"Or about how you cross your legs when I come closer," Paige says, her voice a low, observational murmur, a slow, deliberate dissection of Azzi's every move. "Or about why you smile when I walk into the room," she adds on, her voice a low, teasing purr, a playful, yet deeply insightful observation. she plays too much. she loves flustering azzi and getting under her skin 🤣
She leans in, her movements slow and deliberate, her eyes locked on Azzi's, a silent, unspoken question hanging in the air between them. "Can we?" she asks, her voice a low, husky whisper, a bold, unapologetic plea. AHHHH WAIT HOLD UP i wasn’t ready for this omg 😭 paige really loves to push buttons and azzi’s out here fighting her life internally between keeping things professional yet real for paige to trust her
Lmfao azzi going to need some boxing gloves and a ring do her to fight Paige off.!!
"I don't know," Paige says, her voice a low, thoughtful murmur. "But I'm looking forward to finding out." ME TOO… MEEEE TOOOOOOOO!!
soosososososososoosoooooo good. this chapter was great and we can see more of how their dynamic changes. it’s worth the wait everytime for a new part to release. so take your time!
thank you so much love, you always make writing these chapters worth it, because when you don't get much fed back it's like ehh non motivating lol, but you keep me going. 😉❤️😘
The office was too quiet after Paige left. It wasn't a peaceful quiet, nor the professional quiet of a day's work completed. It was a charged quiet, a heavy, humming silence that vibrated with the memory of what had just transpired. Dr.Fudd remained seated in her chair, her gaze fixed on the empty one beside her, the chair she had deliberately placed too close. The space still seemed to hold a phantom warmth, or perhaps that was just projection, a dangerous, unprofessional thing she could not afford. She did not like projection. Projection meant blurred lines. Blurred lines meant compromised judgment. And she did not compromise judgment.
She stood abruptly, the scrape of her chair against the floor a sharp, disruptive sound in the stillness. She moved the guest chair back to its original place against the far wall, a measured two feet of distance. Measurable. Safe. There. Order restored. Except it wasn't. Her hands were steady, her breathing had normalized, her posture was composed. If anyone walked in right now, they would see exactly what they expected to see, a competent, controlled prison psychologist in her natural habitat. What they wouldn't see was the moment. The almost. The split second where she had not moved. That was the problem. It wasn't that Paige leaned in. It wasn't even that she tested the boundary. It was that Azzi had closed her eyes. That was the crack. And she could not afford cracks.
Azzi hadn't grown up wanting to "save" anyone. That was a naive notion for romance novels, not for a life built on logic and evidence. She grew up in a house where emotions were academic exercises to be dissected and debated. Her mother, a brilliant cardiologist, believed in measurable outcomes, in the predictable rhythm of a heart, not its unpredictable longings. Her father, a formidable law professor, believed in moral argument, in the clean, sharp lines of right and wrong. Dinner conversations were debates, intellectual sparring matches where the winner was the one with the most compelling argument. Pain was analyzed. Crying was inefficient. Vulnerability was a flaw in the system to be identified and corrected.
When Azzi was sixteen, her cousin Laila was arrested. A simple case of shoplifting spiraled, a chain reaction of poor choices and panicked decisions that turned into assault, which turned into probation, which ultimately turned into incarceration. Everyone said the same thing, a chorus of judgment and disappointment. "She threw her life away." Azzi didn't buy it. She visited Laila once in juvenile detention, a place of gray walls and despairing eyes. She sat across from her in a plastic chair bolted to concrete, a sterile, impersonal barrier between them. Laila didn't look evil. She looked tired. Scared. Alone. "What happened?" Azzi had asked, her voice soft. Laila just shrugged, her shoulders slumping in defeat. "No one was listening anyway."
That sentence lodged in Azzi's chest like a splinter, a tiny, sharp point of pain she could never dislodge. No one was listening. Not the teachers who had labeled her a problem. Not the judge who had seen her as a statistic. Not the family who preferred disappointment to involvement. Laila overdosed two years later. Accidental, they said. Azzi never believed in accidents after that. She went into psychology not because she was naive, but because she was furious. Furious at systems that labeled without investigating, at the ease with which people were discarded, at the profound, soul-crushing loneliness of being unheard.
Private practice came first, a world of polished offices and sanitized problems. Anxiety. Marital disputes. Corporate burnout. It bored her. The harm was subtle, wrapped in expensive clothes and polite language. It was a lie, and she had always preferred raw truth. Then she took a temporary contract at a juvenile detention facility. The first week she watched a seventeen-year-old girl, a child really, break a chair over another inmate's back. The staff called her a monster, a lost cause. Azzi read the file. Repeated foster placements. Three documented assaults. Two sealed reports of sexual abuse. Monster was a convenient word, a label that allowed them to wash their hands of her. Azzi stayed. From there, she moved to maximum security, to places like Wentworth. Because prisons didn't hide what they were. Prisons were honest. Violence wasn't disguised as civility. Power wasn't wrapped in corporate jargon. It was raw. And Azzi preferred raw truth to pretty lies.
She had rules. Iron rules. No physical contact beyond a professional, necessary handshake. No personal disclosure beyond clinically useful fragments designed to build rapport. No sessions outside designated, secure spaces. Never believe you are special to a patient. Never confuse attention with attachment. She wrote them after Elena. Elena had been her first love, a whirlwind of soft hands, storm-colored eyes, and a poet's soul with a cruel streak disguised as freedom. Azzi had fallen fast, deep, entirely. Elena left without warning. No goodbye. No explanation. Just absence, a void where a person used to be. Azzi learned two things from that. One, vulnerability without structure is chaos. Two, people leave. So she built structure. Boundaries became architecture. Architecture became safety. And she never blurred it again. Until Paige.
Paige Bueckers did not behave like other inmates. She didn't charm in the obvious way, didn't plead or sob or seduce with softness. She studied. She observed. She pushed exactly where the structure flexed, testing its limits with a precision that was unnerving. Most inmates tested authority to dominate. Paige tested it to understand it. That was different. That was dangerous. In their first session, Azzi had recognized intelligence. In the second, she recognized restraint. By the third, she recognized something worse. She enjoyed sparring with her. That should not have been true. Therapy was not meant to feel like chess. It was not meant to feel like tension coiled under the surface. It was certainly not meant to feel electric. But when Paige leaned in, when her voice dropped low and steady and asked, "Are you as real as you seem?" Azzi hadn't seen a predator. She had seen curiosity. And that unsettled her more than aggression ever could. Because aggression she could treat. Curiosity required response. And she had responded. She had closed her eyes. Just for a second. That second was everything.
It wasn't attraction that scared her. She was comfortable with her sexuality, had been for years. It wasn't even desire. Desire could be compartmentalized, filed away in a neat, labeled box in the back of her mind. It was the shift in power dynamic that terrified her. For the first time in her career, she felt aware of herself inside a session. Aware of how close her knee was to Paige's. Aware of the warmth between them. Aware of her own breath. Therapists are trained to notice the client's body language, not their own. Paige made her notice her own. That was unacceptable. Because if she became self-conscious, she lost neutrality. If she lost neutrality, she lost authority. And if she lost authority inside Wentworth, she was finished.
Azzi walked to her window and looked out over the yard. Women moved in clusters below, power shifting invisibly between them like currents in an ocean. Paige stood near the wall, a solitary figure of stillness. Even from a distance, Azzi could recognize the control, the gravitational pull. Leadership didn't always look loud. Sometimes it looked like silence that everyone watched. Paige had influence. And influence complicated treatment. Because if Azzi wasn't careful, she wouldn't just be treating an inmate. She'd be protecting a power structure. And that blurred ethics fast. She pressed her fingers to her temple, a dull ache starting to form. This was why therapists avoided emotional entanglement. Not because of scandal. But because attachment altered perception. And perception was everything in this place.
Did she believe Paige ordered the stabbing? Her clinical assessment said no. Too messy. Too public. Too reactive. Paige preferred surgical moves, quiet and devastating. But the fact that she wanted to defend her automatically, that her first instinct was to build a fortress of logic around her, that bothered her. Was it analysis? Or was it bias? She replayed the hallway argument in her mind. Paige's voice sharp, laced with a pain that was raw and real. "You looked at me and saw a killer. Just like everyone else." That wasn't manipulation. That was hurt. Azzi recognized authentic hurt. She also recognized when she wanted to soothe it. And that impulse, to soothe, was not clinical. It was personal. That was new. That was dangerous.
Paige wasn't the first inmate to flirt. She wasn't the first to test a boundary. She was the first to make Azzi hesitate. The first to make her curious in return. The first to make her ask herself, briefly, what would it feel like without the bars. That thought alone was enough to make her step back physically in the next session. She would not let imagination infect reality. This was prison. She was staff. Paige was an inmate. End of story. And yet. When Paige smiled, not the smirk, not the weaponized one, but the rare, genuine one that reached her eyes and transformed her face, Azzi felt something tighten in her chest. Hope. And hope, she knew from experience, was the most destabilizing force of all.
She moved the chair back again. Another inch. Distance measured. Reinforced. She would correct course. No more shared vulnerability beyond necessity. No more proximity. No more charged silence. She would treat Paige like every other patient. Structured. Neutral. Contained. If Paige wanted war, she could manage that. If Paige wanted redemption, she could guide that. But she would not become part of the story. She had learned that lesson once, and she had survived it by building walls. She was not going to let one inmate, no matter how sharp, no matter how magnetic, dismantle architecture it had taken her a decade to construct. Even if, deep down, in a place she refused to acknowledge, she already knew the foundation had shifted. Just slightly. Just enough to feel it. And that was the part she could not admit to anyone. Especially herself.
***
The unit went quiet when KK walked back in. It wasn't a dramatic entrance. There was no yelling, no threats, no posturing. She just walked through the door, her steps slower now, a careful, measured gait that spoke of the stitched and bandaged wound hidden beneath her shirt. But her eyes were clearer than they'd been in weeks, the fog of rage and impulsive violence replaced by a chilling, calculating clarity. She wasn't humiliated. She was reborn, sharpened by the experience, honed into a more dangerous weapon.
Paige didn't look up from the table where she was sitting with Aaliyah, her attention seemingly focused on the grimy, scarred surface. That was deliberate. A calculated dismissal. A statement that KK was no longer a threat worth her time. KK noticed. Good.
Later, in the yard, under the harsh glare of the afternoon sun, KK didn't approach Paige. That would be too obvious, too expected. She approached Nika. Nika was alone at the weights, her movements smooth and powerful as she worked through her set, her focus absolute. KK stepped into her shadow, a sudden, unwelcome presence.
"You're wasted with her," KK said calmly, her voice a low, conversational murmur that was more menacing than a shout.
Nika didn't look up, her muscles tensing slightly as she completed another rep. "Careful," she replied, her voice a low growl of warning.
KK leaned against the weight rack, her posture deceptively casual, a predator feigning indifference. "You think she didn't know Kayleigh was circling me? You think she didn't see it coming?"
"She didn't," Nika said evenly, her voice flat, finally setting the weight down with a heavy clang.
KK smiled, a slow, cruel curve of her lips. "That's cute. That you actually believe that."
Silence stretched between them, thick with unspoken threats.
"She let it happen," KK continued, her voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper. "Didn't stop it. Didn't warn me. She just stood there and watched. Is that leadership to you? Is that the kind of person you want to follow?"
Now Nika looked at her, her eyes cold and hard as steel. "You attacked first. You went after Sarah's hands. You crossed the line."
KK shrugged, a gesture of dismissive contempt. "And now she's got a rep she didn't earn. A reputation built on someone else's blood. She's a fucking legend now, and she didn't lift a finger."
Nika just stared at her, her face a mask of stoic indifference, but Paige could see the flicker of doubt in her eyes from across the yard. She saw the way KK's words were landing, like tiny, poisonous darts, finding the cracks in Nika's loyalty.
"Reps matter," KK said softly, her voice a sibilant hiss. "Especially when parole boards read incident reports. They see a pattern. They see association. They see guilt by proximity. You align yourself with someone everyone already believes is capable of murder... what does that make you?"
That landed. Nika didn't react outwardly, not a single muscle twitched, but Paige knew her. She knew she had filed it away, turned it over in her mind, a seed of doubt planted in the fertile ground of her ambition.
KK stepped back, a triumphant smirk playing on her lips. "Think about it," she said. "Think about what you're throwing away for a ghost." She walked away before Nika could answer, her mission accomplished.
Across the yard, Paige saw the entire interaction. She saw every word, every gesture, every subtle shift in Nika's posture. And she didn't like it. Not one fucking bit. She felt a cold, hard knot of anger tighten in her gut, a familiar, unwelcome feeling. She was watching everything, her mind a whirlwind of calculations and strategies. She saw KK's game, a slow, insidious poison designed to isolate her, to turn her allies against her. And she knew, with a chilling certainty, that this was just the beginning. This was a war of whispers, and KK was playing to win.
