Family

Transitions and Transfers

26 Dec, 2021

Bojan took his first steps into the place he would soon come to call home, and the guards gave him a quick tour before dropping him off at his cell. Apparently, night had already befallen the town, and the man now had to sleep. He lay down on his rock hard bed, and looked at the stone above him. "Why the fuck would I take that deal," he muttered to himself. "Once they let me go so I could hand myself in I should have just fucking killed them all. They deserve it anyway, for what they did to my Helios."

"Hello?" came a voice from the cell beside Bojan's. The man got up from his bed and walked to the cage to see a hand waving from the cell to his left. "So, you're the new guy they got locked up here. What's your name?"

"Bojan," he answered meekly. "Bojan Kriska."

"Oh, you were that serial killer they got recently, aren't you?"

"Well, technically I didn't actually do any of the stuff they accused me of doing. I got blackmailed into confessing for them."

"Oh, shit," the person sighed. "Well, in any case, I'm Paula. Lovely to meet you, Bojan."

"Yeah, great to meet you too." Bojan grinned, and just like that he had made his first friend in prison on his first night there.

27 Dec, 2021

The next morning, the guards came to pull them out of the cells for roll call, and he got his first look at what Paula looked like. They stood tall and thin, and it was clear that prison had had its toll on them. Later, they were let into the common room, and Bojan finally got a chance to properly talk to his new friend.

"So, tell me about yourself," he smiled, beginning to eat his breakfast. "Also, sorry to ask, but what are your pronouns?"

"She/her, and don't be sorry! Most of the fuckers around here still call me by my dead name," she rolled her eyes. "I transitioned after I got in here, you see, beforehand I was just non-binary, still in the process of transitioning. And then, once I got in, those fuckers in charge wouldn't letting me transfer to a female prison because it'd be 'expensive'. Personally, I reckon Geoffrey Soileh paid them off to be like this, the piece of shit."

"Oh, god," Bojan grimaced, pondering guiltily the fact that the reason Helios didn't allow transfers was because it would have stated it in the Book if a transfer was meant to happen. They had never thought about how it would affect people who actually had a moral right to transfer, people like Paula. "That - sucks."

"Yeah, it does," she frowned, and across the cafeteria one big, buff guy walked in with a couple thugs following behind. "That's Jacob, he more or less runs the prison," she explained. "Some of the guards are still moral enough to not buy drugs off of him, but most do. He sells all types, and because of that he has lots of buyers. Steroids, Cocaine, Heroin, you name it. Nearly all of the prisoners buy off him, not me though, and like I said most of the staff do too. You don't wanna mess with him, he was put in here long before me for killing his mistress. He's - my brother in law."

"I see," Bojan nodded. "So I assume you guys have a - complicated relationship."

"Well, after he killed his mistress my wife and I raised his son. My wife was the only real relative the child had left, save for his family on his mum's side. But you know, given she's Jacob's sister, I think Rosa thought it was our responsibility to raise him," she continued. "But then, a few years later, Jacob told me he needed some help. Long story short, he needed me to take some of his drugs and shit and sell them to some big buyer or whatever, and when I initally refused he told me I could keep all the profit - he was only doing it because he knew if he didn't, the buyer's thugs would beat him up inside. And then turns out, the whole thing was a set up, and the cops arrest me for fucking drug dealing! So I mean, yes, we do have a complicated relationship. He is the reason I'm in this place, and he did cheat on his wife and kill his mistress, but at that same time once I got in here he seemed to warm up to me. I mean, we don't speak often, but I think there's an unspoken understanding that if either of us needs something, we can go to the other for help."