"I know," Shuyin said quietly. And she did understand. She had no illusions about what this arrangement was or what it meant for her future.
Tank climbed up to the top bunk with practiced ease.
Blade settled onto the middle bunk, her movements economical and silent. Razor had already stretched out on her usual spot.
The cell fell into a heavy quiet, each woman lost in her own thoughts and concerns, surrounded by the ever-present sounds of the prison at night.
Shuyin lay in the darkness, wrapped in three thin blankets that smelled strongly of mildew and old sweat, her broken body barely holding itself together through sheer stubbornness and the numbing effects of the pills.
She thought about the fighting pit and its nightmare atmosphere. The crowd's animalistic screams echo off the concrete walls.
The massive woman's brutal fists connected with her flesh over and over. The coppery taste of her own blood fills her mouth.
