The next morning, the same grinding of metal doors wakes me up. I don't sit up; I don't bother checking the door to see if it will open. Axis was right: my "show" has put me on a temporary hold. Jax came by just before lights out and told me so. After he left, I smiled in satisfaction at seeing the big black ring around his left eye and knowing that I was the one that inflicted it. I smile even now just remembering it.

The other prisoners walk to the cafeteria, taking their loud humming of voices with them. I sit up after twenty minutes or so and stretch my sore body. My stomach hurts the most, my legs coming in at a close second. I can still feel the guards' feet kicking into my sides. I face away from the gate as I unzip the top of my uniform and gently touch my skin, checking the severity of the bruises. One bruise stretches from the middle of my stomach around one side and disappearing behind my back. Another on the other side paints a nasty purple and blue picture from ribs to my hip, dipping below my waist line. I breathe slowly and note how it's this bruise that hurts when I take a big enough breath.

"Hey, Newbie," a voice shouts from behind me and I jump, turning around too quickly. I wince before I pull the zipper of my uniform up to an acceptable level. Axis stands on the other side of the gate, her brother leaning his elbows against the bars. "Brought you something," she says. In her hands, she holds a small paper bag and a bottle of water. I take it warily, staring her straight in the eyes to see if she's playing me. From what I can tell, she's being completely genuine. I open the bag and a sandwich wrapped in aluminum foil stares back at me.

"Thank you," I say, my voice betraying me by breaking. I haven't eaten in what feels like days. The twins take a seat right in front of my cell and I follow their lead.

"I just want you to know, Rogue, that you fighting those guards was the most badass thing I've seen since I've been here," Axis says, flipping her short hair to the side. Her jaw is almost too sharp for her short hair, but somehow, her wide eyes soften her features a bit. Axel's eyes are smaller and his jaw is more pronounced, but his broad body shape evens him out. I smile at her comment and continue to eat the less than appetizing sandwich.

Axel nods. "Most everybody else just kind of accepts it." He has a soft voice.

I wipe my mouth before I speak. "When I came through the doors, this scar," I point at my eye, "started throbbing and swelling as I was being brought in. I wasn't really fighting; more or less trying to deal with the pain." I sounded lame, but it was the truth. I shouldn't have said anything. I should've let them believe I was some sort of vigilante.

"Voluntary or not, you've made a name for yourself before you even had one," Axis laughs. She laughs like she has the hiccups: short and abrupt.

I finish my food and toss it on the bed behind me, listening intently on the twins' conversation. They go back and forth finishing each other's sentences at odd intervals and speaking too fast for me to catch up. They're excited, whatever it is they're talking about.

Suddenly, they stop before they both take a dramatic gasp in. Axel leans over to see through the railing. "Five," he says.

"Four," Axis joins in. "Three...two...one." As soon as they say one, a red head down in the hallway below falls to the ground convulsing. I stand, pushing onto my toes to see over the railing. The girl is taken away by the guards who are hurriedly trying to get her out of sight of the entire wing. She's screaming and her skin is red as if she's been cut in various places all over her body. But then I remember that Deviances have an assortment of deviants. I've already seen a woman walk by and change the color of her hair with a swipe of her hand.

"That's Marra," Axel explains as I sit back down. "Every Tuesday at 1:13 she goes into an attack like that."

"Until the guards figure out what time she does it. Then she flips her schedule around before they can take her out of sight to go through the motions."

I nod slowly. "Passive aggressive." I smile in approval.

"I heard she's been here since she was fourteen," Axel says, leaning in like it's some sort of secret.

Axis punches his shoulder. "All right, Gossip, that's enough." He shrugs her off and punches her back. "So, Newbie, when do you get off lockdown?"

I hate being called that, yet I can't deny that that's what I am. "Tomorrow morning."

"Fantastic," she says. "That gives me enough time to scout out the other new kid on the block before I have to deal with you, too." She gives me a wink and I turn away, not used to this form of jovial relations. I'm accustomed to deep voices that speak in the least amount of words possible, short and to the point.

I slightly wonder if the other new guy she's talking about is Bender, considering he survived his injuries on the train and the beating (if he didn't answer the questions like me).

Axis' eyebrows scrunch low over her eyes as she stares over her brother's shoulder. She stands up and stretches in a series of low grunts. "See you two later." She follows the intent direction of her eyes, and I could feel lust and desire radiating from her just seconds before she took off in the opposite direction.

"She has a lover at the end of the hall," Axel says, shifting uncomfortably. He moves to sit directly in front of me and rests his forehead against the rails. He's deeply depressed; I can feel the heaviness of his sadness from my spot a few feet away. "We've been here for three years now, and it never has stopped her from pursuing whatever her heart desires."

"How long are most people here?" Not how long will you be here, nor when will you get out.

"Most people will die here," he says quietly. Pause. Then more quietly, "We are criminals for what we are and what we cannot control."

"Most of us have made ourselves criminals," I say just as low. I think back to all the things I have done and the things Rixton has done, knowing if I wasn't a Deviant and he wasn't set on helping us, neither of us would have to do any of it. How did a light conversation drop so suddenly?

He smiles despite this though. "Like you being dragged in." I blush and scold myself for it directly afterwards.

I squirm at the stall in conversation. Several minutes go by of Axel just sitting against the gate, his emotions fluctuating between dread and sadness.

"I have to go," he says after a while. "Afternoon clinics." I've heard of clinics before; it's another word for free labor.

***

The next day, the swelling on my sides have gone down considerably. My bruises have been reduced to mildly cringe-worthy versus the previously too revolting to look at. I wait until the twins walk by before pulling my door open, relieved to finally be able to stretch my legs properly. Axis lends me a tie to pull my hair up: it takes three hours of clinics to earn just one.

I follow the crowd down to the long awaited cafeteria and take in the large room. The only outside light source pours in from the gigantic sky lights hoisted fifty feet above our heads and nestled in a net of wrought iron framing. Tables sprinkle the large floor, almost too close to slip between. Following the trend of the rest of the prison, clean lines and expansive whites decorate the cafeteria with subtly beautiful plainness. I stick close to the twins as we move towards two doors set twenty feet apart, one an entrance and the other an exit to the food line.

We fall in line behind a woman whose white hair nearly brushes the back of her knees. The food is the same as what Axis brought me yesterday: a sandwich and a bottle of water. The bare minimum of a meal. We find a table (sensing the wave of familiarity and relief coming from Axel, I can tell that this is probably the same one they usually sit at) and take a seat, my ponytail occasionally brushing against the uniforms of passing Deviances.

As we eat, I can feel Axis' eyes on me. When I look up, her gaze rises just above my pupils. "The swelling won't go down," I say about the scar on my eyebrow, which doesn't hurt anymore but still dips into my vision. I've almost forgotten it was there due to its constantness.

"That's unfortunate," she smiles her little half-smile, a smirk of pure mischievousness. "You'd be so much prettier without it there."

Axel snorts into his water, turning away as his face turns red from embarrassment. He grabs a napkin off the table and dabs at his face and uniform; all the while, Axis is smirking as she chews her food.

"It wasn't so much funny as unexpected," he says after he regains his composure.

"Sure, big guy," his sister retorts. I can't tell how he is feeling right now: embarrassed or aroused; for some reason these two emotions have always been the hardest to differentiate. Just as we're all finishing off our measly meals, a man bumps his tray against my shoulder.

Axel stands up defensively as I snap my head behind me, my eyes locking on the last man himself, Bender.