Trouble

My back slammed against the wall, my eyes slamming shut from the impact, my arm scraping against the rough ridges of the brick. A sneak attack, coming straight out of nowhere while I walked across the courtyard.

Fucking bitch.

Instead of wallowing in my pain, which I think she expected me to do, I pushed off the wall and smashed my knuckles across her cheekbone Adrenaline pumped through my veins as my body went into intense fighting mode, swinging punch after punch into her face and stomach.

She coughed loudly before reaching up to push me again, but I shoved her arms away and brought my elbow up across her jaw.

While she caught some of the blood that was pouring from her gaping mouth, I flexed my hand a couple of times, trying to make sure that I hadn’t broken anything from the might I put behind my punches. I had to give it to this girl: most guys would cower under a couple of my hits, but she still looked like she was still ready for a fight after a multitude of strikes from my end.

And then, my cell mate looked back up at me, grinned a red-stained smile at me, and then spit right in my face. It landed on my upper cheek, thick and uncomfortable.

I used my shoulder to wipe it off, feeling a new wave of fury wash over me at the sign of blatant disrespect as I ran toward her, tackling her to the ground, shoving the back of her head onto the pavement.

Spanish curses flew out of my mouth faster than I could realize what I was saying as I worked to beat the shit out of the Rascal that was lying helpless underneath me.

The whole exchange, though it seemed to last a long time, probably only lasted a few minutes. Just as I got in a good shot to her nose, I got yanked to my feet and thrown to the ground by a guard, who was screaming, “BREAK IT UP,” at the top of his lungs over and over again, even though the fight had aborted.

Unlike school, we didn’t get sent to the warden’s office or anything. People just left the scene of the fight, some of them gathering around that Rascal to see if she was okay.

I should have known she was going to jump me. Rascals were never known for playing fair, and even though I hadn’t done anything to her yet, I should have seen it coming. My attention to detail was starting to slip already.

“Soledad?” I heard a semi-familiar voice say cautiously.

“¿Qué?” I questioned immediately, forgetting that I was among people that would kill me for speaking my language in front of them.

But when I turned around, I saw the face of someone I knew fairly well, someone that I hadn’t seen in years. Not since she got picked up three times straight for prostituting herself in the same area. The cops had gotten sick of her and threw her into jail, and no one had ever heard from her since.

“Whoa,” I gasped. “Reina, is that you?”

“Sí, soy yo.” She grinned widely, showing off those crooked teeth I’d never be able to forget. “You definitely held your own in that fight with Feather.”

“Her name is Feather?” I questioned, cocking an eyebrow. “What the fuck kind of name is that?”

“It was her nickname in her gang. No one around here knows her real name, and no one really cares to know. But she’s the one who beat the shit out of me my first week, and I got put in the infirmary. But you didn’t even let her get much of a hit in.”

“How did she put you in the infirmary?” I snorted, rolling my eyes. “All the bitch did was try to shove me. Claudia could fight better than that.”

The sentence slipped out of my mouth before I could fight it back, and I couldn’t believe I’d mentioned my sister. The entire time I’d been in the jail, I fought back mentioning my life back home, figuring the less they knew about me, the better. Mostly, I just kept my mouth shut, making occasional comments here and there when necessary, and the girls left me alone.

But seeing one of my own made me slip. Reina and I had hung around the neighborhood together a couple of times when I was in my early teen years and didn’t want to spend so much time with Alejo because he only wanted to do guy things. She was a couple years older, but she’d taken me under her wing anyway. The friendship had only lasted a few months before she got more involved with the gang for drugs and money, but I didn’t forget her.

After all, she was the one who got me hooked on cigarettes, and I smoked pot with her once. I hated the feeling of being high, though. So out of control and off-center. I remembered getting extremely paranoid while I was out of it, and I swung at anyone who came close to me, figuring they were going to take advantage of me. Eventually, Alejo had to come get me, and he was able to get through my defenses and walk me back to his house to sleep off the effects. She told me later that it was probably laced, but it still scared me enough to keep me away from any kind of drug stronger than my cigarettes.

“Claudia?” Reina gasped, her thin lips making a perfect o. “Oh my God. How old is she now? Nine?”

“Eleven,” I corrected, feeling a knot in my stomach. God, I missed her and Marisol and Esperanza. They were my world. And I hoped to God Liam was taking care of them. “Esperanza’s sixteen, and Marisol is six.”

She let out a low whistle and shook her head. “God, it’s like a time warp in here. I can never figure out how much time has passed on the outside.”

That declaration made me antsy, since I didn’t want to think about how much would be changed when I got out. I didn’t want to think about missing Esperanza’s graduation, Marisol’s winter concert, Claudia winning the literature award that there was no way her story could lose. I was missing everything.

“What are you in for?” Reina asked, probably picking up on the fact that I was going into cardiac arrest thinking about mis muñecas.

I shook my head. “You don’t want to know.”

Her thick eyebrows drew together as she cocked her head to the side. “So you didn’t get busted with your drugs? Isn’t that what you did?”

“Yeah,” I replied shortly. “But it had nothing to do with drugs.”

I heard her suck in a fast breath as she took a step back. “Is Alejo okay?”

“Of course he is.” I rolled my eyes. “Why the fuck did you think I’d ever lay a hand on Alejo? He’s my best friend.”

“I didn’t know if he became more and you shot him in a fiery passion,” she laughed. I tried to do the same, but it just felt awkward. Things weren’t suited for laughing anymore. “So do you have a boyfriend?”

My mind flashed to Liam. Who was not a boyfriend and never could be one. “No. Boyfriends are overrated.”

“Are you a lesbian?”

“Um. No.” God, when did Reina get so forward and nosy? I never noticed that when I was a kid. Though, granted, when I was a kid, I hid my secrets so well that no one ever realized something was wrong. It didn’t make a lot of sense to me that I was getting worse as I got older, but that was how life worked sometimes.

She opened her mouth to ask another question, probably also about the gang or a related subject, when the alarm went off to send everyone back into the building. In the shuffle of people, Reina disappeared, but I didn’t miss talking to her.

Although her tattoos were the same as mine, her roots were the same, and she spoke my language, we were no longer connected. I had grown as a person, developed for the worse, and she was someone I could no longer tolerate. I hated nosy people, ones that stuck their noses into my business without any particular reason.

Just as I was trying to shake off my irritation toward Reina, I felt an elbow sneak in between my ribs, making a gush of air escape my lungs.

Carajo. Clenching my jaw, I looked up to find the lovely Feather grinning at me, her teeth still a little red from our previous altercation.

I didn’t have time to fight back, since girls had slipped in between the two of us, and I couldn’t reach her.

Instead, I cracked my knuckles and planned a revenge tactic for that night, preferably for when she was sleeping.