Later that night, after count, after the lights had been dimmed to a low, sleepy glow, Paige lay on her bunk, staring at the ceiling, the conversation playing over and over in her mind. She heard the soft scrape of a boot on the concrete floor. Nika. She didn't sit up. She didn't speak. She just waited.
Nika leaned against the frame of Paige's cell, her silhouette a dark, imposing shape against the dim light of the block. "KK came to see me today," she said, her voice a low, quiet murmur.
Paige finally turned her head, her eyes a glint in the darkness. "I saw," she said, her voice flat.
"She's trying to get in my head," Nika continued. "Talking about parole boards and reputations."
Paige was silent, her body a coiled spring of tension. "And?"
"And it's bullshit," Nika said, her voice firm, unwavering. "All of it. She's scared. She knows she lost, and now she's trying to claw her way back by turning us against each other. It's a desperate, pathetic move from a desperate, pathetic bitch."
Paige felt a wave of relief wash over her, so potent it almost made her weak. She sat up, her feet swinging over the edge of the bunk. "You're not wrong," she said, her voice a low, rough murmur.
The dim light of the cell block cast long shadows, making Nika's silhouette seem even more formidable as she leaned against the doorframe. Her words hung in the air, a solid, unbreakable promise. "I'm not going anywhere," she said, her voice a solemn vow. "When I first got here, we didn't get along but that didn't stop you from not letting anybody fuck with me. And for that I'll always have ya back. That's not something I forget. KK can talk all the shit she wants. It doesn't change the facts. We're a team. You and me. And Aaliyah. And Sarah. That's our crew. That's our family now."
Paige looked at her, the hard lines of her face softening for just a moment, a rare, genuine smile touching her lips. It was a fragile thing, but it was real. "You're a good person, Nika."
Nika snorted, a soft, humorless sound in the quiet of the block. "You're a pain in my ass," she replied, a flicker of her old, wry humor returning, a welcome warmth in the coldness of their world. "But you're my pain in the ass. And I'll burn this whole fucking place down before I let anyone take that away."
Paige nodded, the fleeting smile gone, replaced by a cold, steely resolve that settled over her features like a mask. The relief she felt was a fleeting warmth, quickly extinguished by the icy fire of her purpose. "Good," she said, her voice a low, dangerous murmur. "Because I think it's time we stopped playing defense."
Nika smiled, a slow, dangerous grin that was all teeth and no warmth, a predator's promise. "I was hoping you'd say that."
Paige swung her legs over the edge of the bunk, her feet landing softly on the concrete floor. She stood, her movements fluid and silent, a predator in her own right. She crossed the small space of her cell, stopping just inches from Nika, her voice a low, conspiratorial whisper. "KK wants to play games? Fine. Let's play. She wants to turn my crew against me? Let's show her what happens when you corner a wolf pack."
Nika's grin widened, her eyes gleaming with a feral light in the dimness. "What's the plan?"
Paige's eyes were dark, her mind already racing, connecting the dots, seeing the angles, the weaknesses, the opportunities. "KK's power comes from fear," she said, her voice a low, steady hum. "She thinks she's the biggest, baddest thing in here. We take that away. We take her reputation, her respect, her entire fucking empire, piece by piece."
"And how do we do that?" Nika asked, her voice a low, eager growl.
"We start with her crew," Paige said, her voice cold and calculating. "They're loyal because they're scared. We show them there's a bigger, badder thing to be scared of. We show them there's a new power in Wentworth. And we show them that crossing us is a mistake they won't live to regret."
Nika nodded, her expression grim and determined. "And what about KK?"
Paige's smile was a slow, chilling thing, a promise of retribution. "She gets the message," she said. "Loud and clear."
The two women stood there in the darkness, a silent, unspoken pact passing between them. It was a declaration of war, a promise of violence, and a vow of loyalty, all wrapped up in the quiet, oppressive stillness of the cell block. The game had changed. And they were ready to play.
***
It happens two nights later. A routine shakedown. Nothing unusual. The ai in the block is thick with the low hum of fluorescent lights and the restless energy of women who know their privacy is about to be violated but are powerless to stop it. Officers move with a practiced, almost bored efficiency, their heavy boots a rhythmic, percussive beat on the concrete floor. They open lockers, flip through books, run rough hands over mattresses, a familiar, dehumanizing ritual.
Until Officer Jackson stops atPaige's cell. He's a big, burly man with a face like a slab of concrete and eyes that are small and piggy. "Out," he orders, his voice a flat, emotionless command.
Paige steps into the corridor calmly, her hands clasped loosely in front of her, her expression a mask of bored indifference. She leans against the wall opposite her cell, her gaze sweeping the block, a silent, watchful predator.
Two officers enter her cell, their movements jerky and aggressive. One of them, a younger officer with a nervous, twitchy energy, flips her mattress, the dull thud echoing in the sudden silence. The other, a woman with a hard, cynical face, checks her books, her fingers rifling through the pages with a dismissive air. They open her locker, their hands rummaging through her meager possessions, a small, pathetic collection of contraband and keepsakes. The..
"Governor!" Jackson's tone shifts, a sudden, sharp urgency that cuts through the monotony of the shakedown.
Daley arrives seconds later, her heels clicking a sharp, frantic rhythm on the floor, her presence a sudden, oppressive weight. Officer Clark steps out of the cell, his face pale, his hand held out like he's holding a venomous snake. He's holding a sharpened metal shard, crudely honed to a vicious point, wrapped in a stained, dirty cloth. An improvised blade. A dark, crusty residue is visible on the edge. Blood.
The unit goes silent. The low hum of conversation dies, the restless energy stills, replaced by a collective, held breath. Every eye is on the weapon, then on Paige.
Daley turns slowly toward Paige, her face a mask of cold, triumphant fury. "You want to explain this?" she asks, her voice a low, dangerous purr.
Paige's face doesn't change. Not a flicker of surprise, not a hint of fear. Just a cool, dismissive calm. "That ain't mine," she says, her voice flat, even.
"It was under your mattress," Daley says, her voice rising with a righteous, prosecutorial glee.
Paige looks at Nika across the block, a quick, almost imperceptible glance. Just a flicker. A silent question. Nika's jaw tightens, her eyes wide with a dawning, horrified understanding.
Daley steps closer, her voice a low, triumphant hiss. "You were just interrogated over a stabbing. You were just in my office, claiming your innocence. And now this."
"And you didn't have anything then," Paige replies evenly, her voice a low, steady counterpoint to Daley's rising fury. "So you planted something. That's cute."
Paige scans the block, her eyes sharp, calculating, looking for the lie, for the traitor. Someone planted it. But who? Her gaze lands on KK's cell, a few doors down. KK watches from the shadows, her expression neutral, unreadable. But there's a flicker of something in her eyes, a deep, cold satisfaction. A smug, triumphant glow. And behind her, almost hidden in the gloom, one of her crew, a wiry, nervous woman named Maria, shifts her weight, her eyes darting away from Paige's, a telltale sign of guilt. Maria. The one with the cleaning detail. The one with access to every cell. The one who owed KK a favor.
Daley turns to the officers, her voice a sharp, commanding bark. "Isolation."
The word echoes, a death knell in the silent block.
Azzi hears about it within the hour. She's in her office, trying to focus on a stack of paperwork, but her mind keeps drifting back to Paige, to the charged silence of their last session. A guard knocks on her door, his face grim. "Doctor Fudd. You need to come to the isolation wing. It's Bueckers. There's been an... incident."
Azzi's heart sinks. She follows the guard down the long, sterile corridors, her mind racing. When she arrives, she finds Paige being processed, her hands being cuffed behind her back. Paige's face is a mask of cold, hard fury, her eyes burning with a righteous, unadulterated rage.
"What the hell happened?" Azzi asks, her voice sharp, demanding.
"Found a shiv in her cell," Officer Jackson says, his voice a flat, unemotional report. "Blood on it. Governor's orders. Straight to isolation."
Azzi turns to Paige, her eyes searching her face. "Paige," she says, her voice a low, urgent plea. "Tell me it's not true."
Paige looks at her, her eyes a swirling vortex of anger and betrayal. "You think I'm that fucking stupid?" she snarls, her voice a low, dangerous growl. "You think I'd keep a bloody shiv under my mattress after you told me to be smart? After I promised you I'd handle it? Are you fucking kidding me?"
"I don't know what to think," Azzi says, her voice a desperate, honest admission. "I need you to tell me what happened."
"KK happened," Paige says, her voice a low, furious hiss. "She's playing me. She's playing you. She's playing everyone. And you're all falling for it."
Azzi looks at her, a storm of conflicting emotions churning inside her. She wants to believe her. She wants to trust her. But the evidence... the blood... the weapon...
"I need to see the evidence," Azzi says, her voice a low, firm command.
Jackson leads her to a small, sterile room where the weapon is laid out on a metal tray. It's exactly as described. A sharpened piece of metal, wrapped in a cloth. The blood on the edge is dark, dried, a damning piece of evidence.
"This is a setup," Azzi says, her voice a low, certain growl. "This is too perfect. Too convenient."
"The Governor doesn't think so," Jackson says, his voice a flat, unemotional counterpoint.
"The Governor is a fool," Azzi snaps, her voice rising with a sudden, volatile fury. "She's so blinded by her hatred for Paige that she can't see what's right in front of her face. This is a frame job. A classic, fucking frame job."
She turns to Paige, her eyes burning with a fierce, protective fire. "I'm going to get you out of this," she says, her voice a low, solemn vow. "I swear to god, I'm going to get you out of this."
Paige looks at her, her anger softening slightly, replaced by a flicker of something else. Hope. A fragile, dangerous thing. "You better," she says, her voice a low, rough murmur. "Because if I go down for this, I'm taking everyone with me."
The officers lead Paige away, her footsteps echoing down the long, empty corridor. Azzi stands there for a long time, her mind racing, her heart aching. She knows, with a certainty that both terrifies and infuriates her, that Paige is innocent. And she knows, with a chilling certainty, that she's the only one who can prove it.
***
Paige isn't in her usual chair. She's in restraints. The session has been moved to a small, sterile observation room, a box of concrete and one-way glass designed for high-risk inmates. The air is cold, smelling of bleach and desperation. Paige sits at a metal table, her wrists and ankles cuffed to a heavy chair bolted to the floor, the chains a constant, clanking reminder of her new reality. She looks smaller like this, diminished, but the fire in her eyes is undiminished, burning with a cold, hard fury.
Azzi enters the small monitored room, her movements stiff, her expression a carefully constructed mask of clinical detachment. She doesn't sit close this time. She keeps her distance, choosing a chair on the other side of the table, a deliberate, physical barrier between them. Intentional. Paige notices immediately, her eyes narrowing slightly, a flicker of hurt quickly masked by a familiar, defiant anger.
"They find what they were looking for?" Azzi asks, her voice a flat, professional inquiry, a stark contrast to the charged intimacy of their last session.
Paige scoffs, a harsh, humorless sound. "You tell me. You're the one who seems to have all the answers."
Azzi holds her gaze, her own eyes steady, searching for any sign of deception, any crack in the facade. "Did you have it?"
"No," Paige says, her voice a low, firm denial, a simple, unshakeable declaration of innocence.
A pause hangs in the air, thick with unspoken accusations and doubts. Azzi studies her face carefully, her expression a mask of clinical assessment, but her mind is a whirlwind of conflicting emotions. She wants to believe her. She needs to believe her. But the evidence...
"You understand how this looks," Azzi says, her voice a low, cautious murmur.
Paige's jaw tightens, a muscle jumping in her cheek. "Do you?" she asks, her voice a low, dangerous growl. "Do you understand how it looks when the one person who claimed to believe in me suddenly pulls back the second things get complicated?"
The air shifts, the tension between them thickening, becoming a heavy, oppressive weight. Not explosive. Not yet. Just heavy, suffocating.
"You asked me to believe you," Paige continues, her voice rising with a barely suppressed fury. "You asked me to trust you. And then you stepped back. You put your chair on the other side of the room. You looked at me like I was a stranger. Like I was a monster."
"That's not fair," Azzi says, her voice a weak, defensive protest.
"Isn't it?" Paige shoots back, her eyes blazing with a righteous, betrayed anger. "You tell me what's fair about being framed for a crime you didn't commit. You tell me what's fair about having your so-called ally question you the second the pressure's on."
Azzi doesn't rise to it, her training kicking in, her professional persona a suit of armor she desperately needs. "That weapon had blood on it," she says, her voice a low, clinical statement of fact.
"And?" Paige replies, her voice dripping with contempt.
"And if it ties back to KK, if the blood is hers, it strengthens your defense," Azzi says, her voice a low, reasoned argument, a desperate attempt to find a logical path through the emotional minefield.
"It won't," Paige says, her voice a flat, certain declaration. "KK's smarter than that. She's not going to leave a trail that easy to follow."
