The 10

2

Day 2

Ms. Peters begins knocking on doors at eight in the morning. She goes up and down the hallway several times before hearing groaning and creaking floors. Smiling, she announces that they'll be leaving at ten and to hurry down to the breakfast bar when they've finished getting ready.
"Ms. Peters?" Lillian calls out to her in a harsh whisper.
"Yes, Lillian?"
"Is there any way that I can switch rooms?"
"No, I'm afraid not. Why?"
"Well," Lillian turns to make sure her roommate is still in the shower. "She's a pig, and I don't think I can spend another five days like this."
"I'm sorry, Lillian, but rooms are final. Unless you find someone in your situation that would like to switch, too." Ms. Peters ignores her student's dirty look and heads to the elevator to get her free breakfast before the growing teens eat it all.

Ms. Peters checks her watch and sees it's half-past nine.
Standing and clapping once to gain the student's attention, she speaks. "Okay, we'll be leaving in half an hour, so finish getting ready, or get your things together, or whatever you need to do, and meet me at the buses at ten."
Ms. Peters heads back up to her room to grab her purse and her clipboard. She checks her sheets and notes to keep an eye on a few students today. She wasn't happy with the progress a few students had made. After debating with herself for over an hour, she realized that the progress wasn't good enough, even despite it only being the first day. She would nudge if needed.
By nine fifty, Ms. Peters was leaned against one of the buses waiting on her students. Slowly but surely, they came strolling out of the hotel, papers in hand, and book bags on their backs. Happy that today they were a little more prepared. Ms. Peters did a headcount and then walked onto the bus. Still having to deal with the sexist bus driver, she chose to sit out of his view and enjoyed the scenery. The beautiful scenery leads to such a gloomy place.

The bus rolls to a slow stop, and Kate sucks in a breath when she looks up at the prison. She wasn't ready to see Christopher again. Today she was bringing in her papers and a notebook, praying the guards would let her bring it in. All of the answers she was determined to get today wouldn't fit the little papers Ms. Peters had provided. Ms. Peters stepped off first, and the students followed, same as yesterday.
"Okay, just like yesterday. We'll go in, you'll surrender your bags, and a guard will lead you to your inmate. Okay, are we ready?" The students remained silent. Licking her lips, Ms. Peters said, "Okay, I'll take that as a yes." she nervously laughed and waved her Teachers' ID to the guard at the desk, receiving a curt nod.
"Donners!" the guard barked as Luke stepped up. "Your inmates ready."
Luke practically jumped over to the desk and tossed his bag on the desk before following the guard through the metal detectors and into the cafeteria. One by one, the guard came in and out, collecting students and leading them to their inmates. Of course, Kate was last, so there she stood with her notebook and papers in hand. Finally, the guard called her name, and she laid her bags on the table and followed. Leading her to the same table as yesterday, Kate noticed that today Christopher had his head up. When Kate took the same seat, Christopher looked very eager to begin.
"Hello again." he smiled.
"Hi," Kate mumbled, moving her papers into the order she wanted.
"Someone woke up on the wrong side of the bed." he joked.
"Sorry, I was up late doing research."
"Oh yeah," he folded his hands and leaned closer to the table. "On what?"
"This."
"This?"
"Prison, mostly." she paused, reading his face. "Trying to understand your days better, to help the assignment, you know?" Now she was the shrugger.
"Ah." he chuckles. "You don't care about my life here. You care about your grade."
"I care about both," she admitted. "Kill two birds with one stone, I guess."
"Ah, so you're admitting that you care about me?" he paused, looking around. "Damn, it's only been two days. Guess I still know how to charm the ladies."
"Can we get down to business?" Kate pleaded, flipping through her notebook. "Uh, how have these three years been for you?"
"How do you think?" he retorts, his face laced with sarcasm and a hint of annoyance.
"I need your opinion." she raises her brow. "My opinion won't matter, and it will cost me my grade."
"It hasn't been good. I can tell you that."
"What else can you tell me?"
"I've seen a lot of fights, lot of people get shanked." he pauses, licking his lips. "I've had more cellmates that you've had friends. Been beat up by more guards than anyone else in here."
Kate lowers her voice to just above a whisper. "Are you saying you're singled out?"
"Basically, yeah." he looks around, making sure the guard isn't looking in their direction. "That guard, the one that lets you guys in, has quite the record."
"What do you mean?" Kate never looks up. She's too busy writing every word he says.
"He beats up every inmate at least once. Like it's a life goal or something." he snorts, annoyed.
"I'm sorry," Kate finishes writing and looks up at him. "We can change the subject and move onto another question if you want."
"Sure, it doesn't matter. Whatever I can do to help Ms. Straight A's get another A."
Kate huffs, unamused by how perfect he thinks she is. "I don't get straight A's. But next question, if you could go back to the day you were arrested, is there anything you would do differently?"
"Yeah," he leans in close. "I would go back to the day my mother introduced me to that piece of shit and tell her to run."
"Because then they wouldn't have gotten married, and you wouldn't have killed him, and you wouldn't be in here." she assumes.
Christopher does a slow, sarcastic clap. "Genius."
Rolling her eyes, Kate continues with the questions she wrote. "Do you have any friends here? People you can trust."
"This isn't the first day of school. No, I don't have friends. We all mind our business and wait for our release date."
Kate finishes writing and moves to her next question. "So, if your stepfather hadn't died from the injuries you induced on his body, how long would you have gotten for the assault charge?"
"If he had decided to press charges, I was looking at two years probation."
"What do you mean, 'if he had decided to press charges,' would you have coerced him to let it go? As in, let you off?"
"Yep."
"How?"
"Would have beaten his ass again, especially if he thought he was going back to my mom's house after being released. But I mean, this is all hypothetical, so none of these answers matter."
"True. But still, I wanted to ask."
"So, you did."
"I appreciate you being more cooperative today."
"No big deal. Not like I got anything else to do."
"How did you react when you found out you had been selected for this experiment? And I use 'experiment' lightly."
"I sat wondering why they had chosen me and if my student would at least be hot." he winks at her. "You're certainly not ugly, you know."
"Thanks." she writes his answer, leaving out the flirtatious part and continues. "If you could've said no to being part of this, would you have?"
"Yes."
"Why?"
"Because I wouldn't have wanted to deal with spoiled teenage brats. Bad enough I got to deal with the scum in here."
"I see." she pulls her hair back away from her face.

