"Ezra. Ezra, please put down the gun," Benjamin pleaded, his voice rising with every syllable.
I shook my head, my lip trembling.
"Ezra, he's inno-"
"NOT UNTIL PROVEN GUILTY!" I screeched, the gun still pointed at Lamar's head.
"I swear Ezra. Everything will be okay again if you just put the gun DOWN!"
"SHUTUP!" my screams were bloodcurdling. Benjamin and Lamar flinched every time I opened my mouth.
Yet I had to do it. My cousin, my sweet, innocent, wouldn't hurt a fly five-year-old cousin deserved everything in the world. And justice was number one on the list.
I clamped both hands down on the weapon in my hand, noticing I was shaking violently.
"You lied. You dishonoured my family. You all did," I glared at my hands, noticing that every inch of my body was sweating heavily, my heart was violently pounding out of my chest. I had to pull the trigger, even if it was the last thing I do.
"Please Ezra. Remember what we had before? I swear, it was an accident," Benjamin's voice cracked with the last word he uttered.
I then had a change of heart. I lowered the gun slowly, my hands still clamped on it. I saw Lamar's body relax just the tiniest bit yet he didn't move an inch.
"Good. Good job, Ezra. Now, just put the gun on the floor and surrender. Everything will be-"
And that's when I did it. I span 45 degrees, aimed the gun at Benjamin's head and without another thought, pulled the trigger.
***
I sat bolt upright, my head hitting the bunk above mine.
"Ow," I frowned and rubbed my head. Damn flashbacks.
"If you wanna keep your liver kid, you keep the noise down. You hear me?" I heard a voice above me mumble.
"Sorry," I groaned.
I hopped out my bed and shuffled to the toilet in the corner of the cell. Pulling down my sweats, I made sure I hid everything well from prying eyes that may be looking through the steel bars.
I finished off and went over to the entrance of the cell. The massive digital clock on the opposing wall told me the time was 3:47am. I sighed and leant my head against the bars. Some of the other inmates were up also, I could see Abruzzi sharpening some kind of weapon from the bottom of his bunk and Tweener, that little shit who thought he was black, was pacing his cell.
I ran my fingers through my slightly greasy hair and tutted. I need to trim this down again. People will start to get suspicious.
"Do you ever sleep, kid?"
I heard a shuffling from behind me and then a yawn.
"Ever heard of insomnia?" I said almost too begrudgingly.
"Man, I'm not looking for a sob story-"
"I'm not giving you one, C-Note," I snapped. "Go back to sleep."
"Why you snappin', kid? Everyone in here is just as frustrated as you are. So you better buck your ideas up before you speak to me like that again, aight?" Benjamin Franklin or C-Note as he was known as, growled from the darkness behind me.
I didn't even turn and look at him when he spoke to me. C-Note was one of those people that, if you got on the wrong side of him he wouldn't put up with the shit you spewed. However I'd managed to arouse C-Note's good side the first day I'd arrived here. I'd got in a punch up with the scumbag who was Theodore "T-Bag" Bagwell. C-Note instantly had respect for me after I'd told the dick where to go.
***
Shampoo hair.
Condition hair.
Cut hair.
Wash body.
Check for intruders. Look both ways.
Turn off shower.
Wrap towel around body.
Every two days this happened. Every two days I made sure to get to the showers ten minutes earlier than all the other cellmates just to wash my hair and body. Oh, and then cut my hair with the scissors I hid in my underwear.
It sounds horrific, I know. But this is the length I had to go to to not let the cons in here know I'm a woman. A woman who is dead meat if she's ever figured.
I quicky dried myself off and ran the towel through my newly short hairdo. It had started to at least come down past my neck and that had panicked me. I'd not been in here long yet it was becoming nearly impossible to disguise that I was hiding a vagina.
I slipped out of the showers and passed oncoming inmates who were on the way to their morning wash. I passed C-Note who gave me a nod and continued talking to his 'friends'. If you could call them that. I hadn't spoken to him since we'd exchanged heated words earlier this morning. I couldn't help that my insomnia got to me. I never intended to get on the wrong side of people. I only did it if I had to.
I made my way to the cafeteria for breakfast. I knew I'd get a table going in this early which was always the good thing. The bad thing is that I'd have to share it. With Michael Scofield and Fernando Sucre.
I picked up a silver tray and waited for breakfast, which consisted of rice pudding and a slice of bread, to be slopped onto my tray. You stay classy, Fox River.
I scanned the cafeteria and checked for allies. There were a couple of C-Note's homeboys sat at a table to the far right, Abruzzi and his clan at another table, some others who I didn't speak to or avoided. Then there was Michael. He was sat in the same position I'd left him in after dinner last night. I guess there was no way in hell trying to bag another table. T-Bag I could stand up to, but some of the bigger guys? I'd be squished like an ant in under a minute.
"Loner," I dumped my tray on the table. Michael tilted his head up and gave me those speculative eyes that he seemed to give everybody.
"You're one to talk, Dan," he looked back down at his grub and started to tear his bread apart. I hated how he put emphasise on the name Dan. Loathed it.