"How do you know?" Azzi asks, her voice a low, suspicious probe.
Because Paige knows who did it. She saw the flicker of guilt in Maria's eyes, the nervous shift of her weight. She knows it was one of KK's crew, a pawn in her twisted game. She doesn't say that. She can't. Not yet. Instead she says: "I'm not sloppy."
Azzi registers that, the phrase echoing in her mind. Same phrase as before. Surgical. Not messy. It's a small, insignificant detail, but it's a crack in the wall of doubt, a sliver of light in the darkness.
Silence stretches between them, a long, uncomfortable pause filled with unspoken words and unresolved tensions. Azzi shifts in her chair, a subtle, almost imperceptible movement, but Paige notices. She notices everything. She's farther back. Distance reinforced.
"You leaned in last session," Azzi says quietly, her voice a low, hesitant murmur, a confession and an accusation all at once.
Paige's eyes flicker, a flash of surprise quickly masked by a guarded, defensive anger. "And you didn't move."
"I should have," Azzi says, her voice a low, regretful admission. "That was a mistake. A lapse in judgment. A moment of... unprofessionalism."
That lands harder than an accusation. It's a rejection. A denial of the connection, of the electricity that arced between them. Paige swallows it, a bitter pill of rejection, her anger softening slightly, replaced by a profound, aching sense of loss.
"That's not what this is," Azzi continues, her voice a low, desperate attempt to regain control of the session, of herself. "This isn't about proximity. Or control. Or testing boundaries. This is about you. About your future. About whether you want to get out of this place or not."
Paige studies her, her eyes a swirling vortex of conflicting emotions. "You pulled your chair back," she says, her voice a low, quiet accusation.
"Yes," Azzi admits, her voice a low, reluctant confession.
"Because you don't trust me," Paige says, her voice a low, hurt murmur.
"Because I trust myself," Azzi replies, her voice a low, firm declaration. "And because I know what happens when I let my guard down. When I let myself get too close. It doesn't end well. For anyone."
That hits. Hard. The room goes still, the air thick with the weight of Azzi's confession, a glimpse of the vulnerability she tries so hard to hide. Paige leans back against the restraint chain, the cold metal a stark reminder of her reality. A cold, bitter smile touches her lips.
"You're scared," she says, her voice a low, triumphant murmur.
Azzi doesn't deny it. She just sits there, her eyes locked on Paige's, a silent, trembling admission of her own fear.
"Good," Paige murmurs, her voice a low, dangerous whisper. "You should be."
The session ends there. Not with a bang, but with a whimper. Not dramatic, but unresolved. And colder than before. The air between them is thick with unspoken words and broken promises, a chasm of mistrust and regret that seems impossible to cross. And as Paige is led away, her chains clanking a mournful, rhythmic beat, Azzi is left alone in the sterile, silent room, a prisoner of her own fear.
***
Azzi doesn't storm into Daley's office demanding justice. That's emotional, messy, and ultimately ineffective. Instead, she approaches the problem with the cold, detached precision of a surgeon. She spends hours in her office, the only light from her desk lamp casting long shadows across the scattered files and crime scene photos. She reviews the timeline, her mind a whirlwind of calculations and connections.
The laundry attack, the chaos, the blackout. The medical transfer, the initial assessment of KK's wounds. The lockdown duration, a full forty-eight hours of rigid, controlled confinement. The cell searches, a routine shakedown that was anything but. She notices something small, almost insignificant, a detail that everyone else had missed.
The weapon found under Paige's mattress had dried blood, yes, but it was a specific kind of dried. The edges were tacky, not flaking. The color was a dark, reddish-brown, but not the deep, almost black crust of blood that had been sitting for days. KK was stabbed in the yard, in public, in broad daylight.
The weapon in Paige's cell had been wiped but not fully cleaned, a lazy, half-assed attempt to hide the evidence. If Paige ordered the hit, if she was the mastermind everyone believed her to be, why keep a bloodied blade in her own cell during a lockdown she knew was coming? Why not dispose of it immediately? It was too sloppy. Too reckless. Not her style.
Azzi brings this to Daley clinically, her folder of notes and timelines a silent, unarguable testament to her diligence. She finds Daley behind her desk, a fortress of polished oak and simmering resentment. Daley looks annoyed before Azzi even speaks, her lips already pursed in a tight, disapproving line.
"You're here about your pet inmate," Daley says, her voice a low, sarcastic jab, a clear attempt to put Azzi on the defensive.
Azzi ignores the jab, her expression a mask of calm, professional focus. "I'm here about a potential miscarriage of justice," she says, her voice a low, even tone. "The blade was found forty-eight hours after the stabbing."
"Yes," Daley says, her voice a dismissive drone, already bored with the conversation.
"The blood was partially dried but not oxidized enough to match that timeline," Azzi continues, her voice a low, insistent murmur, a calm, logical argument in the face of Daley's simmering impatience.
Daley narrows her eyes, her gaze a sharp, skeptical probe. "You're speculating, Doctor. You're playing detective, and it's not a good look for you."
"No," Azzi says, her voice a low, firm rebuttal. "I'm suggesting a forensic review. A simple blood analysis to determine the exact age of the sample. It's a standard procedure in any legitimate investigation."
Daley hesitates, her annoyance warring with a flicker of professional curiosity. Forensics in prison cases are expensive. Political. Embarrassing if wrong. It's a can of worms she's not sure she wants to open.
Azzi presses once more, her voice a low, persuasive murmur, a calculated appeal to Daley's ego. "Think about it, Governor. If Paige ordered it, she wouldn't keep evidence during a lockdown she knew was coming. It's illogical. It's not her M.O. She's smarter than that. You know that. I know that. Deep down, you know that."
Daley hates that. She hates the calm, logical certainty in Azzi's voice. She hates the fact that Azzi is right. Because it's logical. And Paige being innocent means someone manipulated internal security, someone planted evidence under the nose of the guards, someone made a fool out of her. It makes her look incompetent. Weak.
"Fine," Daley says, her voice a low, reluctant concession. "Order the review. But if it comes back as Paige's, or if it matches the timeline, I'm holding you responsible. I'll have your license, Doctor. I'll make sure you never work in this state again."
Azzi just nods, her expression a mask of calm, professional confidence. "Fair enough," she says, her voice a low, steady murmur. "But I'm right. And when I am, we're going to have a much bigger problem than one inmate with a shiv. We're going to have a conspiracy."
Daley looks at her, a long, silent appraisal. She sees the fire in Azzi's eyes, the unwavering belief, and for a moment, she's not just looking at a psychiatrist. She's looking at an ally. A formidable, dangerous ally.
"Just get it done, Azzi," Daley says, her voice a low, weary sigh, a flicker of something that might almost be respect in her eyes. "And keep me out of the shit."
Azzi nods, a small, triumphant smile touching her lips. "You got it, Governor," she says, her voice a low, confident purr. And as she turns and walks out of the office, she knows she's just won the first battle in a war she's determined to win.
***
The wait was a slow, agonizing crawl of time, each hour stretching into an eternity of uncertainty. Azzi found herself checking her email compulsively, a nervous habit she thought she had long since conquered. Then, the report arrived. A sterile, unemotional PDF from the state forensics lab, its findings a stark, black-and-white declaration that would change everything.
The blood on the weapon did NOT match KK. It matched someone else, a woman named Jenkins, who had been involved in a minor yard fight weeks prior. It was old residue, dried and flaking, a ghost of a past conflict. The blade had been planted with recycled blood, a clumsy, amateurish attempt to make it look connected to KK without the forensic consistency to back it up. It was a frame job. A sloppy, transparent, insulting frame job.
Daley is furious. Not at Paige. At the audacity. At the sheer, unmitigated gall of someone to manipulate her prison, to make a fool out of her, to play her for a fool right under her nose. She paces her office, a caged animal of rage and indignation, her heels a sharp, furious rhythm on the polished floor. She feels a cold, hard knot of anger in her gut, a burning desire to find the person responsible and make them pay, to make an example out of them that would be remembered for years to come.
In the interrogation room, Paige sits calmly again, the restraints gone, a small, symbolic victory, but the heavy weight of suspicion still hangs in the air. She's back in the usual chair, the metal table a familiar, cold presence between her and the world. She's been in isolation for two days, a solitary confinement that had given her nothing but time to think, to plan, to simmer in a cold, calculated rage.
Daley enters the room, her face a mask of cold, controlled fury. She doesn't sit. She just tosses the lab report onto the table, the papers skidding across the metal surface and stopping right in front of Paige. "Blood doesn't match KK," she says, her voice a low, dangerous growl.
Paige doesn't react. Not a flicker of surprise, not a hint of relief. She just looks at the report, her expression a mask of bored indifference. "Shame," she says flatly, her voice a low, sarcastic murmur. "I was so looking forward to the conviction."
Daley leans in, her hands flat on the table, her face just inches from Paige's, her eyes burning with a furious, interrogative intensity. "You want to tell me who's trying to frame you?" she asks, her voice a low, threatening hiss. "Because I swear to god, Paige, if you know something and you're not telling me, I'll find a way to make you talk. I'll bury you so deep they'll forget you ever existed."
Paige meets her eyes, her gaze a calm, steady challenge in the face of Daley's raging fury. "If I knew that, Governor… we wouldn't be having this conversation," she says, her voice a low, even murmur. "Because I would have already handled it. And you would have found the body."
Which is technically true. She has her suspicions. She knows it was Maria. She knows KK was behind it. But she doesn't have proof. Not yet. And she's not about to give Daley a half-baked theory that will only get dismissed as inmate drama. She's playing a long game now. A game of chess, not checkers.
Daley studies her, her eyes a sharp, analytical probe, searching for any sign of deception, any crack in the facade. "You're either very innocent," she says, her voice a low, thoughtful murmur, a reluctant concession to the possibility of Paige's innocence. "Or very dangerous."
Paige doesn't blink. She just stares back, her expression a mask of calm, unreadable confidence.
Daley hates not knowing which. She hates the ambiguity, the uncertainty, the feeling that she's being played, that she's a pawn in a game she doesn't fully understand. She's used to being in control, to being the one with all the answers. But with Paige, she's always one step behind, always guessing, always questioning.
"You're a fucking mystery, you know that?" Daley says, her voice a low, frustrated growl, a reluctant admission of her own inability to categorize, to control.
"And you're a fucking bully," Paige replies, her voice a low, dangerous purr, a bold, defiant challenge. "But we all have our flaws."
Daley's eyes narrow, a flicker of anger in their depths, but she doesn't rise to the bait. She just stares at Paige, a long, silent appraisal, a battle of wills playing out in the sterile, oppressive silence of the interrogation room. She knows Paige is hiding something. She knows she's not telling her the whole story. But she also knows she's telling the truth about the frame job. And that's a problem. Because it means there's a snake in her garden, a traitor in her midst. And she has no idea who it is, or how deep the conspiracy goes.
"Get her out of here," Daley says to the guards, her voice a low, weary sigh, a wave of her hand dismissing them both. "Put her back in her unit. But keep an eye on her. A close eye."
Paige stands, a slow, deliberate movement, and walks out of the room, her head held high, a small, triumphant smile playing on her lips. She's won this round. But she knows the war is far from over. And as she walks down the long, sterile corridor, she's already thinking about her next move.
***
When it came down to it the governor realized Kayleigh didn't act alone. And KK, for all her bluster and bravado, didn't plant the blade. The real architect of this whole, sordid affair was someone else entirely. Someone they never saw coming. A guard. Officer Jackson. The big, burly man with the face like a slab of concrete and the piggy eyes, the one who had found the weapon with such theatrical, self-important urgency.
His motive wasn't loyalty, or revenge, or even ideology. It was colder, more pragmatic, more cynical than that. Chaos increases overtime. Lockdowns mean hazard pay. Extended shifts mean more money, more power, more leverage.
He had been playing a long game, a silent, invisible puppet master pulling the strings from the shadows. He was the one who had tipped off Kayleigh weeks ago, a casual, overheard comment about KK's latest score, a whispered suggestion that an opportunity for revenge was presenting itself.
He had encouraged the tension, stoking the fires of their feud with a carefully placed word here, a knowing glance there, a master of subtle manipulation. Then, when the time was right, he had planted the blade, a crude but effective device to keep the internal war going, to ensure the chaos, and the overtime, continued to flow. He had underestimated one thing.
He had underestimated Azzi's attention to detail, her relentless, almost obsessive pursuit of the truth, her refusal to accept the easy, obvious answer.
Daley, now fueled by a righteous, personal fury, uncovers the discrepancies in the security footage. She spends hours in her office, her eyes glued to the grainy, black-and-white images, a detective in her own kingdom. She sees it. Jackson "logged" cell checks during times when the cameras clearly show him elsewhere, lingering in a supply closet, having a quiet word with Kayleigh in a deserted corridor, his movements a subtle, damning dance of deception. He's suspended quietly, a swift, silent execution of his career. No public announcement. No fanfare. Just a quiet, discreet removal, a necessary sacrifice to maintain the illusion of control. Prison politics. A dirty, messy business.
