In Your Custody

•FIFTY-TWO•

A/N: Italics indicate dreams or memories.
~•~•~

Vera wrapped her goodwill coat, tighter around her waist as she stood outside of the Women's penitentiary waiting for Axel to pick her up. It no longer smelled of cigarettes, having washed it several times after she purchased it. She hated seeing Axel mad and if it was such an avoidable thing, she would do it.

It didn't hurt anything.

It was a used coat, it needed to be washed anyway.

Thinking back to that first 'fight' they had, on only the second day of knowing each other, hurt. She sometimes wondered if he had truly changed his behavior or if the bad things he still did, appeared less than what they truly were because she was used to the extreme end.

She didn't like thinking this way. She loved Axel, or at least that's what the pain in her heart told her whenever she thought about not being with him. Still, that didn't mean she liked everything he did. She decided that she would have to talk to him about some things before their relationship went even further.

They were chugging full steam ahead down a sexual train track, and she didn't want to reach their destination without putting on the brakes first, lest they crash.

That destination was only a few steps away. Even she was pushing it forward ever since slightly. She had an appointment at the women's clinic a few days ago, where they prescribed her birth control pills.

She just wanted to be safe, in case anything of the sort did happen. She didn't want to take any chances of accidentally becoming pregnant.

She wanted to wait until marriage, but she couldn't deny her body's physical response to his touch. She wanted him. Badly. So badly, her grasp on her morals was very quickly slipping away.

The brisk wind outside whipped her hair back and forth into her face and wrapped the long red strands around her neck. She rocked back and forth on the balls of her feet to her heels, trying to warm herself up. All of her classmates along with her professor had already left, leaving the poor girl with no car all by herself.

Axel had convinced her to let him drive, which she was more than okay with, considering it was in Seward and she hated driving even around town let alone across the state. But now as she had been forced outside, after the tour, she wasn't as fond of the idea anymore.

The tour and the presentation in total was about an hour, maybe a little more. It wasn't as exciting as she had thought it would be considering they were shown the bare minimum. They walked through a loop of hallways, the hall of records for the inmates, past a library and offices before landing in the cafeteria.

It was in there, the class was introduced to Bernadette Williams.

The Kansas Killer.

Her good behavior, along with a plea bargain gave her access to a prison with much lighter security, though her sentence remains indefinite and she will die behind bars.

She was in cuffs and two guards were present, simply due to the horrific nature of her crimes. It was honestly shocking she wasn't on death row, though even if she was, the housing situation wouldn't be much different.

Vera wiped her nose on the back of her hand, a cold sting slicing through her nostrils, "Fudge noodles." She whined, applying quick pressure to try to relieve some of the pain.

The trip had taken up the day, meaning she had no other classes and could go home and start working on her paper. She was unable to take notes, considering they didn't allow phones or any outside objects into the prison walls. So she had to make sure she was paying close attention and asking enough questions.