Privilege 1 - Privilege Read Online Free PDF

pleaded.

    "Please! Please help!" Kaitlynn croaked.

    Then it started. First in Donna's room across the hall, then moving slowly from room to room on down. Everyone started to wake up. Started to grow restless from the commotion, wondering what was going on. Donna pounded on her door. Then Crazy Cathy got into the mix. Soon there was a whole chorus of shouting for the guards. Someone was singing. Another inmate slammed her own door with something much harder than her hands.

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    "Help! Help us! Please!"

    Soon, the telltale sound of heavy, running footsteps. Jangling keys. Shouted directions. All protocol, all predicted.

    "Stay on either side of the door," Tracy's voice told whichever guards were with her. "Hey! Shut up! Back to bed!" she shouted to the general population. "It's lights-out!"

    The inmates only grew more raucous.

    "Get back! Get back from the door!" Tracy shouted at Kaitlynn, sounding more in command than ever before. "Put your hands behind your head and face the wall on your knees!"

    "Okay! Just hurry up! Please!" Kaitlynn's accent was as thick as peanut butter as she followed Tracy's orders.

    The door was shoved open so hard it slammed back against the wall.

    "Holy shit," Tracy said.

    "Fuck. What did she take?" Miriam asked in the background. Apparently she was pulling a double shift today.

    "Looks like Ativan," Tracy said, dropping down next to Ariana. "Get the doctor!"

    Ariana's left eye was pried open. The eyeball rolled right into the back of her head.

    "Shit. How much did she take?" Tracy shouted to Kaitlynn. She leaned over Ariana's body, placing her ear to Ariana's mouth. Short, weak breaths tickled her earlobe.

    "I don't know! She fell out of bed and woke me up," Kaitlynn cried. "Is she going to be okay?"

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    Ariana's arm was dropped and it smacked against the floor. Luckily, her delicate wrist didn't crack. Tracy stood up and spoke into the walkie- talkie attached to her shoulder strap.

    "We need a stretcher in cell number B twenty-two," she said. "She's breathing, but her pulse is weak."

    Kaitlynn's bedsprings creaked as she was allowed out of her submissive position. She started to cry again, the sound of her sobs muffled by her pajama sleeve.

    "Don't let her die. Please, God. Please don't take her away," Kaitlynn prayed.

    Ariana wanted to tell her that everything was going to be okay, but now was obviously not the time. There was another commotion in the hallway. The room filled with emergency personnel. Someone stepped on Ariana's fingers.

    "We have an attempt. Get her to the infirmary now!" Tracy ordered. "She may need her stomach pumped."

    Ariana flinched. No one noticed, however, because they were too busy manhandling her onto a stretcher and elevating it until it popped up to waist level. These people needed to work on their bedside manners.

    The stomach pump. She'd known it would have to happen, but hearing Tracy say it brought the reality home. The tube, the pain, the retching. Kiran had described it all to her once, and it sounded like pure hell.

    But it was all part of her plan. The plan she'd been working on for too long for it to fail now. If I want to start over, I'm just going to have to

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    deal with it, Ariana thought dimly as the overhead lights of the hallway began to fly by at perfect two-second intervals. Hoping that no one was watching her, she finally dared to take one deep, calming breath, fighting off the dizziness that threatened to overwhelm her oxygen-deprived brain, I will deal with it. My new life depends on it.

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    NEXT TIME

    The fingers on Ariana's wrist felt like the icy cold harbingers of death. Ariana blinked slowly, groggily. A nurse was taking her pulse. The lights above her head were ugly, caged, fluorescent, and bright. Too bright. She flinched, squeezing her eyes shut again, and took a breath.

    Her throat burned like a pit of fire. The convulsions threw her forward and her shoulder wrenched. Coughing uncontrollably, gasping for