Belle walked through the front door to her work unit and the guard that she worked for met her with a slight smile. He opened the door for her and she went over to the spot where she stripped down every day. Belle faced him and began taking off her clothes when he waved at her with his hand. “No need. I know you’re fine.” Belle put her shirt back on, and began fixing her jumpsuit. “Thank you sir.” The guard stepped forward “You can call me Ren.” She was finishing fixing herself and putting her shoes back on now. Belle had thrown her shoes off and began undressing so fast it took longer to pierce it all back together than it did to remove it. “Okay.” She smiled. An awkward pause ensued. She didn’t want to overstep her bounds but she needed Intel. This awkward pause wasn’t helping anything.

  With her shoes tied and her uniform fixed she stood up and waited for him to lead her into the dayroom area so she could begin feeding the inmates. “It’s going to be a little easier today as we have a range vacancy... so with the extra time do you want to eat something? I’m sure you’re hungry.” Belle smiled and light up at this “I am so hungry, that would be appreciated.” Ren motioned, “have a seat in here and I’ll be back with some food.” Belle found an empty five gallon bucket and turned it upside down, sitting on top of it. She looked around curiously, studying the place and he room she was in. She was in a laundry room, with two gigantic industrial washers and two giant dryers. They took up the majority of the wall to her left. There was a counter top for folding with two big rolling carts below the counter tops. She noticed on her right was actually a framed picture on the wall, but it was a fire plan, blueprints for the building she was in. How had she not seen this before? She stood up and walked over to it, studying it.

  There was four areas just like the area she normally fed. Huge five story dayrooms and in the center was the control pod. It looked like a plus, each of the long bits being a dayroom, and in the center of the plus a large circle for the control pod. She took note of exits and stairways she didn’t know about. Some of the marking she could read but she tried to commit as much of this to memory as possible. Evan wanted her to get any information on anything remotely helpful, and their far cry for an escape might just get them out of here someday. Just then the doors opened and in cane Ren with a tray, of food better than she had seen before in here. Scrambled eggs, toast, biscuit, and pancake. “Oh wow!” Belle said, turning towards him. “Here, and eat quick will you.” Belle asked “can I have some of that water?” She pointed to the normal water jug that was actually in the hallway behind him.

  Ren looked at her and shifted his eyes “you don’t want to drink that. It’s... just drink some of mine instead.” He took out a canteen from his pocket and sat it down on the counter. “Move the bucket over and eat” belle moved the bucket and began eating. Her mouth full of pancakes and a ravenous feeling inside her stomach made her scarf food down like she never had before. She paused a second between bites, before taking a drink from his canteen. “Why are you nice to me?” She said making eye contact with him. He stared blankly back at her “I... I’m not cut out for this. You’re so beautiful and I don’t want to see you die in here.” Belle blushed, turning her attention back to her food “I’m nothing special, I’m an inmate. I’ll probably die here regardless” she said soberingly. Ren was nervous, and kept checking his watch. “You’d better hurry and finish.” Belle eyeballed her eggs and scooped them up, not even chewing them to get them down. With her plate finished she took several big gulps from the canteen.

  God the water tasted so much better than what she was used to. “Why is the water out there bad?” Ren didn’t look at her directly “It’s... just don’t drink it if you can help it. Okay?” He matched her gaze and took the tray and canteen back, throwing the tray in the trash. “Now let’s get to work.” Belle stood up and wiped her mouth, satisfied she had eaten more than she had today than in the last few months. She was actually slightly drowsy from the food, but she would work through it. Belle followed Ren into the dayroom and walked over to her normal food cart. There was about 50 less trays on it than normal, she looked around confused. Ren seen her and walked over “is something wrong?” She pointed “yeah there’s like fifty missing trays...” he turned to point at the cells “tier one has been vacated.” Belle replied “what’s that mean?” He turned to walk away saying “we can’t talk so much on camera.” And stepped off to the first set of stairs, waiting on her. Belle grabbed her cart and tugged, wheeling it back towards the stairs. She took notice of the doors on the first tier, year, all the lights were off and there was no one peeking out of the windows.

