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Artemis was given a rough shove, her easy swagger grating the two female correctional officers’ nerves.
“Hurry up,” one of them growled.
As Artemis stepped through the guarded door, she muttered, “Good to know laws don’t apply to you guys.”
The other correction officer gripped her right bicep forcefully, digging her sharp nails through the light blue jumpsuit Artemis wore.
“You should watch your mouth, little girl. This place doesn’t take kindly to pests that don’t know their place,” she spat harshly.
Artemis bit the inside of her cheek, swallowing her nasty reply before it flowed out of her lips. She wasn’t afraid of them. No, it wasn’t fear that held her back. She just didn’t want to start anything that could prolong her unfortunate sentence.
“Enjoy your stay,” the correctional officer gripping her sneered before taking off the restricting handcuffs that bound her hands together.
Both correction officer’s snickered as they walked away, Artemis glaring hatefully at them as the door closed, separating them from her as her hands itched to teach them a lesson.
“Inmate 1807, keep moving,” another correction officer said gruffly from inside the room.
At this, Artemis turned around, finally taking a good look at the room before her. It was a large room, the space mostly empty expect for some lounge chairs, a long couch that sat in front of a small, pathetic TV, and three tables. The walls were painted white, almost blinding in its brightness. The room had three doors, a correction officer positioned in front of each one.
Although the space was mostly empty, the room was quite packed. Filled entirely with girls of all ages up to 17, each in matching blue jumpsuits, and each with their own story that landed them in the same position as Artemis. A few of them were involved in their own things, but most of them were staring right at her. There were varied expressions on their faces. Some curious, some indifferent, some irritated, some hesitant. Regardless, all of their stares made her skin crawl. And yet regardless, she was about to become one of them.
She took another quick look around the room, ignoring the stares and trying to figure out where to go, what to do. Finally her gaze landed on a table in the corner of the room, occupied by only one girl. This girl was curled in on herself, one of the few in the room not looking at Artemis. She had her eyes trained on the table as her hands grasped a green doll tightly. The girl looked about the same age as Artemis. She had medium length red hair, the color of her eyes not visible as she stared intently at the table. She had fair skin, light freckles sprinkled across her nose. Her most distinguishable feature was the large patch of off white skin that spanned from her left cheek all the way down that side of her neck, disappearing under the jumpsuit.
Artemis walked over to the table, pulling out the only other chair there and slowly sinking into it with ease. She paid no mind to the eyes that still lingered on her, concentrating only on the coolness of the metal chair on her covered back.
When she felt that the girls in the room had finally gone back to their business, she glanced at the girl sitting opposite her. She was still focused on the table, though her knuckles had turned white from grasping her green doll so tightly. Artemis assumed she was the one that was putting the girl in an even tenser mood than she had clearly been in before.
“I don’t bite,” she said, crossing her arms over her chest.
The girl didn’t answer, didn’t move an inch. Her eyes stayed trained on the table, her hands still holding onto the doll firmly.
“She doesn’t talk,” another girl said as she confidently strode up to the table, sitting on it when she got there.
This girl had black wavy hair that tumbled down just beneath her shoulders. Her bright blue eyes twinkled with mischief, her lips pulled back in a small smirk. Despite that, Artemis could feel waves of friendliness radiating off of her.
“Why not?” she asked, glancing at the quiet girl.
“No one knows. She hasn’t said a word since the second she got in here,” the girl sitting on the table said, shrugging her shoulders. “My name’s Zatanna, by the way.”
“Zatanna?” Artemis asked, raising an eyebrow at her.
“Yeah, Zatanna,” she responded quirking an eyebrow of her own. “Since the name is clearly too complex for you, just call me Zee. Everyone else here does.”
Artemis nodded her head before saying, “I’m Artemis.”
Zatanna let out a chuckle, ignoring the glare Artemis threw at her. “Artemis? And you were making fun of my name?”
“I wasn’t making fun of your name,” she rolled her eyes before muttering, “But now I wish I had.”
Zatanna ignored her, a wide smile now present on her face. “You know something? Your features are amazing. You have long blonde hair and green eyes, but then your skin tone is pretty tan. Plus, your face kind of gives off an Asian feel. It’s all contrasting with each other, but it looks good.”
Artemis stared at her in disbelief for a moment. Her eyebrows were both drawn up in confusion when she spoke. “Thanks?”
Zatanna nodded her head, pretending not to hear the uncertainty in Artemis’s voice.
“So, what landed you in here?” Artemis asked, gazing at the seemingly happy and good humored girl sitting on the table.
Zatanna froze, her body tensing for a moment at the question, alerting Artemis to the fact that she clearly didn’t like talking about it. And yet she opened her mouth and answered, her good mood somewhat subdued.
“I was walking home one night, and I was passing by a bar when this drunken asshole stumbled outside. I ignored him – until he groped me and pulled me into a dark alley. I grabbed what I could get my hands on while he tried to – you know. I ended up grabbing a broken beer bottle and stabbed him right in the fucking eye. I made it disappear – like magic.”
The last sentence she said with a dark sparkle in her eyes, making her seem more dangerous than she appeared to be.
“That sounds like it was self defense. Which means you shouldn’t be in here,” Artemis said, waiting for the whole story to come out.
Zatanna sighed, rolling her eyes. “Yeah, it was self defense. But while the fucker was trying to get the bottle out of his eye, I grabbed the wallet out of his pocket and ran away. I figured the least he could do was give me enough money to take a cab home after what he did.”
Artemis stared at her. “He tried to rape you, you stabbed him in the eye, and then you stole his wallet?”
“Sounds about right. So when the police questioned him, he said I attacked him, stabbed him in the eye, and then went off with his wallet. They had my fingerprints on his clothes as evidence, including the bottle and his jacked up eye, obviously. I had nothing. No evidence of what he tried to do. And that’s how I landed here.”
Artemis shook her head. She felt bad for the girl, but she made the situation worse all by herself. She could’ve just left it alone, gone straight to the police. Instead she decided to steal the jackass’s wallet, leaving unwanted evidence and the truth blown to pieces.
“What about you?” Zatanna asked.
Artemis sighed. She really didn’t want to talk about it. But she knew as soon as she had asked the question herself that it would come back around to her.
“My dad’s a thief and a murderer. Ever since I can remember, he’s been raising my older sister and I to follow in his footsteps. My mom used to be a thief, but then she gave it up. She died when I was 10 though. She tried to keep my dad away from us, so we wouldn’t become like him, but after she died there was nowhere else to turn. The first time I saw my dad kill someone I was 12. I robbed a national bank with my whole family when I was almost 14.”
“So you’re in here because you got caught for something your dad made you do?” Zatanna asked, impatient.
Artemis almost laughed. In her family, there was no such thing as getting caught. It just wasn’t done.
“No. One day he put my sister and I in yet another dangerous situation, and when we got out of it, I just snapped. I shot him.”
“With a gun?” Zatanna asked, her blue eyes wide and sparked with interest.
Artemis stared steadily into Zatanna’s eyes. “With an arrow.”