“Medium security don’t mean no security. You hear me!”

“I hear you,” said Mace.

“You ain’t here much longer, but your ass is still my turf. Got that?”

“Got it!” Mace jogged down the hall that was enclosed by stacked cement blocks painted gunmetal gray, just in case the residents here weren’t depressed enough. The corridor ended at a solid metal door with a square cutout at the top as a viewpoint. The guard on the other side pushed a button on a control panel and the steel portal clicked open. Mace passed through. Cement blocks, tubular steel, hard doors with tiny windows out of which angry faces peered. Clicks to go. Clicks to get back in. Welcome to incarceration for her and her fellow three million Americans who enjoyed the luxury of government housing and three squares for free. All you needed to do was break the law.

When she saw who the guard was she muttered one word. “Shit.”

He was an older guy, fifties, with pale, sickly skin, a beer belly, no hair, creaky knees, and a smoker’s caustically cracked lungs. He’d obviously switched posts with the other guard who’d been stationed here when Mace had come through for her workout, and Mace knew why. He’d developed an eye for her, and she spent much of her time ducking him. He’d caught her a few times and not one of the encounters had been pleasant.

“You got four minutes to shower before chow, Perry!” he snapped. He moved his bulk into the narrow passageway she had to navigate through.

“Done it faster,” she said as she tried and failed to dart past him. He spun her around and leaned his heft against her while she braced herself with her palms against the wall. He shoved his fat size twelve boots under the flimsy soles of her size sixes; now Mace was on her tiptoes with her back arched. She felt the brush and then grip of his meaty hand on her butt as he pulled her to him, doggie-style. He’d managed to position them both in the one blind spot of the overhead security camera.