  Where had they all gone? Belle reached the stairs and began her usual chore of carrying up the trays of food one at a time, and then bringing the cart up the stairs as painlessly as possible. Once she got the cart to the top she heard Ren hell “Hurry up” and she sped up, trying to get all the trays back on the cart. When she finally did so she was actually sweating from how much she had exerted herself these past few minutes. Belle wheeled the cart over to Ren and he started on the first cell. He scanned their hands and she issued them a tray each, Ren locked the cuff port and they moved on. When they got to the second cuff port Ren ordered them to come to the door and the first one complied as normal, the second inmate however. Did not listen. Ren tapped on the glass “Get the fuck over here” he yelled. The inmate didn’t listen, and belle seen water pooling up on the range she was on. There were multiple prisoners looking out the windows at Ren. “Fuck you pig!” “Fuck the po-lice!” And other things people started yelling out. She heard toilets flushing and people began banging on their doors. What was going on is, the people in the cells are flooding their toilets to flood the range. “I’m going to be stuck cleaning this all up...” she muttered to herself. Ren was fuming, water flooding down the range had reached them now and was pouring off the stairs.

  The hollow and loud bangs sounded like gunshots when they kicked their doors. What had kicked this all off? She thought. Ren looked at her “let’s try the next one” he shut the cuff port and moved on, the next cell didn’t come to the cuff port either. They were in the process of flooding their cell also. Ren looked at her “this happens every time we get a new group in.” He began manipulating something through his wrist display and heard all the flushing come to a stop. Though it was hard to hear through all of the loud banging from people further down the range still kicking their door. Belle noticed the inmates she had saw were new, she didn’t recognize them. So this range must have been replaced also.

  Ren moved on to the next cell and again ordered them to the front to be scanned, they complied and he waved for belle to give them their trays. She reached over and picked up two trays, and speedily moved towards the cuff port. When she handed the first tray in the man took it and set it on the cell floor. The next man reached out and grabbed her by the forearm. Belle felt a hardened and calloused hand tighten on her heavily. She was jerked in the cell up to her armpit, the man inside the cell rotated her arm and delivered a blow to her elbow, breaking it. She screamed. Covered her mouth and cried out in pain. Simultaneously the cell door opened and Ren stood tall, calling something over his communication device. He invoked the electric restraints, as adding insult to injury Belle was getting taxed now.

  She screamed out as her eyes rolled in the back of her head. She pissed herself and couldn’t control her body, her arm flailed and moved in a way that wasn’t possible normally. Ren touched her and the tasing stopped. She. Laid there exhausted and cringing, clenching her teeth in pain. She saw Ren enter the cell and begin stomping on the inmates head repeatedly. She saw his expression go from one of menacing and evil to blank before he too lost consciousness. A pool of blood began spreading from his head at a rate belle had not seen before. It was like you had begun pouring a pitcher of milk on the floor and that’s how fast the blood was coming out of his head. She saw his eye socket crush under the next stomp of Ren’s boot. Ren picked him up by the shoulders and grabbed him by the throat, choking him in rage she heard something snap. The quick response team arrived on unit and Ren quickly threw the inmate out of the cell, his body landing next to belle and folding over the railing, he fell to the floor below in a limp fashion. His head hitting the ground first and making the worst cracking breaking sounds she had ever heard.

  She couldn’t see that inmate now, she watched Ren state at the remaining inmate in the cell, before he left. He came over to her and helped her to sit up. “Don’t move. Follow their instructions.” Ren began walking towards the exit as the team commander met with Ren. They were talking on the stairs and the commander pointed to the body on the ground, clearly angered by the situation. The commander pointed at Ren in the chest and Belle could tell he was wanting Ren to exit the floor for some reason. The commander came upstairs and over to her, “You will see medical and return to your Barack’s.”

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  Belle nodded and stood up, she went first down the wet stairs, the banging had subsided when Ren enabled restraints, a good tasing seems to take the energy away from you.

