17. Jasmine
seventeen
Jasmine
The first thing I did, every morning, was flex my feet and take inventory.
The soles felt raw, sandpapered, the skin at the balls split open where I’d run full-tilt across a quarter mile of desert rock.
My right pinky toe, bruised the color of an old raisin, throbbed on a beat all its own.
I wiggled it, felt the ache burn up the outside edge of my calf, and then let it fade.
I wanted the pain. Pain was a bookmark. Pain let me know I was still in here, still waiting for the next page.
I sat up slow, letting the blanket drop to my lap, and checked the walls for anything new.
Same six cracks in the block, one fresh scuff from where I’d jammed the underwire last night after Adam brought me back.
I ran my fingers over the line—already starting to fill with sweat, and maybe blood—and thought about how, someday, all that pressure would split the wall wide open.
I wanted to see that. Even if it wasn’t me on the other side.
I pressed both feet to the floor and stood. My knees locked, tendons sparking, but I held it steady. I hadn’t bothered swapping shirts in three days. If Adam noticed, he didn’t say shit.
The hum of the lights filled everything, but underneath, I could hear the slow, rhythm-true tick of the pipe behind the east wall. That pipe meant water. Water meant a building. Building meant exits, vents, crawlspaces, weak points.
I leaned back against the cinder block and ran through the mental drill I’d practiced every morning since day two.
Close my eyes, picture the world outside, start with the details that would fade first: the scrape of the boot rack at our front door, three hooks always empty for Sniper’s cuts, the little bend in the kitchen counter where Buck had put his head through the laminate last Christmas.
I walked the floor plan of our place in my head—living room, office, club room, weapons safe behind the water heater. I could picture it in perfect dark.
I opened my eyes and looked at the ceiling. The light stuttered, then steadied, and I felt the click in my jaw as I set it. Day nine. I subtracted the hours, counted the meals, marked off every time Adam came by with his routine breakfast and his forced smile.
I wasn’t dumb. I knew what he was doing.
Day cycles, rationing, the illusion of choice—it was all classic breakdown shit.
I watched the other women in the row, the way they’d start each day by staring at their own hands like they’d never seen them before, like the fingerprints might change overnight if they wanted it bad enough.
I did the opposite. I pressed my palm flat to the cot, every morning, until the heat from my skin bled into the thin mattress and left a mark, however invisible.
By mid-morning the air in the corridor went from sleep-heavy to static, every woman in the row bracing for the daily parade.
I sat on the cot, back to the block, arms folded loose so the blood could flow but not too relaxed.
The cot’s foam left a hot stripe along my thigh.
Outside, the clatter of keys and the shuffle of Adam’s shoes down the hall signaled the start of the performance.
He always started with Molly, Eve Two, because she was the only one who laughed for real.
Molly had a gym-rat’s shoulders and the kind of dirt-blonde hair that always looked like it’d just dried from a pool.
She met him at the bars, hands curled around the rungs, body language open and hungry.
When Adam paused to slide her tray through, she grinned so wide her cheeks dimpled.
“Hey, boss,” she said, voice already half a giggle.
Adam smiled, not too much. He bent to her level, never breaking eye contact, and said, “Morning, Molly. You sleep okay?”
She shrugged, her shirt falling off one shoulder. “Could’ve used an extra blanket,” she said, and somehow made it sound like an inside joke.
He said, “Next time, ask,” and she gave him the smallest wink, like it was a conspiracy. He held her gaze an extra beat before moving on, footsteps muffled by the hallway runner.
Next was Sandra, Eve Three—older, thirty-five maybe, with a face that belonged in a courtroom, not a cage. She waited until Adam passed before she reached an arm through the bars and tapped him on the sleeve. “Can you swap my shower slot with Ashley? She’s got a migraine.”
Adam turned, considered her with that “I’m listening” face he probably practiced in the mirror, then nodded. “Of course, Sandra. I’ll update the list.”
Sandra nodded back, satisfied, and let her hand drop. Adam kept moving, but you could see the tension in his back, the way his fingers flexed after she let go.
Third cell, Renata. She never spoke, not unless it was absolutely required.