The news spreads unofficially, a low, insidious whisper that crawls through the vents and the shadows of the yard. Paige is cleared. Not loudly. Not with a formal announcement or a public apology. But enough.
The whisper changes tone. It shifts from suspicion and fear to a grudging, almost awestruck respect. "She didn't do it." "They tried to frame her." "A guard did it." "She kept quiet and still came out clean." That is power. Real power. Not the loud, brutish power of a bully like KK, but the quiet, unshakeable power of a survivor, of a strategist, of someone who can endure the fire and walk out unscathed.
Because she didn't retaliate. She didn't panic. She didn't rage. She just sat. And she survived. She played the long game, and she won.
Nika approaches her that evening, her steps hesitant, her expression a mixture of awe and apology. "You knew it wasn't solid," she says, her voice a low, respectful murmur. "You knew it was a setup."
"I knew it was sloppy," Paige replies, her voice a low, calm murmur, a quiet statement of fact. "I knew it didn't fit. It wasn't my style. It wasn't anyone's style who actually wanted to get away with it. It was too loud. Too messy. Too desperate."
Nika nods once, a slow, deliberate gesture of understanding, of renewed loyalty. Loyalty restored. Not just to Paige, but to her methods, to her mind, to her unshakeable belief in her own innocence.
KK watches from across the yard, her face a mask of cold, hard fury. This changes the board. Her carefully constructed plan, her subtle campaign of psychological warfare, has just been blown to pieces. Paige now looks untouchable. A myth. A legend. A woman who can survive a frame job by a guard, who can endure isolation and suspicion and emerge not just unbroken, but stronger. She's no longer just a rival. She's an icon. And that's a much harder thing to fight.
***
Dr. fud doesn't gloat. It's not her style. It's Paige's first session back in her office after being cleared, the air still thick with the memory of accusations and isolation. This time, Azzi makes sure the chairs have enough space between them. Same as in the isolation room. But the energy is different. Not charged with suspicion, but heavy with something else, something unspoken and unresolved.
"The blood didn't match," Azzi says, her voice a low, quiet statement of fact, a simple declaration of the truth they both now share.
Paige watches her carefully, her eyes a sharp, analytical probe, searching for any sign of pity, any hint of condescension. "I know."
"You were right," Azzi says, her voice a low, reluctant admission, a concession she doesn't give easily.
A pause hangs in the air, a long, silent moment of shared understanding.
"I wasn't wrong," Paige corrects, her voice a low, firm murmur, a subtle but important distinction.
Azzi almost smiles. A flicker of amusement, of grudging respect, touches her lips, but it's gone as quickly as it appears. Almost. "I pushed you," she admits, her voice a low, honest confession. "I needed to be sure. I needed to know for myself, not just take your word for it."
"And now you are?" Paige asks, her voice a low, challenging purr, a test.
"Yes," Azzi says, her voice a low, firm declaration, a vow.
That's heavy. Because it's earned. Not just given, but fought for, proven through the fire of doubt and the crucible of suspicion.
Paige studies her, her gaze a long, searching look. "You went to bat for me," she says, her voice a low, quiet murmur, a statement of fact, not a question.
"I went to bat for evidence," Azzi replies, her voice a low, clinical correction, a desperate attempt to maintain her professional distance.
Paige tilts her head, a slow, deliberate movement, a predator's curious gesture. "That's not what I heard," she says, her voice a low, teasing purr, a challenge to Azzi's carefully constructed facade.
Silence stretches between them, thick with unspoken words and unresolved tension. Azzi doesn't deny it. But she doesn't confirm it either. That restraint. That professional, maddening restraint. That's what makes Paige snap.
She gets up, her movements fluid and silent, a slow, deliberate prowl across the small space of the office. She leans her hands on the edge of Azzi's chair, her body a warm, imposing presence, leaning in, invading Azzi's personal space, a deliberate, provocative act.
"Can we talk about how you're wearing that new shade of lipstick today?" Paige says, her voice a low, husky murmur, a sudden, unexpected shift in the conversation. She smirks, a slow, confident curve of her lips. "It suits you, by the way," she adds on, her voice a low, appreciative purr.
Azzi raises her eyebrows, her expression a mask of blank, professional surprise, staring at Paige's unreadable face.
"How does it taste?" Paige says, her voice a low, dangerous whisper, her eyes dropping to Azzi's lips, a bold, unapologetic challenge.
Azzi squirms in her chair, a subtle, almost imperceptible shift, a physical betrayal of her composure. She shakes her head, a small, frantic gesture. "Paige," she says, her voice a low, warning hiss, a desperate plea for sanity.
"Or about how you cross your legs when I come closer," Paige says, her voice a low, observational murmur, a slow, deliberate dissection of Azzi's every move. "Or about why you smile when I walk into the room," she adds on, her voice a low, teasing purr, a playful, yet deeply insightful observation.
"And I know that smile," Paige says, looking Azzi in the eyes, her gaze a deep, intense probe. "And I know what it means," she says, her voice a low, confident declaration.
"You tryna to threaten me?" Azzi asks, her voice a low, defensive challenge, a desperate attempt to regain control of the situation.
"Why you say that?" Paige asks, her voice a low, innocent murmur, a mock display of confusion.
"Because you're trying to intimidate me," Azzi says, her voice a low, firm declaration, a statement of fact. "And I don't like it. I don't respect it," she adds on, her voice a low, steady rebuttal.
Paige sucks her teeth, a sharp, dismissive sound, and walks back to her chair, plopping down with a frustrated, restless energy. "I'm bored, Azzi," she says, her voice a low, frustrated growl. "I'm sick of everyone and I'm sick of myself."
"I hate it here," Paige says, her voice a low, raw murmur, a sudden, vulnerable confession, a crack in the facade of her tough, unbreakable persona.
"I know," Azzi says, her voice a low, soft, sympathetic murmur, a quiet acknowledgment of Paige's pain.
Paige looks at her, her eyes a swirling vortex of conflicting emotions. "Do you?" she asks, her voice a low, challenging purr. "Do you really know what it's like to be trapped in this place? To be constantly watched, constantly judged, constantly suspected? To have every move you make, every word you say, analyzed and dissected? To be a specimen in a fucking zoo?"
Azzi doesn't answer. She just sits there, her expression a mask of calm, professional empathy, but her eyes are a storm of conflicting emotions.
"You don't," Paige says, her voice a low, certain declaration. "You can't. You're on the other side of the glass. You're the one with the keys. You're the one with the power."
"That's not true," Azzi says, her voice a low, defensive protest. "I'm here to help you. I'm on your side."
"Are you?" Paige asks, her voice a low, skeptical murmur. "Or are you just here to study me? To analyze me? To use me for your research? To add me to your list of case studies?"
"That's not fair," Azzi says, her voice a low, hurt whisper.
"Isn't it?" Paige shoots back, her voice a low, dangerous growl. "You want to know about me, about my life, about my pain. But you don't want to share anything about yourself. You want me to be an open book, but you're a fucking fortress. You want me to trust you, but you don't trust me. That's not a partnership. That's a fucking interrogation."
"I do trust you," Azzi says, her voice a low, desperate protest.
"Then prove it," Paige says, her voice a low, challenging purr, a bold, unapologetic demand. "Tell me something real. Something about you. Something that isn't in your file. Something that scares you. Something that makes you human."
Azzi looks at her, a long, silent battle of wills playing out between them. She sees the challenge in Paige's eyes, the desperate need to connect, to find something real, something human she can relate to. And she knows, with a sudden, startling clarity, that this isn't just a game. This is a plea.
"I'm scared of heights," Azzi says, her voice a low, quiet murmur, a small, vulnerable confession.
Azzi looks at her, her eyes a deep, intense pool of conflicting emotions. She takes a deep breath, a slow, deliberate act of courage, and decides to take a leap of faith. "I'm scared of ending up alone," she says, her voice a low, raw murmur, a confession so deep, so personal, it leaves her feeling exposed, vulnerable.
Paige looks at her, her expression a mask of surprised, respectful silence. She sees the truth in Azzi's eyes, the raw, unvarnished vulnerability, and it disarms her completely.
"I'm scared of that too," Paige says, her voice a low, quiet murmur, a confession of her own, a shared moment of raw, unfiltered honesty.
The room is silent, the air thick with the weight of their shared confessions, two very different worlds colliding in the quiet space of the office. And in that moment, something shifts. A wall comes down. A bridge is built. And for the first time since they met, they're not just a doctor and a patient. They're just two women, scared and alone, finding a moment of connection in the most unlikely of places.
Paige stands up, her movements slow and deliberate, and walks back to Azzi's chair. She doesn't lean in this time. She doesn't invade her space. She just stands there, a quiet, respectful presence. "You know," she says, her voice a low, thoughtful murmur, "for a prison psychiatrist, you're not half bad."
Azzi looks up at her, a small, genuine smile touching her lips. "And for a framed inmate, you're not half bad either," she replies, her voice a low, teasing purr, a flicker of her old, wry humor returning.
Paige laughs, a real, genuine laugh this time, a warm, rich sound that fills the small office with a sudden, unexpected joy. "I'll take that," she says, her voice a low, happy murmur.
"You should," Azzi says, her voice a low, confident purr. "It's a high compliment coming from me."
Paige looks at her, her eyes a deep, intense pool of conflicting emotions. She sees the smile in Azzi's eyes, the warmth, the genuine affection, and she feels a pull, a magnetic, undeniable attraction that is both terrifying and exhilarating. "You know," she says, her voice a low, husky murmur, a slow, deliberate shift in the conversation, "you're even more beautiful when you're not trying to be a fortress."
Azzi's smile fades, replaced by a look of surprised, vulnerable uncertainty. "Paige," she says, her voice a low, warning hiss, a desperate attempt to regain control of the situation.
"What?" Paige asks, her voice a low, innocent murmur, a mock display of confusion. "Can't I give a compliment? It's not against the rules, is it?"
"It's... complicated," Azzi says, her voice a low, frustrated murmur, a desperate attempt to find the right words, to navigate the treacherous waters of their complicated relationship.
"Everything's complicated," Paige says, her voice a low, philosophical murmur, a slow, deliberate shrug. "That doesn't mean we can't enjoy the moments that aren't."
She leans in, her movements slow and deliberate, her eyes locked on Azzi's, a silent, unspoken question hanging in the air between them. "Can we?" she asks, her voice a low, husky whisper, a bold, unapologetic plea.
Azzi looks at her, a long, silent battle of wills playing out in her eyes. She sees the challenge in Paige's gaze, the desperate need for connection, the raw, unfiltered desire. And she knows, with a sudden, startling clarity, that she wants to say yes. She wants to cross that line, to shatter that boundary, to indulge in the forbidden fruit of their mutual attraction.
But she can't. She's the doctor. She's the one with the power, with the responsibility. She's the one who has to maintain the boundaries, to protect them both from the consequences of their actions.
"I can't," Azzi says, her voice a low, regretful whisper, a painful, necessary rejection.
Paige nods, a slow, deliberate gesture of understanding, a flicker of disappointment in her eyes. "I know," she says, her voice a low, quiet murmur. "But I had to ask."
"I know," Azzi says, her voice a low, sympathetic murmur, a quiet acknowledgment of their shared desire, their mutual frustration.
Paige looks at her, a slow, sad smile touching her lips. "You know," she says, her voice a low, thoughtful murmur, "I think I'm starting to like you, Doctor Fudd. And that's a problem."
"Why?" Azzi asks, her voice a low, curious murmur.
"Because I'm not supposed to like you," Paige says, her voice a low, honest confession. "I'm supposed to hate you. I'm supposed to see you as the enemy. But I don't. I see you as... something else. Something more."
"And what's that?" Azzi asks, her voice a low, hesitant whisper.
"I don't know," Paige says, her voice a low, thoughtful murmur. "But I'm looking forward to finding out."
She turns and walks out of the office, her steps a slow, deliberate retreat, leaving Azzi alone in the quiet, sterile room, a prisoner of her own desire, a victim of her own heart. And as she sits there, a single tear tracing a slow path down her cheek, she knows, with a certainty that both terrifies and exhilarates her, that nothing will ever be the same again.
Hiii! I was wondering if you were gonna give Kim the same storyline she had in the show cause I’m not gonna lie I wasn’t a fan. Whatever you choose to do I trust 100% though!
I can't stand her storyline either lol, so not so much like that no.
