The Prison Project
Chapter 36 – Meltdown
Margot’s POV
The guard’s hand gripped my arm like a vice, yanking me and Cara inside with a grunt of frustration as the door slammed shut behind us.
“What block are you two in?” he barked hurriedly, already scanning the hallway like a bomb might go off any second.
“Block F!” I answered fast, voice high and tight, not caring that Cara wasn’t in that block but not prepared to leave her after what we had just seen. I gave her a look to be quiet, as she nodded knowingly, face wet from tears. My heart was hammering against my ribs like it was trying to crack its way out of my chest, my adrenaline through the roof.
“Move. Stay close.” The guard pushed on.
He didn’t wait for confirmation, just turned and took off down the corridor at a pace that forced us to jog to keep up with him.
Sirens exploded to life a second later, shrill and echoing down every hallway like some horror movie alarm as we both jumped – clutching on to one another instantly in fright. Red lights strobed from above us as the guards spilled into view, their shouts bouncing off of the concrete walls, “Return to your blocks! Everyone back to your assigned areas – NOW!”
“I really don’t like this, Margot!” Cara gasped from beside me, one arm covering her head like debris might start falling.
I didn’t answer. I couldn’t.
Everywhere we turned, people were moving frantically, guards yelling, inmates being herded or restrained or ignored entirely as chaos reigned – girls whimpering. But all I could think about was Coban: the blood, the crack of bone when that rock hit the other guy’s head, the flash of metal as the blade swung, the way his body twisted, protecting us even when he was the one under attack…
I didn’t even get to see if he was okay…
But why did I seem to care for him so much? A man who I met last night for the first time? A man who I knew barely anything about other than how dangerous he was…
“Move it!” the guard ahead of us shouted, snapping me back to the moment. He shoved open the Block F doors, barely holding them for us to squeeze through before barking over his shoulder, “Get in your room and stay there!”
He didn’t wait to see if we obeyed either.
“Come on,” I whispered, gripping Cara’s wrist now, dragging her across the familiar common room until we reached it – the last room on the end.
Our room.
Coban’s room.
I fumbled to push open the door, my hands trembling so bad I almost missed it, with Cara practically tripping in over the threshold as I slammed it shut behind us – hearing it lock automatically. I leaned back against it, gasping for air like I’d just finished running a marathon, sweat slicking the back of my neck.
Cara didn’t speak right away. She just stared around blankly at the room – our untouched bed that Coban had surprisingly made that morning, the shared desk, the light shining in from the outside window. Then suddenly she moved, pacing hard and fast like a caged animal, her hands yanking back through her hair as she shook her head in a panic.
“What the fuck are we doing?!” she snapped. Her voice cracked like something inside her had just shattered. “Why did we sign up for this shit?!”
I didn’t answer, not right away. My back slowly slid down the door until I hit the carpet with a soft thud, legs folding beneath me. My limbs were still buzzing with adrenaline, my stomach turning in sick spirals.
“Don’t ask me,” I managed after a beat. “You convinced me to come here! We need the money, remember?” I stated, reminding her of her own master plan as she groaned.
Her head whipped toward me, eyes wide and watery. “I know… I know! But maybe we’ve bitten off way more than we can chew here, Margot!” she cried, pacing again like her legs couldn’t sit still. “This isn’t, like, some high school testosterone brawl! These aren’t angry teenage boys fighting over a prom date! These are grown-ass men! Killers! Some of them are in here for murder!”
Her voice cracked again, and I watched as her hands went up to wipe at her cheeks, furious and frantic.
“You don’t have to tell me,” I shot back, dragging my knees up to my chest and curling around them. “I’ve been terrified from the minute we walked into this goddamn place. Why didn’t they tell us on the website that we’d actually be living in rooms with them?!” I suddenly questioned, running my palms down my sweaty face.
Cara groaned, a deep, hopeless sound. “I know, right? We thought we’d just be having meetings with them or something! Fuck! What do we even do now? Do we just sit in here and pretend like everything’s fine when there’s blood on the gravel and we just witnessed people swinging fucking knives around out there?” She threw out her hands, looking for an answer that I couldn’t quite give.
I didn’t answer because I didn’t know. I wasn’t even sure what we were allowed to do. What could we do?
“Will we even still get the cash if they both wind up murdered one day into this?! How ironic for us, eh? Them two dying before the end of the project… and it would all just be a big fat waste of time?” she scoffed at the thought, spinning to face me again with panic flaring in her face. “Or worse – if they die, then what if they just ship us off to a new prisoner? Like, ‘Hey, sorry your guy got shanked, here’s another lunatic to start from scratch with!’”
She let out a desperate laugh that sounded more like a sob. “I was settled with Leo! I was actually starting to feel okay about him. I don’t want to do this again with someone else, Margot! I can’t!”
I nodded, slowly, weakly – because yeah, I got her point. All of it.
I didn’t want to start over either. I didn’t want to sit across from another dangerous stranger and pretend it was normal, pretend I was okay with being part of someone’s rehabilitation like some expert in emotional taming.
What if the next prisoner expected sex from me?
Because Coban hadn’t, and for that, I was more thankful now than what I had even realised at the time…
“I’m scared too,” I whispered, resting my chin on my knees. “I don’t even know if Coban’s okay. He wasn’t all bad either. What if… what if he did end up-?”
I couldn’t say it.
Couldn’t say the word “dead.”
Cara went quiet for a long second. The silence was almost worse than the screaming outside.
“Do you think they’ll tell us?” she finally whispered. “If something happens to them? Or do they just cover it up and hand us someone new with a fake smile and a clipboard?”
I stared at the door, listening to the distant sounds of sirens and boots and muffled yelling.
Would they tell us?
I had no idea.
Would Coban and Leo just become a distant memory to us? As though it hadn’t even happened at all? It didn’t seem right. It wouldn’t be fair.
“We just have to wait here for now, wait and see what happens next. If they say something bad happened, then we just quit.” I shrug, nodding at the idea as Cara squints.
“We can’t go back home…” She suddenly whispered.
Fuck.
She’s right…
Because home to us was far worse than here.