Time to get to the wall, Caxton decided. She put down her plastic spoon and placed her hands on the table so she could slide out of the bench.
Before she was even halfway up, someone grabbed her ankles and yanked her downward, under the table. Caxton landed flat on her back with the breath knocked out of her lungs. The hands on her legs were like iron claws, digging into her skin. She was hauled down the length of the table past a double row of feet, all clad in the disposable slippers the inmates wore. Some of the feet kicked at her, maybe just on principle.
Her head smacked against a leg of the table and then she was pulled free and she was looking up at the ceiling. Hands—many hands—grabbed her and hauled her upright, then shoved her forward before she had a chance to see where she was headed. All she could hear was screaming, roaring, bellowing, the clatter of women being hit with trays, the noise of bodies hitting the floor. She smelled blood, but not from anywhere close by. Her face hit a door that yielded and swung open and she spilled through into the kitchens, where inmates with white aprons over their jumpsuits were clustered around the doors she’d just come through, all of them having tried to see at once through the tiny plastic windows.
“Get out of here, all of you,” someone said, kicking the doors open. One door slammed into Caxton’s side, making her wince. “Move this piece of shit out of view.”
Hands reached down and grabbed Caxton, hauled her deeper into the kitchen. She was rolled over on her side and then someone kicked her in the stomach. She hadn’t caught her breath yet and couldn’t ask any of the questions that occurred to her, couldn’t yell for help.
A tall, thin Asian woman knelt down next to Caxton and grabbed her lower lip. She yanked on it as if she might tear it off, and Caxton was forced to raise her head. The Asian woman had black tears tattooed underneath her eyes, four on one side, five on the other. Her hair stuck out from either side of her head in a long pigtail. “You’re Caxton, right? I’d hate to think we went to all this trouble and got the wrong cunt.”
Caxton didn’t answer. She didn’t see what good would come of doing so.
“That’s her,” someone else said. Someone standing behind the Asian woman. Caxton couldn’t see who the new voice belonged to—she didn’t dare break eye contact with her captor. “She’s a cop. Are you sure the pigs won’t—”
“Ex-cop now,” the Asian woman said. She didn’t smile. “The COs hate her more than we do, because she used to play for their team and then she fucked up.”
She turned back to Caxton. “I’m Guilty Jen. They call me that because there was another Jen on our dorm who used to tell the screws every night how innocent she was. If I’d tried that they would have laughed at me. I mean, just look at me. Guilty as fuck and it’s written all over my face.” She tapped the place below her left eye where there were only four tears. “Every time I finish a stint, I get a new one. Come next October, I get out and it’ll be number ten. See what I mean?”
Caxton tried to bring her knees up to protect her abdomen, but hands from behind grabbed her legs and pulled them back. Other hands grabbed her arms and her shoulders. Guilty Jen had a lot of friends.