Paige looked back at her, her eyes clear, a new, hard-won clarity in their depths. "I'm choosing you, Rah," she said, her voice a low, steady vow. "I'm choosing to get you out of here. I'm choosing to get me out of here. The rest... the rest can wait." woaaaaah so i’m crying i need a happy ending so bad for them please protect them at all cost or i will riot 🥺🥺😫🥺😫🥺😩
"Because it was messy," Azzi said simply. "It was public. It was an emotional act, not a strategic one. Paige is many things, but she is not messy. Her revenge, when she chooses to take it, is surgical. Personal. This was a tantrum with a weapon. It's not her style." period dr. fudd. talk about knowing your client 👏👏👏
Azzi held her ground, her gaze steady and clear. "I'm neither. I'm doing my job." see i wouldn’t want to agree with daley… but azzi girl stop capping 🤣 it’s okay, i’ll wait until the next few chapters to see if this holds true lolssss
The days after the alliance in the cafe settled into a tense, watchful calm. Paige and Nika moved through their routines with a new, shared awareness, a silent communication passing between them across the yard and in the chow hall. KK, however, was a ghost. She and her crew kept their distance, their smug smiles replaced by sullen, watchful glares. It was the quiet before the storm, and Paige could feel the electricity in the air, a low-grade hum of impending violence.
The storm broke during afternoon work detail. A section of the prison's old laundry room needed to be reorganized, a tedious, mind-numbing task of sorting and stacking musty linens. It was a perfect place for an ambush. The room was large, cluttered with industrial-sized washers and dryers that rumbled and clanked, providing a constant cover of noise. Shelves towered to the ceiling, creating narrow, maze-like aisles and blind corners. It was a chaos generator, and KK knew it.
Paige was working with Nika and Aaliyah, their movements efficient as they folded sheets from a large cart. Sarah was there too, relegated to light duty, folding small towels on a low table, her bandaged hands moving slowly but deliberately. They were talking, their guard down for just a second, when the power to the entire wing cut out. The room was plunged into sudden, thick darkness, the rumbling of the machines dying into a deafening silence.
"Stay put," Nika's voice cut through the dark, sharp and commanding.
But it was too late. The emergency lights flickered on, casting long, distorted shadows, and the room was no longer empty. KK and her crew had emerged from the aisles, blocking the exit. They weren't holding dumbbells this time. They were armed with metal pipes from a maintenance cart, their faces grim and determined. This wasn't a collection mission; it was a hit.
"Surprise, bitch," KK sneered, her eyes locked on Paige. "Thought you and your new friends could just take over? This is my prison."
Paige's heart hammered in her chest, but her face was a mask of cold fury. She grabbed a heavy metal laundry basket, holding it like a shield. Nika and Aaliyah immediately back-to-back with her, forming a triangle of defense.
"You're making a big mistake, KK," Nika warned, her voice low and dangerous.
"The only mistake I made was not doing this sooner," KK snarled, and with a flick of her wrist, her crew attacked.
It was chaos. The narrow aisles made it impossible to fight as a group. Aaliyah was a whirlwind, taking down two of KK's crew with brutal efficiency, but she was forced back into a corner, her movements restricted by the shelving. Nika was a blur of calculated strikes, but she was outnumbered, two of KK's girls working together to drive her back towards the humming dryers.
Paige was face-to-face with KK, the metal pipes clanging as they parried and struck. KK was strong, fueled by a jealous rage, and she was fighting dirty. She landed a glancing blow off Paige's shoulder, sending a jolt of pain down her arm. Paige stumbled back, and KK saw her opening. She lunged, her pipe raised for a final, devastating blow.
But Paige wasn't alone. Sarah, seeing Paige in trouble, launched herself from her chair, grabbing a heavy bag of detergent and swinging it with all her might. It caught KK in the side of the head, sending her stumbling. It was a desperate, brave move, but it left Sarah vulnerable. One of KK's crew, seeing an easy target, turned and lunged at her, grabbing her by her injured hands.
Sarah screamed, a raw, agonized cry of pain that cut through the clang of the fight.
"Sarah!" Paige roared, a white-hot rage flooding her senses. She forgot about KK, forgot about the fight, her only thought getting to Sarah. She moved to lunge forward, but the other two were on her, grabbing her arms, pinning her against a machine. She was trapped. She watched in horror as the girl advanced on Sarah, who was writhing on the floor, clutching her hands.
Suddenly, the main door to the laundry room slammed open. Dr. Fudd stood there, her face pale, her eyes wide with shock at the scene before her. She wasn't supposed to be here, but a guard had mentioned the work detail, and something, a gut feeling she couldn't explain, had drawn her to check on it.
"Stop!" she yelled, her voice ringing with an authority that surprised even herself. "Guards! This is a direct order! Stand down!"
For a moment, no one moved. They were all frozen in a tableau of violence, the doctor in her crisp office clothes an impossible apparition in the grimy, chaotic world of the laundry room.
KK, seeing her chance to escape, didn't hesitate. "Let's go!" she screamed, and she and her crew scrambled, dropping their pipes and fleeing through a side door, disappearing into the shadows of the prison.
The room was suddenly, eerily quiet, the only sound Sarah's pained sobs. Paige broke free from the loosened grip of her attackers, rushing to Sarah's side and gently taking her into her arms. "I got you, Rah," she whispered, her voice thick with a fury so cold it was almost calm. "I got you."
Dr. Fudd ran over, kneeling beside them. "Is she okay? What happened?"
Paige looked up, and her eyes were like ice. "They went after her hands," she said, her voice low and deadly. "They knew. They fucking knew."
Dr. Fudd looked from Sarah's bandaged, now-re-injured hands to the cold, hard fury in Paige's eyes. She saw the promise of retribution there, a vow that would not be broken. This wasn't about territory anymore. This wasn't about respect. This was personal. And she knew, with a certainty that chilled her to the bone, that this was just the beginning. Paige was going to burn this whole place down to get her revenge, and Dr. Fudd was the only one who might be able to stop her.
The pipes hit the floor before the guards did. The clang echoed against concrete and metal, sharp and accusing, a final, discordant note in a symphony of violence. KK and her crew had vanished through the side exit seconds earlier, swallowed by the maze of corridors just as the heavy boots of officers thundered down the hall, their shouts growing louder with each step.
"On the ground! Now!" The order came too late to matter, a hollow command in a room already stripped of its control.
Nika stood frozen near the dryers, her chest rising and falling in hard, sharp bursts, her eyes still hunting the shadows for an enemy that was already gone. Aaliyah leaned against a metal shelving unit, one hand pressed to her side, blood trickling from a split in her lip, a dark crimson stain against her skin. The emergency lights flickered overhead, casting the entire room in a sickly, pulsating amber glow that made the scene feel like something from a nightmare.
And on the floor, Sarah. Curled in on herself, a small, broken shape. The sound she was making wasn't screaming anymore. It was smaller than that. A ragged, hitching gasp that was somehow worse, a sound of pure, unadulterated agony that tore through the heavy silence.
Paige dropped to her knees beside her before anyone could stop her, the concrete floor unforgiving through her thin pants. "I got you," she said, her voice low. Steady. Too steady. "I got you, Rah."
Sarah's hands were already swelling beneath the soaked gauze, the pristine white bandages torn and ragged where they'd been grabbed and twisted. A terrifying, angry red seeped through, staining the cotton, a vivid testament to the cruelty of the attack.
"They went for my hands," Sarah rasped, her voice a thin, reedy whisper of pain.
Paige's jaw tightened so hard a muscle jumped in her temple, a frantic, desperate pulse. "I know."
Dr. Fudd was beside them seconds later, her breath slightly uneven from the run down the hall, her professional composure a fragile shield against the raw brutality of the scene. She didn't look at Paige first. She looked at Sarah, her gaze softening with a clinical empathy. "Let me see," she said gently, her voice a balm in the harshness of the room.
Paige hesitated. Just a second. A flicker of territorial resistance, a primal instinct to protect what was hers. Then she shifted back, just enough, giving Azzi access to the damage.
Azzi peeled the gauze back carefully, her movements precise and practiced. The skin beneath was a mottled canvas of angry blisters and fresh abrasions, the old burns now inflamed and torn, a hundred times worse than before. Sarah sucked in a sharp, hissing breath, her body tensing against the renewed agony.
"We need medical," Azzi said immediately, her voice shedding its softness, becoming firm and commanding. "Now."
Two officers moved forward with a stretcher, the clatter of its metal legs a grating intrusion. One of them, a young officer with a face still rounding into manhood, put a firm hand on Paige's shoulder. "Back up."
Paige didn't move. She didn't even seem to hear him, her entire being focused on the wounded girl in front of her.
"Back up, Bueckers," the officer repeated, his voice tightening with impatience.
Paige's eyes lifted slowly, a deliberate, chilling motion. They weren't wild. They weren't frantic. They were cold. Empty. Like the surface of a frozen lake. "Take your hand off me," she said, her voice quiet, but it carried the weight of a threat that made the officer's own hand falter.
He hesitated, his training warring with a sudden, primal fear.
Azzi stood, placing herself between Paige and the officer. "It's fine," she said quietly, her tone a carefully measured calm. "Let her walk with her."
The officer looked between them, from the doctor's steady gaze to the terrifying stillness of the inmate before him.
Governor Daley's voice cut through the room like a blade, sharp and unforgiving. "What the hell happened in my laundry room?" She strode in, her heels clicking sharply against the concrete, each step a punctuation mark of her authority. Her eyes swept the damage, a quick, cataloguing assessment: pipes on the floor, blood on the concrete, scattered linens, inmates shaken but alive. Her gaze landed, inevitably, on Paige kneeling beside Sarah. Of course.
"Another day, another demonstration of your leadership, Bueckers," Daley said, her voice dripping with a cool, dismissive sarcasm.
Paige didn't look up. She didn't take the bait. Her focus was absolute.
"They cut the power," Nika said flatly from across the room, her voice a low growl. "It was premeditated."
Daley ignored her completely, her eyes still fixed on Paige. "Lock this wing down," she ordered, her voice ringing with power. "Full confinement. I want names. I want statements. And I want whoever planned this in isolation by nightfall."
Two officers carefully lifted Sarah onto the stretcher. She whimpered, a small, helpless sound of pain that she tried to swallow, her body rigid with the effort of not crying out.
Paige stood slowly, her movements fluid and coiled, like a predator preparing to strike. "I'm going with her."
"No, you're not," Daley replied immediately, her voice final.
Paige stepped forward anyway, a single, defiant step. An officer moved instantly to block her path, his body a wall of uniform and muscle. The hallway felt smaller suddenly. Tight. The air thick, charged with the unspoken violence.
Azzi watched the shift happen in Paige's body, the subtle but terrifying transformation: the coiling of her muscles, the shortening of her breath, the way her eyes seemed to darken, losing all light. It was the calm before the explosion.
"Governor," Azzi said, her voice even and clear, cutting through the tension. "She'll escalate if you separate them right now. Sarah needs her calm. This needs to be calm."
Daley's eyes flicked to her, annoyed at the challenge, at the interruption of her authority. "She doesn't dictate my procedure."
"No," Azzi agreed, holding the Governor's gaze without flinching. "But you do dictate outcomes. And the outcome you're heading towards is a violent incident in this hallway. Is that what you want?"
A beat. A tense, silent standoff. Daley studied Paige, who was standing unnaturally still now. No yelling. No threats. Just a chilling, focused calculation. That was worse. That was a promise.
"Two minutes," Daley snapped, her voice tight with reluctant concession. "Then she goes back to her unit. Lockdown."
Paige didn't thank her. She didn't even acknowledge the Governor. She simply stepped beside the stretcher, her presence a silent, protective shield, and walked with it down the long, sterile corridor. Azzi followed at a distance, a silent observer to the grim procession.
Halfway there, Sarah's hand, limp and swollen, slipped off the side of the stretcher, dangling precariously over the edge. Reflex. Instinct. Azzi moved first, reaching out to gently adjust it, to place it back on the stretcher's surface. Paige moved at the same time, her own hand coming up to perform the exact same act of care. Their hands almost collided over Sarah's wrist, a near miss in the cold, fluorescent light.
They both stopped. Paused. A breath suspended between them, a moment of shared, unspoken purpose in the midst of the chaos. Azzi pulled back first, a subtle withdrawal, re-establishing the professional boundary. Rule intact.
Paige noticed. Of course she did. Her eyes flicked to Azzi's for just a second, a flicker of something unreadable in their depths before she returned her gaze to Sarah.
They reached the medical wing. As the double doors swung open and officers guided the stretcher inside, Paige leaned down close to Sarah's ear, her lips just brushing the skin. "This isn't over," she whispered. Not loud. Not emotional. A promise. A vow.
Azzi heard it. She was close enough to catch the words, to feel the cold, absolute certainty in them. And for the first time since she arrived at Wentworth, she felt something cold and heavy settle in her stomach, a dread that had nothing to do with the violence she had just witnessed. This wasn't a territory dispute anymore. This wasn't about respect or business. This was war.
