“Then don’t,” the CO replied.
Heaven narrowed her eyes. “Well, I have a problem.”
“Back up away from my desk,” O’Neal barked without looking up at her. Pen poised over one of the pages in her logbook, she waited for Heaven to take a step back. Then asked, “What’s your problem?”
The CO not once looked up at Heaven, and Heaven thought it rude.
Bitch.
“The problem is: I need to be moved from off this housing unit. Now.”
The CO finally peeled her eyes from the logbook, and slowly slid her gaze up to meet Heaven’s hazel eyes, taking in her reddish-brown skin. Oh, this Indian-looking bitch right here thinks she’s all that, the CO thought as she tilted her head.
The CO smirked, raising a brow. “And where exactly would you like to move to, Your Royal Highness? The Omni? The Waldorf?”
Heaven stood unmoved by the CO’s sarcasm. “I don’t care where you move me, ma’am, as long as it’s out of here.”
“Oh, sure,” she said, closing her logbook. “I’ll get right on it.” She reached for the phone. “Let me see if the lieutenant can send over your glass carriage.” She slammed the phone back onto the receiver. “Not. Now go take your ass back up to your
cell. And get the fuck away from my desk.”
A few inmates sitting within earshot overheard the exchange and laughed. And in turn, Heaven steadied her breathing. She dug her long fingernails into her bed sheet. Her nails had grown dangerously long during her time in lockup, and she hadn’t had a chance to trim them.
Heaven dropped her belongings on the floor. “I’m not going anywhere. I want to speak to someone above your pay grade. Please and thank you.”
The housing officer blinked. “I just gave you a direct order, Inmate.” She stood up. “Now move the fuck away from my desk. NOW!”
Heaven sucked her teeth, snatching up her belongings. “Bitch,” she mumbled under her breath as she stalked off.
“What the fuck did you call me?” the housing officer called after her.
Heaven kept walking toward the stairs.
“Get her, Miss O,” someone said in back of Heaven. “That ho know she don’t want it with you.”
The housing officer grunted. “Mmph. You know that’s right. I know if that bitch hadn’t moved the fuck away from my desk, I was about to put my foot in her neck.”
“Ha! Miss O, you shoulda dragged her ass,” another inmate said.
“Who that bitch think she is, anyway, Pocahontas?”
“Mmph. She cute, though,” another inmate said loudly. “But I bet her drawz real nasty. Y’all know it be them real pretty ones doin’ the least to keep them drawz clean.”
Laughter roared around the day space.
The housing officer eyed Heaven as she made her way back up the stairs, then reopened her logbook and went back to writing in it once Heaven reached the third floor.
Several inmates snickered as she walked by. A few others grunted.
Coletta, who had been watching Heaven the whole time, turned from the railing and leaned her back up against it. Arms folded, she smirked. “Well, look what the cat dragged back. Little Miss Uppity. I guess you couldn’t swing your hair and bat your lashes to get what you wanted, huh?”
Heaven ignored her, stepping back into what would become her nightmare if she didn’t do something. She tossed her belongings up on the bunk, then began tightly braiding her long black hair into two thick braids, while Coletta and her tier cronies cackled and loudly talked shit about her.
When she was finished braiding her hair, she unzipped her jumper and tucked the ends down into the neck of her jumper, then zipped it back up as far as it would go. She was not sleeping in here with that broad tonight, or any other night.
She kneeled, and tightly tied the laces to her Reebok Lady Classics.
She took a deep breath then stood and reached for the radio that sat atop her desk.