“I don’t belong here!” Tommy shouted, digging his heels into the concrete. “What are you doing?”

The guard twisted his arm higher behind his back.

“Giving you somewhere to sleep.”

“That’s a women’s cell!”

Doors rattled along the tier. Conversations stopped, then started again in low, interested murmurs.

Tommy caught faces between the bars. One woman leaned out over an upper bunk to get a better look. Another lowered her paperback. Their eyes followed him down the corridor, taking in the leather jacket, the bruised cheek, the hand locked around his wrist.

“Well,” someone called, “that’s new.”

The guard stopped at C-19.

Four women were already inside.

Two occupied the bunks. A third sat on a thin mattress wedged beside the toilet. The fourth stood at the tiny sink, washing a shirt. There was barely enough floor left for the door to open.

“No.” Tommy looked from the cell to the guard. “There’s been a mistake.”

The woman at the sink turned off the tap.

“Usually has,” she said.

The guard unlocked the door and shoved Tommy inside. His shoulder struck the bedframe. Before he could turn around, the door slammed shut.

He grabbed the bars.

“Hey! I’m talking to you!”

The guard kept walking.

“Get the warden!”

That drew a short laugh from the upper bunk.

“Oh, sweetheart,” said the woman lying there. “Who do you think sent you?”

Tommy’s hands slowly loosened.

Behind him, a mattress creaked.

“Turn around.”

The woman who had been washing the shirt stood close enough that he could see the old scar through her eyebrow. Rhea. Broad shoulders, wet hands, no welcoming smile.

He turned, but she didn’t step back.

“You always make that much noise?”

“When someone locks me in the wrong prison? Yeah.”

Rhea glanced at the others.

“He’s noticed.”

Celeste swung her legs down from the upper bunk, looking him over with open curiosity.

“Nice jacket. Did they let you keep your wallet, too?”

“Leave his pockets alone,” said Mara from the lower bunk.

“I was asking.”

The fourth woman, June, pulled her knees up on the floor mattress before Tommy could accidentally step on it.

“Watch your boots. That’s my bed.”

He looked down.

There was no fifth mattress.

“Where am I supposed to sleep?”

Nobody answered immediately.

Rhea leaned closer.

“Starting to understand the problem?”

Tommy straightened against the bars. “Look, I don’t want trouble with any of you.”

“Then stop shouting for the people who put you here,” Mara said.

Her voice was quiet. Everyone let her finish.

She rose from the bunk and approached, studying his face.

“What did they tell you?”

“Nothing.”

“What did you do?”

“Nothing.”

Rhea planted a hand against the bars beside his shoulder.

“Try a different answer.”

Tommy looked between them. Celeste’s smile had faded. June was watching the corridor now.

“I saw something,” he said.

Mara exchanged a glance with Rhea.

Outside, the guard’s keys sounded again—but farther away.

Mara reached past Tommy and pulled a towel across the bars, shielding the cell from passing eyes.

“Then you’re not in the wrong place,” she said. “They put you exactly where they wanted you.”

Rhea finally stepped back.

“Now tell us why.”