“About that,” Vi says. “How’d you end up here? What did a girl like you do to get tossed into this two-star shithole?”

“Really? That’s how you ask? No subtlety in it?”

“Uh, yeah? I saved you from getting shanked in the shower, so fair’s fair. What’s your deal, topside?”

“Caitlyn,” she says. That isn’t right. That wasn’t the answer Vi was after. Names are easily given away but so seldomly remembered in Stillwater, but it echoes in Vi’s head. She almost doesn’t hear the actual answer. “And though I have no doubt a thousand people have given this answer before, I did nothing. I was doing my job, and then I was here. No trial. No sentencing. No crime to speak of.”

*

Half a decade into Vi's stay in Stillwater, a topsider turns up, raving about being a Councillor's daughter.

Misthios