Her eyes tracked Adam but never landed, always looking through him to something two inches behind his ear.
Adam didn’t bother with small talk; he set the tray down, gave a nod, and moved on.
Renata’s jaw worked once, like she wanted to bite, but she just picked up the tray and turned away.
Then he got to me.
He stood outside my cell, tray balanced in one hand, the other curled loose at his side.
He didn’t look at my face right away. He looked at my feet, at the bruised toe and the threadbare edge of the blanket where I’d worn a hole with my left thumb.
He looked at the way I held my ribs, like I was bracing for an impact that never came.
Then he met my eyes, steady. “You’re still counting days,” he said.
I didn’t answer.
“That’s all right, Jasmine. I’d be counting too.”
He slid the tray through, careful not to bang it on the frame. The food today was a rectangle of French toast, syrup pooled in the cracks, a cup of oatmeal, and a single orange wedge. The wedge sat alone, a little sun in the white plastic dish.
Adam lingered, waiting for a reaction. I gave him nothing, just reached for the tray and pulled it through. I put it on the shelf, then sat back down on the cot, arms locked even tighter.
He said, “You know, most women last about four days before they stop tracking time.” He kept his voice low, meant just for me. “You’re the only one who still marks it out.”
I shrugged. “Someone’s got to do the accounting.”
That actually made him smile—a tiny flex at the corner of his mouth, gone in a second.
He moved down the hall, shoes softer now, voice bright for Ashley, the migraine girl.
The way he pitched it, you’d think this was a summer camp, not a prison.
He called each woman by name, used “we” and “us” like it meant something, like he was building a team.
I listened to every syllable, not for the content but for the pattern.
The man was a professional, even when he wanted you to see him as human.
When he hit the end of the row, the sound of his steps faded, replaced by the clink of trays and the hum of the lights.
For a minute, nobody spoke. I listened to the other women eat, the small noises of chewing and swallowing, the little gasps of relief when the food was hot.
Molly cracked a joke about “five-star service,” Sandra snorted, and Renata said something in Spanish, too low to make out.
I looked at my own tray. The French toast was cold, the syrup soaked in, but I ate it anyway. The orange wedge burned the cut on my lip. I didn’t care. Food was fuel, and I planned on burning every calorie.
When I finished, I set the tray on the floor, then pressed my palm to the cot again, just like I did at dawn.
Still here.
Still counting.
Still not giving the bastard a single inch.
***
Day nine was always going to be the hardest. I’d heard the number passed down through the cells, like an urban legend or a warning label.
If you broke, it happened on nine: the last day you believed the outside world still gave a shit.
By the end of nine, you either learned to stop bleeding on the inside, or you let the whole operation go septic.
I sat with my back to the wall, knees up, arms looped around them, chin resting in the hollow made by my own stubborn shoulder.
The air was colder now, sharp with ammonia and the tail end of whatever bleach Adam’s cleaning crew used in the showers.
It got in your nose, under your skin, changed the way you tasted food.
Everything was chemicals, even the memory of what a window used to feel like.
I missed the specific ache of sunlight, how it would bounce off the shop floor and blind you even with sunglasses on.
Underground, the only thing that burned was the neon blue of the light strip, pulsing on the minute.
Renata was awake. I could hear her on the other side, the scrape of her heel against the slab, the little cough she did every time she tried not to cry.
She never spoke to me directly, not since I’d failed my first escape, but she always mirrored my posture, as if sitting the same way might open a tunnel between our cells.
Time had a weird shape in here. The morning stretched out like elastic, and by afternoon everything snapped back hard, compressing into a series of dumb routines you had to keep up so your brain didn’t atrophy.
I made it my job to recite the lyrics of every album I’d ever owned, from start to finish, in order.
When I ran out, I switched to multiplication tables, starting at sevens and working up until the numbers got so big they made my head buzz.
When even that failed to chew up the clock, I traced the hairline crack in the ceiling from the light fixture to the far corner, running it with my eyes until I knew every tremor and fork.
I turned the cell into a map, then tried to memorize the map.
When that got old, I’d mouth words to myself, lips moving with no sound, just to see if my voice would come back when I finally needed it.