In the stark, sterile brightness of the medical wing, Sarah lay under the unforgiving glare of fluorescent lights, her jaw tight as the nurse carefully cut away what was left of her bandages with a pair of blunt-tipped scissors. The damage was worse this time. So much worse. Blisters had ruptured, weeping a clear, serous fluid. Skin was torn in places, revealing the raw, pink tissue beneath. An angry, mottled red swelling was spreading across both hands, crawling up her wrists like a malevolent vine.
"Possible nerve involvement," the nurse muttered to another staff member over her shoulder, her voice a low, professional murmur that was somehow more terrifying than a shout.
Paige stood against the far wall, her arms crossed tightly over her chest, a posture of rigid self-control. If she moved, she might break something. Or someone. She could feel the rage thrumming under her skin, a hot, violent current threatening to burst its banks. She focused on the cracks in the ceiling, the pattern of the tiles, anything to keep from looking at Sarah's hands, at the evidence of her failure.
Azzi stood on the other side of the room, observing both of them. She saw Paige's rigid posture, the barely contained fury, and she saw Sarah's pale, strained face, the pain etched around her eyes. She was a mediator in a warzone, her own heart a frantic drum against her ribs.
"Will she regain full function?" Paige asked, her voice flat, devoid of any inflection, as if she were asking about the weather.
The nurse hesitated, her eyes flicking to Paige's imposing figure against the wall. "It's too early to say with certainty. We'll have to wait for the swelling to go down, see how the nerves respond."
That was not the answer Paige wanted. It wasn't a yes. It was a maybe. A maybe was a death sentence.
Sarah caught Paige's eye, her own gaze pleading. "Don't," she whispered, her voice thin and reedy.
Paige stepped closer, her movements stiff, unnatural. "Don't what?"
"Don't make this bigger," Sarah said, her voice stronger now, a desperate command. "This is what she wants. For you to lose control."
Paige's jaw flexed, a muscle jumping in her cheek. "They made it bigger when they touched you, Rah. They crossed the line."
"And you'll cross it right back if you're not careful," Sarah shot back, her voice gaining a sliver of its old fire. "This isn't just about you and me anymore, P. This is about all of us. About Nika, about Aaliyah. About the deal you made with that doctor."
Azzi stepped in gently, her voice a soft intervention in the rising tension. "Paige." Her voice wasn't commanding. It was grounding. An anchor in the storm.
Paige looked at her, her eyes blazing, her breathing shallow, her pupils blown wide with a feral, predatory light. "You don't get to tell me to calm down," Paige said quietly, her voice a low, dangerous hum.
"I'm not," Azzi replied, her gaze steady, unwavering. She didn't flinch under the intensity of Paige's stare. "I'm asking you to choose. Choose your revenge, or choose your future. Choose the war, or choose the parole board. You can't have both. Not anymore."
A long, heavy silence settled over the room, thick with unspoken words and conflicting desires. Paige looked back at Sarah, at the pain and fear in her eyes, and then at Azzi, at the calm, challenging certainty in hers. The war in her own heart was written all over her face.
"Lockdown ends," she said softly, almost to herself, a decision solidifying in her mind. "Then we handle it."
Azzi heard that. Not revenge. Handle. Different. Still dangerous. But it was a crack. A sliver of reason in the wall of fury.
"Handling it doesn't mean burning the whole place down, Paige," Azzi pressed, her voice soft but firm. "It means being smart. It means using your head, not just your fists. It means thinking about Sarah, about what she needs right now. She needs you to be smart."
Paige's eyes narrowed, a flicker of her old defiance returning. "And what do you know about what she needs? What do you know about any of this? You stand there with your notepad and your calm voice, telling me to choose. You don't know the choices I've had to make."
"Then show me," Azzi said, her voice dropping to a near whisper. "Let me in. Let me help you. That's why I'm here. That's the deal."
Paige stared at her, a long, searching look. She saw the sincerity there, the unwavering belief in a possibility she herself had long since abandoned. She looked back at Sarah, who was watching her, a silent plea in her eyes. Finally, she nodded once, a sharp, jerky motion. "Fine," she said, the word torn from her. "We'll handle it. Your way. For now."
Azzi let out a breath she didn't realize she'd been holding, a small, imperceptible relaxation of her shoulders. It wasn't a victory, not by a long shot. But it was a start. It was a choice. And in Wentworth, a choice was everything.
Behind them, the high, piercing wail of alarms began to sound down the corridor. Lockdown. And Paige Bueckers, standing alone in the hallway as the medical doors swung shut, did not look like a woman who had lost. She looked like someone who had just decided something. She looked like a storm that had finally found its direction.
The lights shifte, from the harsh, clinical white to a deep, warning amber that bathed the entire block in a sickly, pulsating glow. The announcement rolled through the speakers in a flat, automated tone, devoid of emotion, a machine's voice dictating their fate. "Unit lockdown. All inmates return to designated cells immediately."
The corridors filled with the sound of boots and keys, a rhythmic, percussive symphony of control. Doors slammed, one after another, the metallic clang a final, definitive punctuation mark. Paige walked back to her unit without resistance, her steps measured, her back straight. That unsettled everyone more than if she'd fought. A fight was predictable. This quiet, coiled stillness was not.
Nika fell into step beside her, a silent, supportive shadow, but she didn't speak until they were two doors away from Paige's cell, their voices low murmurs against the backdrop of the lockdown. "You're too calm," Nika muttered, her eyes scanning Paige's profile, looking for a crack, a sign.
Paige didn't look at her, her gaze fixed on the door to her cell, her own personal fortress. "I'm thinking."
"That's worse," Nika said, a grim certainty in her voice.
A guard, a burly man with a face like worn leather, shoved Paige lightly toward her cell. "Inside."
Paige stepped in without a word. The door clanged shut behind her, the sound echoing in the sudden silence of the block. Across the way, in other cells, whispers began almost instantly, a low, sibilant hum of speculation and fear. "She's going to retaliate." "KK's dead this time." "Rah's hands are finished, I heard the nurse say..."
Paige sat on the edge of her bunk, her posture unnervingly still. Not pacing. Not punching the concrete walls in a fit of rage. Not strategizing out loud, her voice a low murmur of plans and counter-plans. Just sitting. Her hands rested on her thighs, her fingers curled slightly, but relaxed. She was a statue carved from ice, and Nika watched from across the block, a growing sense of unease settling in her gut. That silence meant something was forming. And when Paige Bueckers formed something, it didn't miss.
***
Governor Daley stood behind her imposing oak desk like a general reviewing a battlefield strewn with casualties. Security reports, medical updates, and inmate profiles were scattered across its polished surface, a chaotic mosaic of the previous day's violence. The air in her office was thick with the scent of expensive coffee and barely suppressed fury. Dr. Fudd stood opposite her, perfectly still, a calm island in a sea of turmoil.
"This is escalation, Daley snapped, her voice sharp enough to cut glass. She picked up a glossy photo of the laundry room, pipes on the floor, a smear of blood on the concrete. "Metal pipes? A coordinated blackout? This wasn't a spontaneous brawl. This was an ambush."
"Yes," Azzi replied, her voice even and measured, a stark contrast to the Governor's barely contained rage. "Which means this was planned. Deliberately."
"And Bueckers is at the center of it," Daley stated, her eyes narrowing as she tossed the photo back onto the desk. It slid across the polished wood and stopped at the edge. "It always comes back to her."
"No," Azzi said, her tone firm but respectful. "She was the target. There's a difference. The target of the attack, and the target of the setup. KK wanted to neutralize her, to make her look weak in front of the entire population."
Daley's eyes sharpened, her gaze piercing, trying to find the crack in Azzi's composure. "You're getting attached, Doctor. I can hear it in your voice. You're making excuses for her."
"I'm assessing accurately," Azzi countered, taking a small step forward. "Paige Bueckers is many things. She's impulsive, violent, and has a complete disregard for authority. But she's not stupid. A planned, multi-person attack with a blackout? That's messy. That's loud. That's not her style. Her style is personal. Direct. This had KK's fingerprints all over it, brute force and a complete lack of subtlety."
Daley walked around her desk, her heels clicking sharply on the floor, closing the distance between them. She stopped just a few feet from Azzi, her presence a physical force. "You want her stable? Fine. You want your little experiment to work? Fine. But I'm telling you now, if she retaliates for this, if she so much as looks at one of KK's crew sideways, I will bury her in isolation so deep they'll forget she exists. I'll make an example out of her."
"And if you isolate her now," Azzi countered, her voice rising slightly with a conviction that surprised even herself, "you guarantee retaliation. You'll be proving to her, and to everyone else in this prison, that the system is rigged. That there's no justice, only punishment. You'll be taking away the one thing she's holding onto, the possibility of a fair shot. You'll be pushing her directly into the corner you claim you want to avoid."
Daley stared at her, a long, silent appraisal. The office was quiet, the only sound the hum of the air conditioning. "You think she listens to you?" Daley finally asked, her voice a low, skeptical murmur. "You think a few counseling sessions have given you some kind of magical hold over her?"
Azzi paused, choosing her words with the care of a bomb disposal expert. "Not yet," she admitted, a flicker of vulnerability in her honesty. "But she's starting to. She's starting to see that there's another way. She stood in that medical wing and she chose. She chose to handle it smart, not just hard. That's progress. That's a foundation."
Daley scoffed, a short, dismissive sound. "A foundation built on sand. You're a fool if you think you can tame her, Doctor. She won't be your project. She'll be your mistake. And when she inevitably blows up in your face, I won't just be burying her. I'll be burying your career right alongside her."
Azzi didn't flinch. She met Daley's hard, cynical gaze with one of her own, one that was filled not with naivete, but with a stubborn, unwavering belief. "With all due respect, Governor, you see a problem to be managed. I see a person to be understood. You see a mistake waiting to happen. I see potential waiting to be unlocked. Paige Bueckers is in this prison because she made terrible choices, yes. But she's also a product of a system that failed her long before she ever got here. She's a survivor. She's resilient. And she's loyal to a fault. Those aren't just character flaws. They're strengths. They're the very things that can save her, if someone is willing to show her how to use them."
Daley stared at her, her expression unreadable. She saw the fire in Azzi's eyes, the unwavering conviction, and for a moment, she wasn't looking at a psychiatrist. She was looking at a rival. A believer.
"Fine," Daley said, turning away and walking back to her desk, the conversation clearly over in her mind. "You have your leash. But it's a short one. And when she chokes on it, don't come crying to me."
Azzi stood her ground for a moment longer, her heart pounding in her chest. She had won the battle, but she knew the war was far from over. She had bought Paige time, a precious, fragile commodity. And now, she had to make sure Paige didn't waste it.
***
The amber lights of lockdown had been a constant, oppressive presence for forty-eight hours. Forty-eight hours of stale air, of whispers crawling through the vents, of the relentless, low-grade hum of confinement. Then, as suddenly as they had appeared, they flickered off, replaced by the harsh, unforgiving white of a normal day. The announcement was brief, impersonal. "Lockdown concluded. Inmates may proceed to scheduled activities."
The first thing Paige did was go to medical.
She didn't run. She didn't shove anyone out of her way. She walked with a purpose that was a physical force, a current in the stream of inmates shuffling towards the chow hall. Nika and Aaliyah fell in behind her, a silent, formidable escort. They didn't speak. They didn't need to. Their presence was a statement, a promise of solidarity that was more powerful than any words.
The medical wing was quiet, the antiseptic smell a familiar assault on her senses. A nurse at the desk looked up, her expression weary but professional. She saw Paige, saw the two flanking her, and a flicker of something, fear, maybe, or just weary resignation cross her face.
"Sarah Strong," Paige said, her voice flat. It wasn't a question.
The nurse nodded, gesturing down the hall. "Room three. She's awake."
Paige pushed the door open without knocking. Sarah was propped up in bed, looking smaller than she ever had, her hands swaddled in fresh, thick white bandages that seemed to swallow her whole. The skin of her face was pale, almost translucent, and there were dark, bruised-looking shadows under her eyes. But when she saw Paige, a faint, tired smile touched her lips.
"Hey, P," she whispered, her voice raspy.
Paige was at her side in two long strides, her movements losing their rigid tension, replaced by a gentle, careful grace. She didn't touch the bandaged hands. She just stood there, her eyes drinking in the sight of her friend, alive. "Hey, Rah," she said, her own voice softer than it had been in days. "How you feeling?"
"Like I wrestled a washing machine and lost," Sarah said, a ghost of her usual humor in her voice. "They're keeping me doped up. Feels like I'm floating."
"Good," Paige said, a genuine flicker of relief in her chest. "You deserve to float for a while."
She pulled up a chair, the metal scraping softly against the linoleum floor. Nika and Aaliyah remained near the door, silent sentinels, giving them space but making their presence known.
"Did they talk to you?" Paige asked, her voice dropping lower. "The guards?"
Sarah nodded, her gaze drifting to the window. "Yeah. Came in this morning. Asked me what happened. I told them the lights went out and KK's crew jumped us. That's all they're getting from me."