  She held her arm in place the best she could and when she got to the bottom of the stairs she turned around to look at the commander questioningly. She didn’t know where medical was. Every step on the way down had been excruciating as the bouncing motion sent shockwaves of pain through her body.

  He was booming down the stairs and pointed, “Head to the laundry room. We’ll have one meet you there” Belle walked past the weapons team who kept their respective distance and she made it into the laundry room, sitting down on her crate she rocked back and forth holding her arm. “Fuck this hurts!” She said our loud, breathing in deeply to cope with the pain. After a few minutes she could hear the commander talking to Ren. She strained to listen but he was saying something about “not allowed to kill” and must “think of the mission”. She was trying to focus more but the pain kept her from doing so.

  Just then the nurse speedily entered the room. “Let me see” the nurse said as she sat down a bunch of supplies on to the counter. The nurse came over to her and bent down, Belle remove her trembling hand from stabilizing her arm. The nurse took out an item the size of a card and scanned her arm, it was like an automatic X-ray and MRI all in one. Belle saw layers of skin and bone on the tiny monitor, she had used the same thing before in combat. It was called a portable Psionic scanner or PPS.

  One the nurse seen the break she said “hold it there.” And positioned it back in to place roughly. She brought out quick cast and wrapped a soft warm cloth around belles arm like gauze, she kept wrapping until the roll was gone and used the psionic scanner to scan the break again, and hitting a button on the scanner she sent a signal to the material around her arm. This triggered it to harden into a concrete solid cast in a matter of thirty seconds. Belles cast was set and the nurse got her materials. Belle spoke up “thank you.” The nurse turned around and flared at her “I don’t know why I’m helping a disgusting inmate but you’d better watch who you’re speaking to darling.” And stuck her Nose up in the air as she walked out of the room. Belle took in a deep breath and stood up, her arm throbbing but at least it was casted. Belle walked to the front door and pressed the intercom button “I’ve been ordered to return to my barracks” she spoke.

  The door clicked and she walked out. The next door opened for her too, and she was on her own returning to the barracks. Passing other people she realized how strange it was to see someone with a cast on. She actually didn’t see anyone with a cast on, Band-Aid, or anything of the sort. For the most part if you were injured you ended up dying. Dillon had told her of all the bodies he carried out on a daily basis. Broken bruised mangled bloody trauma, limbs removed faces contorted eyes shut cuts slits and destroyed. Why did she get a cast? She felt the warm sunlight danced across her path, blinding her slightly until her eyes adjusted. There was a slight breeze that tickled her face as she kept on her path. The smell of rancid meat and chemicals mixed in the air to combine with the prison buildings and fences and ruined the otherwise pleasant looking weather. Belle often wondered if she would ever make it out of here. Even in this final chapter of her life she remained hopeful because of the people in her life. A death camp didn’t seem so hopeless with someone there for you. Maybe there was a chance, maybe they really could escape. Evan hadn’t shared much if any of his plan with her but she was confident in his idea.

  Only because he himself seemed so confident in his plan to get out of here. He had ambition and he was kind, and kindness was the one thing she appreciated in a person more than anything else in this world. There were too few kind people in this world and she always kept them near and dear to her heart. Belle approached the front of the barracks and judging by the sun it was mid-day. She didn’t know if she was allowed to chow and she didn’t know what actually went on during the day at the barracks. Belle walked in the front doors and seen the place was virtually empty. There was a woman positioned oddly crumpled to the ground by the entrance doors.

