Page 326 of Dirty Discipline, Vol. 2

Turning, Tabitha stared at the sun-bronzed woman hovering in her doorway, an empty, beat up plastic water bottle out to her.

"You got one of these?" the woman whispered.

Glancing at it, keeping her hands to herself, she shook her head.

"Take it. Fill it every chance you get, whether it's empty or not. Don't lose it, cause I don't have another to give you."

Beware of gifts that seem free. Nobody got something for nothing, not even a used up disposable bottle. Prison had definitely taught her that.

"I've got watermelon," she offered, reluctantly taking the water bottle from her. That was one thing she didn't think to buy at the store. Apparently, neither did the sheriff.

"What's your name?" the woman asked with a smile.

"Tabitha."

Extending a friendly hand, the woman said, "I'm Mara. I love watermelon. We can have it tonight after you've survived the day. Hurry up, if you're not ready. The instant the bus gets here, your butt needs to be on it, or you'll be in trouble. Stick close to me today, I'll walk you through the rules. Break any of them, including the ones you don't know, you'll be in trouble. Trust me, trouble isn't what you want from that bastard." Mara mouthed that last word, giving it no sound at all.

Tabitha had no problem reading her lips.

Adding the water bottle to her lunch sack, she gathered everything and followed Mara out into the bright sunshine of the already warm Utah morning. She was careful to close the door behind her.

"Don't keep anything out in the open you won't mind having stolen," Mara continued as she headed toward a group of other women already gathering. When she looked way down the road, Tabitha glimpsed the long white form of the bus driving toward them with a cloud of dust billowing out behind it. "More than anyone, it's Travis you need to worry about."

"And me," another woman muttered just loud enough to draw giggles from the ladies around them. The tallest among them, her red hair was gathered in a tight bun at the back of her head. "I'll bite your face off."

"You won't either," Mara snickered. "She's not a hardass. She just likes to act that way. Also, piss her off and she will mop the parking lot with you. So... yeah, don't do that. But Travis, he'll rob you blind if he thinks you've got something. And there's nothing you can do about it."

"You can't report him?" she asked, casting a wary eye toward the office where Travis could be seen, one shoulder propped against the building as he sipped from his coffee cup while he waited with them.

"God, you're new," a blonde on her other side told her.

"Who do you think you're going to tell?" the dark-skinned teen even younger than Tabitha snorted.

“You’re young,” the tall red-head informed her. “You’re a woman and you’re a convict fresh out of prison. Ain’t nobody gonna listen to a thing you’ve gotta say.”

“Yes, sir and no, sir,” the short chubby blonde beside her stated. “No matter what they tell you to do, that’s what you say and then you do it. Do your time and when you get released, they’ll give you whatever money you got on the books and even drive you up to Salt Lake. I’ve got three weeks left. I’m going to get drunk as hell and forget all about this place, baby.”

“Yes, ma’am,” several women said at once.

With a crunch of gravel under the tires, the bus continued to slow as it pulled off the road and rolled to a stop in front of them. "Make good choices," Travis called from the porch of his office.

Was he talking to her or to all of them? Tabitha couldn't tell if he was staring at her alone. To acknowledge what he was saying would be to invite more of it, so she kept her head down and waited patiently for her turn to board the bus.

It smelled like earth and old sweat and she got as far as the bus driver before realizing neither he nor the bus had been washed in quite some time.

The driver was young, maybe only a year or two older than she was. His head was shaved, with prison tattoos on his neck, shoulders, the backs of both hands with two tiny blue-inked tear drops at the corner of her eye. His teeth were brown from the tobacco he was chewing. Judging by the mess around his spit cup, he wasn't all that concerned with getting the waste all the way in it when he spat.

Noting the way she was looking at him, his grey eyes suddenly fixed on her. He arched an eyebrow and his tone wasn't exactly friendly when he said, "See something you like, baby girl?"

Averting her eyes, she moved just as fast as the woman in front of her would allow, all the way to the back of the bus where she threw herself on the seat as close to the window as she could get. Her heart was racing, and her mouth was dry. She hugged her lunch in her lap, feeling more like she was on her way back to prison than to a job opportunity.

Once everyone was loaded, the bus doors flapped shut and off they went, rolling from gravel back onto the pavement. Travis watched them go and his eyes definitely caught hers through the window as they passed his office.

He didn't smile. She didn't either.

Please God, let the rest of today be better than this.

The bus had no A/C and like any other metal container under the hot desert sun, it got hot enough to make her sweat very quickly. Several of the more experienced girls dropped their windows. They only lowered about four inches before screws in the metal window edges stopped the glass from dropping any further. She might be out of her old cell, but she was still just as trapped, even now as the bus turned from the main road onto an unpaved dirt track. There was no landscape to look at, just miles and miles of sage and scrub, the mountains, and the occasional free-ranging cow.

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