CHAPTER 31: CHAPTER 31; BACK IN THE CELL 5

With Tank providing support and leverage, Shuyin managed to get her feet underneath her body and push herself upright.

Standing upright sent entirely new waves of agony radiating through every part of her broken body, but she gritted her teeth hard and forced herself to stay on her feet.

"You look like absolute death warmed over," Blade observed with characteristic bluntness.

"Thanks so much," Shuyin managed to rasp out.

"No, I mean it seriously," Blade continued her assessment.

"Your entire face is purple and grotesquely swollen. One eye’s completely shut and the other’s barely open. You’re hunched over like an eighty-year-old woman. There’s dried blood crusted all over your face and clothes."

"What she’s trying to say," Tank cut in, translating, "is that you look exactly like what you are, a victim of serious prison violence. That’s actually good for you right now. Most people will leave you alone for a while. Wounded prey isn’t considered good sport."

"But," Razor added an important caveat, "you can’t look too broken either. Can’t look like you’re about to collapse any second. That makes you prey of an entirely different kind. Makes you an easy target for opportunistic predators."

Shuyin nodded slowly, carefully, understanding the delicate balance she needed to maintain. She had to appear broken enough to be left alone by most inmates, but still strong enough not to invite attacks from those who specifically targeted the weakest victims.

"Breakfast time," Tank announced. "You’re gonna walk to the cafeteria with us as a group. You’re gonna get your food tray like everyone else. You’re gonna sit down at a table and force yourself to eat something, even if every bite hurts. You understand what I’m telling you?"

"Yes," Shuyin whispered.

"And if anyone asks you what happened to your face, what’s your answer?"

"I fell."

"Good girl." Tank released her arm, letting her stand independently. "Now walk from here to the cell bars and back. You need practice. You got maybe forty-five minutes before they call our block to breakfast."

Shuyin took one painful step forward. Then another. Each movement felt like torture, but she forced herself to continue. Three agonizing steps to reach the cell bars and turn carefully. Three steps back to where she started.

"Do it again," Tank ordered without mercy.

Shuyin repeated the circuit. And again.... And again.... By the tenth repetition, the movement had become fractionally easier, though the underlying pain hadn’t lessened at all, she was simply learning to move through it.

"That’ll have to be good enough," Tank finally declared.

Blade had been watching silently throughout the practice session. Now she spoke up unexpectedly. "Question for you, princess. That jade hairpin I took from you last night. Your mother gave that to you?"

Shuyin stiffened instinctively at the question, then immediately regretted the movement as her ribs protested sharply. "Yes, she did."

"Is it worth anything significant?"

"Sentimentally, it means everything to me. Monetarily, it’s probably worth a few million dollars on the market."

Blade pulled the hairpin from her pocket where she’d been keeping it.

The jade caught the weak morning light filtering into the cell, glowing with its characteristic inner warmth.

"Someone might recognize this particular piece. Someone might know whose family it belonged to originally. That’s potentially dangerous for you."

She held it out toward Shuyin.

"Take it back and hide it somewhere secure. Maybe up your ass if you have to, I don’t know and don’t care. But if the wrong person sees this and recognizes it, they’ll know exactly who you are and which family you belong to."

Shuyin stared at the hairpin in shock. Just last night, these same women had threatened to cut her face with a sharpened weapon if she didn’t cooperate with them. Now Blade was voluntarily returning the one valuable possession she had left in the world.

"Why are you doing this?" she whispered in confusion.

Blade shrugged carelessly. "Like we keep telling you. You’re our insurance for us right now. Can’t cash in on insurance if you’re dead and buried."

But there was something else visible in her eyes, something that might have been the faintest ghost of actual compassion or humanity.

Shuyin took the hairpin carefully with her undamaged hand. The jade felt cool and perfectly smooth against her skin, achingly familiar. Her mother had given it to her on her eightieth birthday, back in those innocent days she was still alive.

"Thank you," she said quietly, meaning it.

"Don’t mention it to anyone," Blade said firmly. "Seriously, don’t. I got a reputation to maintain in this place."

A harsh mechanical buzzer suddenly sounded through the entire prison, followed immediately by a crackling announcement over the PA system: "D-Block! Breakfast call! Line up at your cell doors!"

"Showtime," Tank said, looking at Shuyin with a critical eye. "Remember everything we told you. You’re hurt but not broken. You fell but you survived it. And you don’t snitch on nobody, not even us. You got it?"

"Got it."