I had a love-hate relationship with Michael Scofield. Love is too stronger word though. He gave me no hassle and was at least civil to me unlike some of the other punks, I was grateful for that. Yet I had this shitty feeling in the pit of my stomach that he knew I was not in fact Daniel Riley. I sensed he knew from day one I was a woman.
"Ay papi," a Puerto Rican accent from behind me called out.
Next thing I knew, Fernando Sucre was sliding into the empty seat next to me.
"I got a letter back from Maricruz," Sucre grinned as he started shovelling rice pudding in his mouth.
"What'd she say?" Michael replied, vaguely interested it seemed like.
Sucre took a side glance at me and then back at Michael. "Later, eh?"
I rolled my eyes. It's like I was the badder guy amongst the bad guys or something.
I picked my tray up to leave before Sucre took my arm and pulled me back down again.
"What's your problem, man?" I frowned at him. How rude; he thinks my eavesdropping will affect his relationship with his girl I've never seen before in my life yet he has no problem manhandling me back into my seat.
"Look, you gotta know," Sucre shifted his gaze around the room and then back to me. "In the showers earlier, T-Bag, he said something-"
"I can handle Theodore Bagwell, Sucre," I raised an eyebrow at him before getting up off my seat. "Done manhandling me?"
For a second I thought I saw hurt in his deep brown eyes as he turned to look at Michael. Who'd have known a girl like me could have such effective words, eh? Oh sorry, 'guy'.
"Be careful Dan," Michael called after me. I didn't turn back to look at him. I could fend for myself. I'd fought T-Bag off before, I was prepared to do it again.
The ambush started when I stepped out the cafeteria door. A hand grabbed my sweater and started pulling me off down a deserted corridor which I vaguely remember leading to some of the confined cells in which Michael's brother Lincoln Burrows was kept in.
I manoeuvred myself so that I could see the face of my ambusher yet I didn't need a name to know who those grotty little rapist hands belonged to.
"T-Bag, there's no need to be so forward. If you wanted me you could've just asked,"
Play him at his own game. Answer back. Be sarcastic. Just don't get cut.
"Very funny, cutie," T-Bag said in his growling Alabama accent.
T-Bag was another who I thought knew that I wasn't what people perceived me to be. His choice of nickname for me was "cutie". Don't even ask, I don't get what goes on in his sick brain either. Except I did know that he probably thought I was too feminine for my own good, even if he hadn't worked out I was a woman.
"What the hell is your problem?" I winced, almost losing character and turning into a defensive, hurt girl. I couldn't slip, not now.
"I have a proposition for you and unless you wanna get that tight little hiney busted, I suggest you shut your trap and listen,"
T-Bag tightened his grip on my sweater and violently shoved me into the corridor wall. I immediately felt the contact of the concrete against the back of my head and gasped at the shooting pain travelling at rapid speed through my skull. He then leant one arm on the wall and moved his face closer to mine, his other hand resting just beneath my collar bone.
"Little birdie told me, Master Riley, that you're not all what you make out to be," his accent and his sickly and weirdly sweet breath and everything about him being this close to me made me more uncomfortable than it should have done. The hypothetical pair of balls I'd grown had somehow crawled back into my body. Damn it.
"What are you talking about, man?" I played it cool with the convicted murderer and rapist and tried to stick to my long term plan: pretend you have a penis and don't act like a little girl.
"Seems as if I have a feisty little nipper on my hands here. That's if you actually do have one..."
"What?" I frowned. Oh hell no...
"I see you hanging around with your homeboys, you don't fool me, cutie," he licked his lips and started to look me up and down. "You ain't one of them."
"If you're-"
"And before you give me a smart ass answer, I ain't talking about the pigmentation of your skin," T-Bag's voice was low and threatening.
"Look," I began. I had a feeling I knew where the conversation was going. "I'm just trying to do my time in here, man. I'm sorry if I got on the wrong side of you before but, you were asking for it."
He gave an audacious chuckle and then leant in closer to my ear. "I see you mozying into that shower every morning before erry'body else."
"Oh. I'm sorry, I thought that was acceptable. I obviously never got the memo telling me otherwise..." I replied sarcastically, curling my lips around my teeth.
"Don't push me, cutie." T-Bag hissed in my ear.
It's like he knew my heart was forcefully trying to knock it's way through my chest; he could sense the anxiety in every crevice of my body.
All of a sudden he started shifting his right hand down my chest, raising his eyebrow once he'd felt my breasts through my thick sweater. He then patted his way down to the inside of my right thigh.
"Last time I checked, little boys was supposed to have something hanging down there," T-Bag wet his lips dissolutely.
"You pervert," I shook my head.
"I may be, but it seems as if you are in a whole different species of your own," he gave me a sickly smile. "Miss Riley."
Oh shit. Crap. No no no no NO. How? How could he know?
