I had no idea what she’d do when that door closed and she was alone.
Max barked at Vivian. “What are you doing in there?”
She opened her mouth to explain, but then sealed it shut.
I stepped up to the glass door, facing Max without opening it. “I made her move. I thought she might keep banging on the glass, and I didn’t want it to break so…”
Max narrowed his eyes on my face, picking up on my bullshit lie immediately, but he nodded like it made perfect sense. He waved a hand as if releasing me from the shower stall. “Time’s up. You’re free to join your gang.”
“I like it here.”
“What?”
This came from both Max and Vivian.
I crossed my arms over my chest. “I’m not leaving. I’m not ready to deal with Elaine yet, and you’ll just end up throwing me right back in here, anyway, so. Just…get me when you come back for her.”
My eyes pleading with him to let it go, I breathed a small sigh of relief when he shook his head. I practically heard the wordwomenfilter through his mind.
But he threw his hands up and turned around.
Pursing my lips, I waited until he left to sit back down.
“You don’t owe me for that, either. Just so you know. But…if you wanted to distract me from my Elaine rage, you could tell me what I missed after I got thrown in here?”
Vivian stayed silent for so long, I assumed she wouldn’t take me up on my offer. But after another minute or two, she swallowed and started talking.
“Everyone had to start in their cells. They said they’d let us into the common area in twenty minutes, but they pulled outthatcreepearly. He came around to all our cells, taunting us with information and how to get out.”
“That creep? You mean the one they called Silk?”
She scoffed. “God, I can just hear the joke that asshole made about his sheets when he picked that name.Silk sheets. The ladies love them.Something especially lame like that.”
I huffed a quiet laugh, unable to stop myself. Then I waited, hoping she’d give more information, but I had my suspicions about who it was because there was only one person here I’d heard make gross jokes. And inform everyone at the Honor Ceremony that Vivianrefused to put out. “You mean Ben.”
“Don’t even speak that asshole’s name to me.”
The venom in her tone surprised me, but it wasn’t directed at me, even if her words had been.
“Okay, so…forget about him. What was the information you got on what we’re supposed to do?”
She huffed and thought over whether she wanted to share more before ultimately deciding to. I guessed she favored the idea of helping me over sitting in pitch-black silence.
Which, again, only increased my concern.
“When we have time in the common area, we’re supposed to plan with our group. Everyone needs to either find a way out of our cells or find a way to escape when we’re all released in the shared space. But they barely gave us more than that. And our helpful fellow inmate said the lowly prisoners like us onlyescape if they can give him what he wants. One thing. We have to figure out what it is.”
She made a sound of disgust and fell silent.
“That’s it?”
“I mean, it’s more than you had two minutes ago, so.”
I conceded her point. “True. You could be lying to me, for all I know, so I might be at square one either way.”
“I could be, but I’m not.”
“And what? I’m just supposed to trust you? Assume honor means anything to you because you made it through six days with some prick you probably avoided without even having to try?” I huffed. “Give me a break.”
