Dark and Light: The Island

Chapter Five

Chapter Five

Location: The detention centre

By the time lunch had finished, three more people had come up to me and asked me why I was there, if I was friends with Chloe, and the rest of the nonsense. Cole warded them off a few times, but when they looked at him like he was something on the bottom of their shoes, he stopped, and it was up to me to tell them to back off.

Surprisingly, they listened, which I wasn’t expecting, so I followed Cole over to the side of the mess hall at the end of lunch and we were searched, as per usual. Nobody had tried to steal anything, so we were led outside. There were five lines forming, so I bade Cole a good night and stood on my tiptoes, gazing over the heads of the people around me, searching for Chloe’s easily recognizable hair. I spotted her in the line that was nearest to the wall and snuck in behind her. She turned and grinned at me, twiddling her hair around her finger again.

“Hi Laurel,” she said warmly; quite a few of the people around us turned to see what was going on, who she was talking to and why she was being so nice. I held back a grin of my own and nodded my head slightly, smiling at her.

"Chloe. Hey. Where were you at lunch?” I asked, genuinely curious as to why she hadn’t been there.

She waved off my question as though it was nothing as we walked towards Block A. “Finishing my conversation with my lawyer. He’s going for the ‘gently, gently’ approach.” Then she leaned forwards and whispered into my ear, “I’ll tell you when we’re in the cells.”

I nodded discreetly as she stepped through the metal detector that was at the entrance to Block A. She showed that the buckle on her shoes was metal and was allowed in. I followed her, explaining that the sip in my jeans was what had shown up on the detector, and then we were inside the block.

There was a ruckus at the doorway, and we all turned to watch the drama unfold; a person had tried to get back into the block, but she had a belly bar in. Piercings were banned in the detention centre, as they were classed as weapons. I could imagine that they could do some harm if they were used offensively. It would really hurt if someone stabbed you with one or something.

Instead of leading us towards the entrance to our row of cells, the L. E showed us towards a door that said ‘SHOWER ROOM’. I hoped against hope that it wasn’t communal showers, as that would be embarrassing, not to mention incredibly awkward and an invasion of privacy, but there were small, closed off stalls. Nobody could see into them, which was a good thing, and we were all handed our pyjamas (red top and black bottoms with thick slipper socks) and some towels. It was explained that the toiletries were already in the stalls.

I stepped into the nearest stall, locked the door, and then turned to look around me. A truly huge showerhead was above me, the dials with the temperature and water pressure controls on the wall in front of me. A small, tiled shelf was in the back right hand corner of the shower and on it was shampoo, conditioner, and shower gel and body cream. There was no razor or even a sponge, and I wondered why the latter wasn’t there; surely a sponge wasn’t considered a weapon here? I shook my head, erasing that thought, and then picked up the bottles, opening them ready. I hung my towels on the pegs behind the small wall partition, some of the wall coming across so that the towels didn’t get wet from the splashing of the water from the overhead showerhead.

I pulled off my clothes, clad to be out of them, and hung up my beloved leather jacket with my towels, shoving my other clothes through the small cat flap- like door in the wall to my right, wondering where the clothes went. Probably down a chute to the laundry to be washed or something, my brain supplied rationally.

I fiddled with the water controls and stepped into the hot spray. I wet my hair, and then spun it into a quick bun on top of my head, out of the way. I used the shower gel, which was odourless, lathering it up and then allowing the water to pull the bubbles from my body and down the drain. I shook out my hair, squirting some of the strawberry scented shampoo into my hands and lathering it up a little before rubbing it thoroughly into my hair. I washed that out and used the conditioner, figuring that it couldn’t hurt my hair, really. I left it on for the designated two minutes (at least, I counted to one hundred and twenty before washing it from my locks) and then turned the water off. I noticed a red button that said ‘DRYER’. Curious, I pressed it. A red light was passed over my body, from the top of my head to underneath my feet (yes, it travelled through the flooring). I was suddenly dry, my hair damp, so I pulled on my clothes, wrapping my hair into a turban with the towel. I applied the body cream to all the parts of my body that I could reach (even, with great difficulty, my back) before pulling on my leather jacket and exiting the shower. I saw an L. E standing by some sinks. She raised her eyebrows at my jacket, but said nothing. She simply handed me a bar of soap, a small, single use tube of toothpaste and a plain white toothbrush and gesturing towards an unoccupied sink.