Paige nodded slowly. "Good. Don't give them anything else. Let them do their jobs."
"You been good?" Sarah asked, her eyes searching Paige's face. "Stayed out of trouble?"
Paige's jaw tightened, just for a second. "I've been thinking," she said, which wasn't an answer, but was the truth.
"Thinking's good," Sarah said, a knowing look in her eyes. "Better than swinging. What did you and the doctor talk about?"
Paige looked away, towards the wall, a flicker of discomfort crossing her features. "She made me choose," she admitted, the words feeling foreign on her tongue.
"Choose what?"
"Revenge," Paige said, her voice flat. "Or getting out of here."
Sarah was quiet for a long moment, the only sound the steady beep of a monitor in the next room. "And what'd you choose?"
Paige looked back at her, her eyes clear, a new, hard-won clarity in their depths. "I'm choosing you, Rah," she said, her voice a low, steady vow. "I'm choosing to get you out of here. I'm choosing to get me out of here. The rest... the rest can wait."
A single tear escaped from the corner of Sarah's eye, tracing a slow path through the fine lines of her fatigue. She couldn't wipe it away, and the helplessness of it was a fresh, sharp pain. Paige saw it, and without a word, she reached out with a gentle finger and wiped the tear away herself.
"Don't you go getting soft on me now, Bueckers," Sarah whispered, a watery smile on her face.
Paige managed a small, genuine smile in return. "Never," she said. "But I'm done letting that bitch dictate my life. We're gonna handle this. And we're gonna do it smart."
She sat there for a long time, just watching Sarah breathe, a steady, reassuring rhythm. The rage was still there, a cold, hard knot deep inside her, but it was contained now. Banked. It wasn't a wild fire anymore. It was a forge, and she was going to use its heat to build something new. Something stronger. And for the first time in a long time, she knew exactly what she was going to do.
***
The yard had the uneasy quiet of a prison pretending everything was normal. Lockdown had lifted twenty-four hours ago. Too fast. Too neat. It felt like a bandage slapped over a festering wound, a superficial fix that did nothing to address the rot underneath. Women clustered in small groups, their conversations muted, their eyes constantly scanning, darting from face to face. Guards paced the perimeter with tighter rotations, their hands resting closer to their batons, their knuckles white. The air carried tension like static before a lightning strike, a heavy, oppressive weight that made it hard to breathe.
The visit to medical had been a necessary ritual. Paige, Nika, and Aaliyah had walked together, a silent, united front, their presence a clear message to anyone who might be watching. They had sat with Sarah for the allotted thirty minutes, the air thick with the smell of antiseptic and Sarah's quiet, pained breaths. They spoke for a while until Sarah’s meds started to kick in, she was doped up on painkillers, her eyes glassy, but she was lucid enough to squeeze Paige's hand with her good one, a weak but firm gesture of solidarity. "Be smart, P," she had whispered, her voice a thin thread. "Don't let them win." Paige had just nodded, her promise a heavy, unspoken weight in the room. Now, back in the open air of the yard, that promise felt like a lead lining in her gut.
Paige leaned against the outer wall of the yard, the rough concrete a solid, grounding presence at her back. Her arms were folded, her posture deceptively relaxed, but every fiber of her being was alert, a coiled spring ready to release. Nika stood ten feet away, ostensibly doing bicep curls with a pair of dumbbells, but her eyes, hidden behind a curtain of sweat-dampened hair, kept flicking towards Paige, a silent, watchful guardian.
Across the yard, KK laughed too loudly, a sharp, grating sound that cut through the hushed murmurs. She was trying to reclaim her space, to project an image of unshaken confidence. Two of her crew flanked her, their postures a little less certain than before, their eyes darting nervously, but loyal enough to play their parts. KK's eyes flicked toward Paige once, twice, a deliberate, challenging gesture.
Paige didn't look back. She didn't even flinch. She kept her gaze fixed on the horizon, on the high, imposing walls that surrounded them, a world away. That bothered KK more than open hostility, more than a returned glare. It was a dismissal, a statement of utter irrelevance, and it was eating KK alive.
"See?" KK said to her crew, gesturing casually with a chin lift. "She ain't doing shit. Scared little bitch."
She pushed off from the bench and crossed toward the center of the yard, her swagger a little too forced, her shoulders a little too tight. She was putting on a show, and everyone was watching.
And that's when it happened. Not from Paige's direction. Not from Nika's. It came from behind the bleachers, a blind spot everyone forgot about until it was too late.
Kayleigh Heckel stepped out. Kayleigh, quiet, overlooked, a ghost in the system who was doing a long stretch for aggravated assault. She had been there for years, a background character in the endless drama of prison life. But KK had forgotten her. Everyone had forgotten her. Kayleigh hadn't. She had lost product when KK hijacked a supply route months back. Lost protection. Lost face. Lost the small, fragile economy she had built to survive her sentence. She had lost everything.
The movement was fast. Not flashy. A simple, brutal economy of motion. A sharpened toothbrush, melted down and honed to a vicious point, held low, concealed in the palm of her hand. She moved with a purpose that was chilling in its directness, a straight line towards KK's exposed side.
KK didn't even register it at first. She was too busy preening, too focused on her audience. Then her breath caught in her throat, a sharp, hitching gasp. Her hand dropped to her side, a reflexive gesture of confusion. When she pulled it back, it was slick, dark, and wet.
"Oh" she started to say, the sound a pathetic, dying thing. She staggered, her legs turning to water beneath her.
The yard exploded. "Code Black! Code Black in the yard!" a guard screamed into his radio, his voice high with panic.
Guards rushed forward, a sea of blue uniforms converging on the epicenter of the violence. KK dropped to her knees, her face a mask of shock and dawning horror, rage and pain mixing in a terrifying cocktail.
Kayleigh didn't run. She stood there, her chest heaving, her eyes wild with a mixture of terror and triumphant release. "You thought I forgot?" she spat, her voice a raw, guttural snarl. "You cost me everything. Everything!"
Two officers tackled her to the ground, their bodies a brutal, efficient takedown. KK collapsed fully now, clutching her side, a low, animalistic moan escaping her lips.
Paige pushed off the wall slowly. Not running. Not reacting. Just watching. Her face was a mask of unreadable calm, her eyes taking in every detail, every movement, every consequence.
Nika stepped beside her, her voice a low, confidential murmur. "You didn't order that."
Paige's eyes never left the scene, the chaos, the blood. "No."
"You going to claim it?" Nika pressed, her gaze sharp, analytical.
A beat of silence, a long, considering moment as the paramedics rushed in with a stretcher. Paige tilted her head slightly, a gesture of cold, clinical assessment. "Why would I take credit for something so sloppy?" she said, her voice flat, devoid of any emotion. "No finesse. No message. Just... messy."
KK was lifted onto the stretcher, pale and sweating, but conscious. Her eyes scanned the yard wildly, a frantic, desperate search for an enemy, for an explanation. They landed on Paige, a final, desperate plea for understanding, for an answer.
For one long second, Paige held her gaze. Her expression was unreadable, a blank wall of indifference.
KK tried to speak, to form a word, a name, but all that came out was a bubble of bright, red blood that spilled over her lips, a grotesque parody of a final word. She was carried out, a broken, bleeding thing.
The yard fell into a shaken hush, the silence heavier than before. Guards began herding inmates back towards their units, their voices sharp and commanding.
Nika watched Paige carefully, a new respect dawning in her eyes. "You're smiling," she observed, a note of disbelief in her voice.
Paige's mouth flattened instantly, the fleeting expression erased before it could fully form. "I'm thinking," she said, her voice low. "I'm thinking that sometimes, the problem solves itself."
***
The medical bay smelled like antiseptic and iron, a sterile scent that did little to mask the metallic tang of blood lingering in the air. KK lay pale against the thin, starched pillow, an oxygen line hooked beneath her nose, a hissing counterpoint to her shallow breaths. The stab wound had missed anything vital by inches, a sloppy, desperate angle that had been a lucky outcome for her. She wasn't grateful. She was furious, a cold, simmering rage that burned in her eyes and tightened the lines around her mouth.
Governor Daley stood at the foot of the bed, her arms crossed over her chest, her posture a study in impatient authority. "Who did it?" she asked, her voice sharp, cutting through the hiss of the oxygen machine.
KK's jaw tightened, a small, stubborn movement. "You already know."
"Humor me," Daley said, her voice dangerously soft.
KK's eyes burned with a feverish intensity. "Bueckers."
Daley didn't react, her expression a blank, unreadable mask. "Witnesses say Kayleigh Heckel."
KK scoffed weakly, a dry, rasping sound that made her wince in pain. "Kayleigh doesn't have the balls to move without protection. She's a ghost. Someone gave her the nudge. Someone gave her the weapon."
Daley stepped closer, her shadow falling over KK's prone form. "Are you saying Paige ordered it?"
KK's lips curled into a sneer, a grotesque parody of a smile. "She didn't have to."
A beat of silence hung in the air, thick with unspoken accusation.
"Everyone knows what happens when you cross her," KK continued, her voice a low, venomous hiss. "You don't need an order. You just need a reason. And she gave everyone a reason when she let me get away with what I did to Sarah. It was a sign of weakness. Kayleigh just... collected."
Daley studied her, her mind working, connecting the dots. That was the problem. Even if Paige didn't do it, her reputation made it believable. Her legend was so powerful, so pervasive, that it had a life of its own, a force of nature that could be wielded by others. She had created a monster, whether she had intended to or not.
***
The interview room was a box of concrete and steel, designed for intimidation. A metal table, scarred and dented, sat in the center. A camera in the corner, its single red light a blinking, unblinking eye, recorded everything. One chair was bolted to the floor, a permanent fixture for the accused. Paige sat calmly, her back straight, her hands resting loosely on the cold, metal surface. She looked like she was there for a business meeting, not an interrogation.
Daley paced slowly, her heels clicking a sharp, rhythmic pattern on the concrete floor. "KK was stabbed."
"I heard," Paige said, her voice flat, devoid of any emotion.
"By someone with a previous conflict," Daley continued, her pacing never ceasing. "Kayleigh Heckel. A woman who, according to her file, is not known for taking initiative."
Paige nodded once, a slow, deliberate gesture. "Sounds accurate."
Daley stopped in front of her, leaning forward, her hands flat on the table, invading Paige's space. "You expect me to believe this wasn't retaliation? That it's just a coincidence that your biggest rival gets taken out the day after she attacks your friend?"
Paige looked up, her gaze clear and steady, meeting Daley's angry glare without a flicker of fear. "You expect me to control every woman in this prison? To be responsible for their grudges? That's a lot of power for an inmate, Governor."
Daley leaned down slightly, her voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper. "She says you ordered it. That you gave Kayleigh the green light."
Paige's expression didn't shift. It was like watching a stone face the wind. "She says a lot of things. Most of them are lies."
"Did you?" Daley pressed, her eyes boring into Paige's, searching for any sign of deception, any crack in the facade.
Silence. Paige didn't rush to answer. She let the silence stretch, filling the small room with a tension so thick it was almost palpable. "No."
Daley watched her carefully, her gaze a physical weight. "You're quiet lately. No fights. No smart mouth in the yard. It's... suspicious."
"I'm tired," Paige said, her voice a low murmur. "It's been a long week."
"That's not what I meant," Daley countered, her voice sharp.
Another beat of silence. Paige's voice lowered even further, a soft, almost intimate tone that was more disarming than a shout. "You want to know what I think?"
Daley didn't answer, but she didn't move away either.
"I think KK made too many enemies," Paige said, her eyes holding Daley's. "She stepped on toes. She took things that weren't hers. She burned bridges. She was playing a game she didn't know how to win. It was only a matter of time before someone collected on the debt she owed. It just wasn't me."
Daley straightened up, a flicker of uncertainty in her eyes. "If I find even a whisper that you orchestrated this, even a hint that you were involved, I'll make sure you never see the light of day again."
"You won't," Paige said, her voice not cocky, but controlled, a quiet statement of absolute certainty.
Daley hated that. Hated the calm, the control, the unshakeable self-assurance.
Later, Daley stood by her office window, looking down at the yard below, a chessboard of moving pieces. Azzi entered quietly, closing the door behind her.
"KK survived," Daley said without turning, her voice flat.
"I know," Azzi replied.
"She's blaming Paige," Daley said, her voice laced with a weary cynicism.
"Of course she is," Azzi said, her tone matter-of-fact.
Daley turned now, her eyes sharp and questioning. "Tell me something, Doctor. Do you think she did it?"
Azzi didn't answer immediately. She took a moment, considering her words, weighing the implications. "I think Paige understands optics," she said finally, her voice thoughtful.
"That's not what I asked," Daley pressed, her gaze unwavering.
"I don't believe she ordered it," Azzi said, her voice firm, clear, and unequivocal.
Daley's eyebrow lifted in a gesture of mild surprise. "Why?"