Kate continues asking her questions as Christopher continues to take in every detail of her face. Meanwhile, across the room, Luke and his inmate are making less progress. Luke and his inmate, John "The Pusher" McAdams, discuss sports and obviously haven't discussed the assignment once.
"So the Astros and the Dodgers made it to the World Series last year?" John asked.
"Yeah, man," Luke smiles. "Made it to seven games too."
"And who won?"
"Astros, which sucks because I was rooting for the Dodgers. But you know, they put Maeda in, and he blew Game Three, so why not blow Game Seven too, right?" he huffs.
"Damn." John shakes his head. "I would've rooted for the Dodgers too. Just for the sake that they got Kershaw." he stops himself. "They do still have Kershaw, right?"
"Yeah, and I don't think he's going anywhere anytime soon."
"Cool." John chuckles. "So, who do you normally root for?"
"Baseball wise, usually the Red Sox." Luke shrugs.
"My father was a fan of them. But once Big Papi left, wasn't much to watch."
"Yeah, Big Papi was pretty impressive." Luke winks.
"So, two years ago." John folds his hands on the table. "Who was in the World Series then?"
"Cubs and Indians."
"Yeah?" John raised his brow. "Damn, who won that?"
"Cubs, man."
"Damn. Didn't think it was possible."
"Yeah, final out of the game, the batter grounded out, and Kris Bryant was smiling before he threw it to the guy at first. He admitted in a post-game interview that he almost forgot to throw. He was so excited." Luke and John laugh.
"Baseball." John smiles. "The greatest game in the world. Damn, I miss it."
"They don't show it in here?" Luke looks around and sees a TV in the corner.
"Nah, they got us watching the News and shit."
"Damn."
"Yeah, it's supposed to help us 'rehabilitate' and 'keep up with current events' and all that bullshit."

Meanwhile, a few tables up from Luke, Isabella sits with her inmate, trying to get several answers out of him. He is adamant that he doesn't want to be here and that the week can't go by soon enough. Isabella grows tired and annoyed and puts her pen down on the papers, and huffs. Leaning back, moving her hair out of her face, she sighs.
"Look, I don't want to be here, and you sure as hell don't want to be here either, so let's just get this over with, and the sooner we finish this, the sooner I'll be out of here, and you can go back to being an asshole in your cell." Isabella raises her brow and watches her inmate's face.
His face hardens, and she watches his hands folded into fists. "Fine," he grumbles out.
"Thank you. Now can I get your name?"
"Derek. Derek Daniels."
Isabella shudders. "I've heard that name before."
"Damn right, you have," he smirks. "I was all over the news."
"You murdered that woman, brutally. Police said it was the most horrid hate crime they had ever seen. You were on the run for a week." Isabella's voice is laced with fear. "Why would they assign you to me?"
"I don't know, cupcake." he winks. "But they did."

Ms. Peters stands, watching her students; some writing, some talking, some laughing, some doing nothing, and some doing the first three all at once. She's pleased that her experiment is going well. She's already planning in her mind which prison to do this in next year with her new students. Board approved of it once, right? Ms. Peters does not doubt that they'll approve of it next year. She stands with the guard and realizes he was speaking.
"I'm sorry, what?"
He laughs. "Keeping an eye on your students, I get it. I'm basically doing the same." he clears his throat, stuffing his hands in his belt.
"Yeah. You know, I have to. Prisoners and teens can be unpredictable."
The guard chuckles and looks at his watch. "It's uh, almost time to wrap things up."
"Oh," Ms. Peters checks her watch too. "You're right. I better go tell my students."

Ms. Peters makes her way to her first student and mutters Stupid, stupid, stupid over and over again in her head. She tells her students that it's almost time to go and returns through the doors and to the desk. Still not a fan of Ms. Peters, the guard tosses her bag, causing its contents to spill over the desk.
"Thanks." Ms. Peters huffs, cleaning up after the mess the guard made.

Slowly but surely, the guards bring in the students. Each student collects their bags, and Ms. Peters does a headcount before returning to the buses and finally heading back to the hotel. Each student planned to do exactly as they had done last night. Eat, shower, sleep, repeat. Some dreamed of nothing, others dreamed dreams no one could explain, but Kate dreamed of the innocent green eyes once more. While Ms. Peters dreamed of the brown-eyed guard sweeping her off of her feet, like something out of the corniest romance novel you had ever read.

Tomorrow was Day Three. Another new day in the same hell hole, but at least they were almost halfway through.