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door to my cell. “You have plenty of time to remember each and every one, I think.”
    “Out!” I screamed. “Out! I don’t want you here! Get out of here! Leave me the fuck alone! I didn’t ask for this.”
    I sobbed myself to sleep. What had happened? Why was everyone angry with me? I’d done nothing wrong. I’d only tried to make a business, tried to make a life for myself so that I’d never have to worry again. I was a single mother, after all, one who’d only known how to do one thing to make money. I needed the nightclub as much as it needed me, and I’d fight to protect it.
    When I woke up, I wasn’t in my cell. I wasn’t anywhere I recognized.
    I was sprawled on a concrete floor, my head pounding, my mouth like cotton. When I tried to stand, my world was upended. My stomach heaved and I puked on the floor before I could manage to drag myself toward a toilet. There, I emptied the contents of my stomach and then some. I dry heaved for several long minutes before I got myself back under control, flopping back down on the floor, not caring that I was lying partially in my own vomit.
    I was beyond caring. I was beyond help.
    What had happened?
    I was battling a wicked, life-ending hangover. That much was evident. The fluorescent light in the room was too much for my tender eyes to bear. I threw an arm over my eyes and tried to remember what had happened.
    Drinking. I’d been drinking. I wouldn’t have a hangover, otherwise. But where had I found the alcohol? I was in prison, after all.
    The contraband. Willow’s contraband had been a potent brew of homemade prison hooch. We’d imbibed the entire bag. Where was she? Where was I? What had happened?
    I had other, fainter memories. I’d been thinking of my past, thinking about Johnny French. My son. The girls at the nightclub. It was hard to think of them all, especially when I was in this strange reality of prison. My past seemed less real all the time, and my present even more far-fetched. How had I gotten here? What had I done?
    I raised my arm and tried to fight the nausea as I peered around. I had to assess my surroundings. I could get this figured out if I tried.
    There wasn’t a bed, just a toilet and a drain on the ground. And the door didn’t have bars—just a slot where I assumed they gave me food. I hoped I wouldn’t be getting any food. I didn’t think I could stomach it with this wretched hangover.
    This was solitary, I realized. I was in solitary. I ignored the stab of anxiety in my gut—tried to, anyway. It was easy since I was so occupied with my nausea and my headache. If I was in solitary, that meant we’d been caught. Had the guards smelled the telltale stench of hooch? Had someone ratted us out? Had I done anything to compromise our little cellmate party?
    I hoped Willow wasn’t too angry with me. We’d been building a good relationship, I thought. I couldn’t deal with my cellmate being shitty and angry with me. I didn’t want that drama in my life.
    I slept on and off for a while. The floor was uncomfortable, but I was tired and desperate for the sleep. Sleep was the only thing that made the time pass, and the only treatment for a hangover was time. I had no idea of knowing how long I’d been in solitary. There were no windows. No clocks. Nothing to indicate any sort of passage of time. Hell. Maybe I’d just gotten here. Or maybe I’d been here for weeks.
    I was awoken by the door opening. Pitt, my corrections officer, stepped in, looking down at me impassively. I’d managed to roll free of the vomit during one of my naps, but it was still covering the floor.
    “This has to be a new record,” he said. “You were hardly in prison for twelve hours before you got placed in solitary. This isn’t a good way to start your stay with us, Wanda.”
    “I understand,” I said. “But I don’t remember what happened.”
    “No big surprise there,” Pitt said. “You drank enough hooch to kill an elephant.”
    I had to bite my