"Because it was messy," Azzi said simply. "It was public. It was an emotional act, not a strategic one. Paige is many things, but she is not messy. Her revenge, when she chooses to take it, is surgical. Personal. This was a tantrum with a weapon. It's not her style."
Daley studied her carefully, her expression a complex mix of skepticism and grudging respect. "You're either perceptive," she said, a pause hanging in the air between them, "or compromised."
Azzi held her ground, her gaze steady and clear. "I'm neither. I'm doing my job."
Daley smiled thinly, a cold, humorless expression that didn't reach her eyes. "Make sure that stays true, Doctor. For both your sakes."
***
The hallway was a long, sterile canyon of concrete and steel, the scent of disinfectant hanging thick in the air. Paige was mopping the floors, the rhythmic slosh and drag of the mop in the bucket a mindless, meditative task. She moved with a practiced efficiency, the gray water swallowing up the scuffs and dirt, her movements a stark contrast to the turmoil churning just beneath the surface of her skin.
Dr. Fudd walked by, her heels clicking a sharp, professional rhythm on the polished floor. She stopped beside Paige, a curious look on her face. "Thought you were in the kitchen," Dr. Fudd said, her voice a calm interruption to the monotonous sloshing.
Paige didn't look up, just continued her methodical strokes, a small, wry smile playing on her lips. "I like to mop shit too," she replied, her voice a low, casual murmur. "Helps me keep it real."
"Heard KK got moved to medical after being stabbed in the chest," Dr. Fudd said, her tone shifting, becoming more deliberate, a test.
Paige scoffed, a harsh, humorless sound, and rolled her eyes, finally stopping her work to look up at the doctor. "What you think I did that shit?"
"What's your point, Azzi?" Paige asked, her voice dropping, a challenge in her eyes.
"No point," Dr. Fudd started to reply, but Paige cut her off, her voice rising with a sudden, volatile fury.
"Are you fucking serious?" she snapped, her grip tightening on the mop handle until her knuckles were white. "You want honesty, and then you come at me with that bullshit? You're accusing me?"
"I'm not," Azzi started to say, her voice a placating attempt to calm the storm.
"Bullshit you are," Paige shot back, her voice a low, dangerous growl. "Don't fucking lie to me. Not you."
Dr. Fudd stepped closer, closing the distance between them, her gaze unwavering. "I was worried about you, that's all."
"Worried?" Paige laughed, a short, sharp, bitter sound. "Worried that I went and stabbed KK? Is that what you think of me?"
"No," Dr. Fudd said, her voice soft but firm. "Worried that you got pushed too far. Worried that you were going to be blamed for something you didn't do."
"You need to stay the fuck away from me," Paige said, her voice a low, warning hiss, turning away from her, the mop handle a barrier between them.
"Okay," Dr. Fudd said, backing up, her hands raised in a gesture of surrender. But she didn't leave. She just stood there, her eyes fixed on Paige's rigid back.
Paige felt her gaze, a physical weight, and she turned back around, her anger a hot, suffocating blanket. Dr. Fudd looked her in the eyes, her own expression a mixture of regret and sincerity. "I'm sorry," she said, the words hanging in the tense air between them.
"You can shove that sorry up your fucking ass," Paige said, her voice cold, sharp, and final.
Dr. Fudd just stood there for a moment longer, a flicker of hurt in her eyes before she masked it, turning and walking away, her heels clicking a retreat down the long, empty hallway.
Paige watched her go, the anger slowly draining out of her, leaving behind a hollow, aching void. She stood there for a long time, the mop dripping onto the clean floor, a small, steady puddle forming at her feet. She felt bad after the fact, a wave of regret washing over her, cold and sharp. She hadn't meant to say that. Not really. But the words had come out, fueled by a week of fear, of helplessness, of the crushing weight of being constantly suspected, constantly judged. And now, she had just pushed away the one person who had actually tried to believe her. The one person who had seen past the monster, even for a second. And the realization of what she had just done was a pain far worse than any physical blow.
***
The day after the fight with Dr. Fudd felt heavier than a lockdown, the air thick with a suffocating unspoken tension. Paige had a session with her, one she certainly wasn't looking forward to, especially after their fight in the hallway. Every step towards the administrative wing felt like a march to her own execution, the familiar walls of the prison feeling like they were closing in, not just on her, but on the fragile, complicated thing she had started to build with the doctor. She reached the familiar wooden door, her hand hovering for a moment before she knocked, the sound sharp and impatient, betraying the nervous energy thrumming beneath her skin.
"Come in," Dr. Fudd's voice called out, calm and composed, as if yesterday's explosive confrontation had never happened.
Paige pushed the door open and stepped inside, her movements stiff. She didn't flop into her usual chair today. She sat, her back ramrod straight, her hands clasped tightly in her lap, a posture of rigid self-defense. She was a fortress, and the gates were closed.
Dr. Fudd was behind her desk, but instead of staying there, she stood and walked around, pulling up the chair that was usually reserved for guests or colleagues. She placed it directly beside Paige, close enough that their knees were almost touching, a move that was both intimate and disarming. She sat, turning to face Paige, her expression unreadable.
"So," Dr. Fudd began, her voice casual, almost conversational. "How the fuck are you doing?"
Paige's head snapped up, her eyes wide with disbelief. The casual profanity, the direct echo of her own language, thrown back at her with such a nonchalant air, was so unexpected it disarmed her completely. She stared at Dr. Fudd, searching her face for any sign of sarcasm or anger, anything to show she was mad about there argument yesterday but found none. Just a calm, steady gaze that seemed to see right through her defenses.
"Anything you wanna talk about?" Dr. Fudd asked, her voice softening slightly, a gentle invitation.
"You start off," Paige replied, her voice tight, shrugging her shoulder in a gesture of defiance. "I've had enough of talking about me."
"Well, we're here to talk about you, Paige," Dr. Fudd replied, her tone firm but not unkind.
"No," Paige said, her voice low and sharp, cutting through the doctor's placid tone. "We're here because you broke the trust. You stood there and accused me, after everything. After you said you believed me. So you don't get to act like we're just gonna talk about me today. That's not how this works."
Dr. Fudd let out a slow breath, her shoulders slumping slightly. "You're right," she said, her voice quiet, a genuine concession. "I have acknowledged that I compromised that. I was wrong. I let my own fear, my own concern for you, get twisted into an accusation. It was a mistake, and I am sorry."
"Sorry doesn't fix it," Paige shot back, her voice still tight with anger. "Sorry doesn't take back the fact that you looked at me and saw a killer. Just like everyone else."
"I know," Dr. Fudd said, her voice soft but firm. "And we can't sit here and focus on that. You're right. It's done. It's over. But we can't ignore it either.
Trust is a two-way street, Azzi. You know all about me, or at least you think you do. So why don't you tell me some things about you? Fair's fair."
Paige's lips curved into a slow, deliberate smirk, a flicker of her old, mischievous self returning. "I want dirt," she said, her voice a low, purring challenge. "Give me the good stuff. The skeletons in your closet."
Dr. Fudd let out a nervous chuckle, a sound that was both genuine and flustered. "I can't give you dirt, you know that," she said, a slight flush creeping up her neck. "There's a whole host of reasons that therapists shouldn't bring their personal lives into a session. It's unethical, it's unprofessional, it's a violation of about a hundred different codes of conduct."
"So you're just a wall I talk to and get nothing back?" Paige replied, her voice dripping with a theatrical disappointment. "That's not a partnership. That's a sermon."
"Were you and KK close?" Dr. Fudd asked, changing the subject with a swift, strategic pivot. "Or on good terms, at one point? Was she someone who betrayed your trust?"
Paige ignored the question, her gaze drifting to the window, to the sliver of sky visible beyond the bars. She wasn't going to talk about KK. Not today.
"When was your first time with a woman?" Paige asked instead, her voice sudden, direct, and completely unexpected.
Dr. Fudd coughed, a sharp, startled sound, then let out a laugh, a mix of shock and amusement. "Okay," she said, shaking her head in disbelief. "Why did you change the subject?"
Paige stared her in the eyes, her playful smirk gone, replaced by a serious, intense look that was both challenging and deeply curious. "When?" she asked again, her voice a low, insistent demand.
"Paige, why did you change the subject?" Dr. Fudd asked again, her voice a little firmer, trying to regain control of the session.
"I know you're a lesbian," Paige stated, her voice a flat, confident declaration. "It's obvious. The way you carry yourself, the way you look at things. So answer my question."
"Answer mine," Dr. Fudd shot back, her own voice rising slightly, a flicker of her own frustration showing through. "Why is it so important for you to know about my personal life? What does it have to do with you?"
"Yup," Paige said happily, a wide, triumphant smile breaking across her face. "You didn't deny it. So, when was it?"
Dr. Fudd stared at her, a long, silent battle of wills playing out between them. She could see the challenge in Paige's eyes, the desperate need to know, to find a crack in her professional facade, to find something real, something human she could connect with. And she knew, with a sudden, startling clarity, that this wasn't just a game. This was a plea.
"It was in college," Dr. Fudd said finally, her voice quiet, a concession. "My sophomore year. Her name was Elena. She was a poet, and she had eyes the color of the sky after a storm. We used to sneak into the library after hours and read to each other in the stacks. It was... quiet. And beautiful."
Paige was silent, her smile gone, her expression one of rapt attention. She was listening, really listening, her walls down for the first time since she had walked into the room.
"She broke my heart," Dr. Fudd continued, her voice a little softer, a little more vulnerable. "She graduated and left without saying goodbye. I didn't see it coming. It was the first time I had ever really let myself be vulnerable with someone, and it... it hurt. A lot."
Paige looked down at her hands, her own story of betrayal and pain reflected in Dr. Fudd's. She understood that feeling. The gut-wrenching pain of being left behind, of being not enough.
"So now you know," Dr. Fudd said, her voice a little stronger, a little more composed. "Your turn. Tell me about your first time."
Paige looked up, a slow, sad smile touching her lips. "It was in the back of a stolen car," she said, her voice a low, rough murmur. "Her name was Jessica. She had a laugh like breaking glass and a heart full of trouble. We were fifteen, and we thought we were invincible. It wasn't quiet. And it wasn't beautiful. It was fast, and desperate, and over in five minutes. And I never saw her again."
The room was silent, the air thick with the shared weight of their stories, two very different worlds colliding in the quiet space of the office.
"Why did you become a therapist?" Paige asked, her voice soft, a genuine question. "Why would you choose to listen to people like me all day?"
"Because I believe in redemption," Dr. Fudd replied, her voice clear and strong. "Because I believe that no one is beyond saving. And because I know what it's like to be lost, to feel like you're screaming in a room full of people and no one can hear you. I want to be the person who hears."
Paige stared at her, a long, searching look. She saw the sincerity in Dr. Fudd's eyes, the unwavering belief, and it scared her. It scared her because it made her want to believe it too.
"You're a real idealist, aren't you, Azzi?" Paige said, her voice a low, rough murmur, a flicker of her old, cynical self returning.
"Someone has to be," Dr. Fudd replied, a small, sad smile touching her lips.
Paige leaned in closer, the space between them shrinking until there was almost nothing left. She could feel the warmth of Dr. Fudd's body, could smell the faint, clean scent of her shampoo. Her eyes dropped to Dr. Fudd's lips, and she felt a pull, a magnetic, undeniable attraction that was both terrifying and exhilarating.
"What are you doing, Paige?" Dr. Fudd whispered, her voice a shaky breath, but she didn't pull away.
"Seeing if you're as real as you seem," Paige replied, her voice a low, husky murmur. She leaned in a little closer, her lips just a breath away from Dr. Fudd's, so close she could feel the soft puff of air from the doctor's parted lips. "Are you?"
Dr. Fudd didn't answer. She didn't move. She didn't pull away. She just sat there, her eyes closed, her breath held in her chest, a silent, trembling surrender to the moment, to the undeniable electricity that arced between them. Paige could feel the rapid, fluttering beat of Dr. Fudd's heart, or maybe it was her own, a frantic drum against her ribs. The air was thick, heavy with unspoken words and forbidden desires. This was the line, the one she wasn't supposed to cross, the one Dr. Fudd wasn't supposed to let her near. And yet, here they were, hovering on the edge, balanced on a knife's blade of professional ruin and raw, undeniable need. Paige didn't kiss her. She just stayed there, a breath away, a silent, powerful question hanging in the air between them, a test, a promise, and a threat all at once. And in that moment, Paige knew she had her. She knew she had broken through the wall, had found the real person hiding behind the professional facade. And she knew, with a certainty that both thrilled and terrified her, that nothing would ever be the same again.
“Kicking. He’s got your competitive spirit already,” Azzi said, placing Paige’s hand on the spot where a tiny foot had just nudged her. Paige’s face lit up with that same awe it always did, a look that never failed to make Azzi’s heart melt. if you want a real reaction: 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭🥹😭↕️😭😭↕️😭↕️