharper now, angles where softness used to be.
Officer Ramirez’s voice cut through my thoughts again. “Walk straight. No sudden movements. Follow instructions, and we’ll all get through this faster.”
I nodded, swallowing back the lump in my throat, trying to summon a fraction of dignity.
Every step, every command followed, every humiliating procedure endured—it was all part of surviving this first gauntlet. I could not, would not, let them see me break entirely.
And yet, as I was led away to the next chamber, I felt something inside me fracture—tiny, imperceptible shards of defiance and despair intertwining, forming a quiet, simmering fury. This was not the end. It could not be.
The reality pressed in harder.
I had lost.
Not just the case—but everything.
The courtroom replayed in my mind on an endless, merciless loop.
I saw myself standing there in that borrowed suit—too long in the sleeves, too tight at the shoulders.
It had smelled faintly of mothballs and old detergent, and I’d clung to it like armor anyway, because it was the last scrap of dignity I’d been allowed.
Some charity-bin find that James Walker had managed to scrounge up at the last minute.
The judge hadn’t really looked at me. His eyes skimmed past, already heavy with conclusions. I might as well have been furniture.
Ruslan, though—Ruslan—had been impossible to miss.
He’d sat in the gallery, immaculate in a charcoal three-piece suit tailored to perfection, cufflinks glinting under the courtroom lights. Not a hair out of place. Not a wrinkle.