  From her face belle knew she was dead, belle reached down to touch her wrist and heck her pulls and the body was already frozen with rigamortis, and cold. Belle wiped her hand on her jumpsuit, disguising. Why was she here? How had she died? Belle had no idea what to do with a random dead body so she left it alone. She couldn’t bring the woman back to life, and what did a guard care about another dead body. She assumed they would find the woman at some point, and though very sad, belle was powerless to help the nameless corpse. She couldn’t bury her or prop her up, cover her face or anything. The best decision was to pretend like there was no body at all. Belle continued to her usual spot, except Boone was in her way when she walked to it. She would actually get to lay down and take a nap, instead of bunched up being squeezed against Evan. Though she enjoyed that it made her sore and she never got a good night’s sleep. Belle positioned herself to where she could lay down and used the extra shirt Dillon gave her as a pillow. NOTE ADD DILLON GIVING CLOTHES PREVIOUS CHAPTER

  Belle awoken to Crosby and Evan coming in, Evan sporting a black eye. She picked herself up and felt like a ton of bricks. Her arm throbbed with massive pain and her back and well, whole body was sore. Evan was the first to speak “The fuck happened to you?” Belle looked down at her cast, “Oh this old thing. I’ve had it for years.” She chucked a little. Crosby smiled “At least your humor isn’t gone.” She Apple up again “I was giving an inmate his tray and he pulled my arm through the tray slot, broke it and really fucked me up.” She saw Evans face tighten “You point the bastard out and he’s a bloody dead man.” Belle shook her head “Ren killed him I think” Evan sat down, continuing his interrogation “Ren?” Belle nodded “Ren, the guard I work for.” Evan looked intrigued “what info did you get today? Anything worth breaking your arm over?” Belle looked off into space for a moment “Well. He let me eat good food because there was a range vacant, that wasn’t vacant yesterday. He told me I shouldn’t drink the water but wouldn’t say why, and there was a blueprint of the building I studied. Oh! And the second range was all gone too, everyone on the first and second range were gone.

  The second range was all new people and they were super aggressive-“Evan cut her off “and that’s where your arm got broke?” She continued “exactly. They were beating on their doors and not following orders, flooding their cells...” Crosby interjected “how did the guard kill your attacker?” Belle frowned “he opened the door and activated something, stopping the water from being able to be used and he turned on the tasing function. So that sucked. Then he stomped the guys face in repeatedly, before choking him out and tossing him off the range. He fell and hit his neck.” Crosby flinched “shouldn’t have asked. Why did he kill him though? For you?” Belle shook her head “I’m not sure. It seemed like he got in trouble for it when the team came actually. They seemed really upset with him. I overheard the commander saying that they weren’t allowed to kill the ones in there” Evan was in a thinking posture, his hand on his chin staring off into nowhere. “Yes... yes... I’m beginning to work this all out. Tell me what the blueprint looked like and I’ll add it to my map.” Belle took her time explaining it to him, and he pulled out a prince of cloth and a pen tube he had found. Dillon begin making a sketch and some notes. She saw he had a fair amount traces out on the cloth now. “I’m sorry belle” Evan had said. She was confused, what was he sorry for all of a sudden? “Why?” Evan replied “that was definitely worth breaking an arm for.” Belle rolled her eyes “you have any idea how much pain I am in?!” She said shaking her crippled arm. Evan looked at her “I think, two days’ time is all I need.”

  He looked seriously at both her and Crosby “You” he said pointing set Crosby. “Tomorrow break your machine and I hope you’ve figured out well enough to do so. The next day we’ll make our grand exit.” Crosby nervous, leaned in to talk “my friend today, taught me how to break it. Or work on it, I’m pretty confident now. What’s weird is he was telling me not to drink the water there either. And I haven’t touched it, that’s why I feel better today I think.” Evan looked about and nodded “I haven’t drank any free water since I arrived. I drink toilet or other water. I don’t trust them.” They paused a moment, taking it all in. Evan continued “be very careful these next two days, Belle I need you to figure out why Ren got in trouble and anything else about the water. It’s vital to our success. Crosby, be damned sure you break that machine at the end of shift tomorrow. We don’t have a very long window to do this.” Crosby stared at them both “my friend said at the end of this week we all get moved to phase two of the prison.” Evan looked at him suspiciously “how does he know that?” Crosby shrugged “not sure” Evan kept thinking. And shook his head some more. “Let’s get some rest you two. Only hours remain. Make sure you survive for me. We’re in this together.” Evan motioned for belle to come snuggle and she complied, snuggling up between his legs and feeling his familiar embrace around her they fell

  Asleep.