I was speechless. I couldn't move. All I could do was stick to the spot and stare at this sicko whilst he unravelled my identity piece by piece. What was I gonna do? I was dead now for sure; if T-Bag wasn't gonna end my life himself right here, when I went out for yard break that day, I would be-
"Dead meat, little girl. That's what you are," T-Bag snickered. "Unless you're willin' to...compromise."
T-Bag very much reminded me of a King Cobra, a scaly character waiting to pounce on it's prey at the right time. But before he could even open his mouth again, the next thing I knew, his cold grip was no longer snaking my leg and he was lying face down on the floor.
I looked up to see Michael Scofield brandishing a plank of wood and looking down disapprovingly at an unconscious T-Bag.
"Jesus, you're a quiet creeper," I sighed with audible relief.
"You have a lot of explaining to do," Michael snarled, grabbing me by the collar and back down the corridor. He then lead me to his cell and shoved me inside.
"Michael? What the?" Sucre frowned at the both of us from the top of his bunk.
"You better start speaking now or I swear to God-" Michael grumbled in a low monotoned voice, checking over his shoulder for eavesdroppers.
"Why the hell should I tell you?" I asked, outraged. "Especially with him sat here." I gave the evils to Sucre, remembering the scene from the cafeteria not 20 minutes ago where he was so secretive about his letter from his girl. "Yeah, two can play at that game."
"Come on Dan, give it up. If that is in fact your real name..." Michael gave me that evil monotonous stare he gave just about everyone. I wouldn't be surprised if he gave it whilst he was thrust from his mother's womb...
I shook my head in annoyance. "Like you don't know anyway."
Michael took a longing look at me. "You're a woman."
Behind me I heard Sucre gasp.
"Oh pipe down. It's not a court room drama, Fernando," I rolled my eyes.
I swear I saw a small smile appear on the lips of Michael Scofield, yet I couldn't be sure. If you blinked, you missed it. And I was unfortunate enough the blink.
"You're not the first to figure it out though," I shrugged. It didn't matter who knew now; I was dead either way.
"I can do anything though. Now that I do know. Blackmail...betrayal..." he replied.
"Do whatever you want," I put my head in my hands, admitting defeat. What was the use anymore?
"I'm not going to-"
"Michael, you can't do this. We can't do this! We can't keep a secret as big as this!" Sucre hopped down from his bunk and stood next to me.
"Hold on a minute, Sucre," Michael held out a hand and edged a few steps closer to me.
I didn't know what I was supposed to do now. Could I trust Michael? Could I ensure he wouldn't tell a soul?
"Tell us what's going on. Tell us everything,"
"Will you promise not to tell?" I pleaded, a little light of hope still left in me.
Michael didn't answer. So I took it his silence as a yes.
***
I told them both everything. About how my five year old cousin Dee was maliciously caught in the crossfire of two of the most violent gangs in the neighbourhood where I used to live in Long Beach, California. How I was so affected by the whole thing that I stole my friend Benjamin's gun and ended up killing him with it; after all, it was him and his punk ass friends who 'accidentally' shot my innocent angelic cousin. How after I'd done the deed, I'd gone on the run and transformed myself into a man.
Michael had a look of sympathy on his face. Sucre had one of astonishment.
"And no one knows you're a chica?" Sucre gaped at me.
"Well, discounting you two and T-Bag, no," I shook my head and bit my lip. Before, I'd had to put on a deep masculine accent to hide my femininity. Now though I sounded like a terrified little lamb.
"Don't be scared," Michael sounded softer now, more concerned than angry. "We're going to help you."
"You are?" I asked, smiling slightly.
"We are?" Sucre, however, had a pained look on his face.
"Yes. If you're not prepared to do this Sucre, then I suggest you leave the cell. Your call," Michael pointed to the open cell door. Although Sucre's tormented look didn't disappear, he didn't move a muscle.
"First, we need to blackmail T-Bag somehow. We need to find a way to get him on our side," giving me a suggestive look, Michael sighed. "I'm afraid it's you who'll have to do that."
"You mean...?" I knew exactly what he meant. I just wasn't prepared for something as sick as that. I shuddered as Michael continued.
"I'm sorry Ezra, its the only way," he then looked over his shoulder and back at us. "Afterwards, we break out."
"What? What do you mean?" I asked, excitement beginning to buzz in my stomach.
"Look, I was planning to do it anyway, to get my brother out. We may as well get you out too, this is no place for a woman,"
So what Michael Scofield was suggesting was that we...escape? From Fox River? Holy hell.
"It's the only way amigos," Sucre nodded at us both.
"Correct," Michael nodded in agreement.
I'm going home.
-------------------
HAHA. WOO! My Prison Break one shot :D so this is what I imagine would happen if a girl ever went into Fox River. Apart from breaking Lincoln out, obviously :P if you have no idea what I'm talking about then...go watch Prison Break..
Oh, and I sort of wrote this because I have a sort of love-hate relationship with T-Bag. Still not completely sure what to make of him. He's funny though :)! Phoenix knows what I'm talking about ;) oh, and Said too. Hey Said :)!
Anyway, tell me what you think guys :D
littlekopiteluu xx