The girl next to me spoke a language I didn't know into the blue prison payphone, talking in an animated fashion to whoever she'd left behind upon being incarcerated. Despite my lingering near her, she only had eyes for her conversation, something I was grateful for. The last thing I needed was an icy glare thrown in my direction paired with an order to scram. It would've been an annoying inconvenience and rather effective at tearing the plan Liz and I had come up with during breakfast to pieces.

Well, plan... it wasn't much of a plan. Breakfast had mostly been Liz whispering to me about meeting up after our classes to check if the Koreans were in the TV room as we suspected. So I stood leaned against the payphone wall while waiting for her, the calling girl on my right side, the ghost of a jogger with a slit throat on my left, too close to me for comfort and sending shivers down my spine.

Liz was running late and it frustrated me to no end. I wasn't sure how long I could keep pretending I was waiting for my turn on the phone before an officer would come around to tell me I should move along and try again some other time. That would've meant walking away, and then Liz might miss me, and that meant losing precious time as well as getting an earful at dinner.

Anxiety consumed me and I had to jam my hands into the small pockets of my sweatpants to avoid plucking at my bandages and ruining them. The calling girl's voice became an unbearable background noise and my vision blurred with each second I spent staring straight ahead, trying to shut the world out.

What if Liz's Ouija Board theory wouldn't even get us anywhere? I'd known the dead for a long time and I knew they didn't often speak. So why would they start speaking now? For all we knew, the path we'd taken would lead to a cruel dead end.

For a brief moment, I wanted to give up on it all. I wanted to feel calm and okay and leave the counselor's ghost be and hope he would just leave me alone too if I kept my head down. And if the ghost wanted to eat my soul or shatter my body to a million tiny pieces anyway, why shouldn't I just let him? Maybe becoming a silent spirit for all eternity was better than living in constant fear with no escape in sight for eleven long months.

It would be the dirty, easy way out. I'd always loved the dirty, easy way out. Why not take it again?

The girl on the phone stopped talking. To my relief, she hung up the phone and I watched her go. I threw myself at the phone almost greedily and considered making an actual call instead of merely playing pretend. It had been weeks since I'd heard my parents' voices. Things were just so complicated. Our last conversations after I'd been arrested and imprisoned had been strained, short, difficult. I'd seen my parents' disappointment at what I'd done radiating off of them, could feel it reverberating through my bones, and the guilt ate me alive. I hated how the pained undertone in their words could get to me, so I chose to walk away from it altogether. 

I hadn't called once.

And still, in that moment, with my nerves acting up so much I saw black spots dancing before my eyes, I contemplated calling, anyway. Maybe to ask Dad if he still baked pies every Saturday, or to inquire about the capoeira classes Mom had signed herself up for on impulse, or for no particular reason other than the desire to hear a familiar voice. I stared at the numbered buttons as if the phone would start dialling my parents' number of its own accord and hesitated.

"Sorry I'm late. I ran into the doctor on my way here."

The tightness in my throat loosened, leaving only the bitter aftertaste of a mild panic attack. I startled out of my thoughts and whipped my head around in Liz' direction. My saviour. Though her voice wasn't particularly pleasant to listen to, grating, even, it still brought me some comfort.

"Doctor Jones...?"

Liz rolled her dark eyes, as if to ask what other doctors do we even have here?

"Yeah, that one. He asked about you, you know."

That statement hit me harder than Doctor Jones himself could have done if he'd felt like it. "What... did he ask?"

"Not much? Just... if you were doing okay and that's about it. I figured he must've seen us talking in the library or the dinner hall before, so he thought I'd know." Her tone explained she had no clue what I was even getting worked up about, where the suspicion in my eyes came from, though I could see she sniffed around for an answer like a bloodhound on the hunt.

There was nothing to worry about, I told myself, biting back the anxiety surging inside of me once more. Doctor Jones was a doctor. It was his job to care for his patients and soothe their pain, to listen to them and check on them every once in a while. I'd spoken to him days ago, making me his patient, and it was only natural for him to want to know how I was doing. I didn't need to dwell on it for longer than necessary. I had to stop searching for malice that wasn't there.

"The Koreans," I said, changing the subject and nodding towards the TV room. "They're in there. I've been keeping an eye on them while I waited."

Liz scrunched up her nose in disgust, as if I'd force-fed her a tarantula. From the moment I'd mentioned the name Dane had given me, she hadn't bothered to hide her apparent dislike for the Koreans. When I'd asked her about it, wondering if she had a history with them, she'd said it was just that 'cliquish bitches' like them rubbed her the wrong way.

"Then let's go in for a chat."

A Disney song filled the TV room as we entered and I glanced at a screen filled with vibrant colours. The Lion King. I could smell chocolate chip cookies. A group of four Korean girls sat in the seats at the front row, cookie crumbs strewn all around them. Their loud laughter and shouty conversation jarred me to the core, making me wonder how in the hell I'd sat through Escape from Alcatraz with them cackling through the whole thing like chickens in severe distress.

"You know, I'd do Scar. Who wouldn't do Scar? He's kind of hot for a lion."

"You kidding me? That motherfucker killed Mufasa and he's a lion. A Neo-Nazi lion."

"So what? It's hypothetical. Now, if he was real and human, I'd hit that, is all I'm saying."

"He's inspired by Adolf Hitler, Nari. You want to fuck Adolf Hitler."

Fifteen seconds in and I'd already heard more than I'd ever wanted to know. I didn't want to listen to the Koreans ruining my childhood even further, so I decided to step up my game and get straight to the point. I motioned for Liz, who lagged behind, to follow me and we took seats in the second row, right behind our Korean friends.

This was, of course, seen as both an invasion of personal space and a declaration of war.

The girl in the middle of the front row, who I assumed to be the alpha bitch ready to sink her teeth into us, turned to face us so slowly it was agonizing. The strong, lavender-scented perfume she wore stung in my nose and her eyes as brown as her hair roved over us as if she tried to tear us to shreds by merely looking.

"Tell me," she began, her voice calm and threatening, "why you came to sit so close. I see whole rows of empty seats in the back."

I gulped. "I'm comfortable right where I am."

The hiss I got for an answer implied I'd chosen the wrong retort. "Nobody's comfortable here."

Hoping Liz would take over from there, I turned to her with a pleading look, but she kept her mouth shut so tight it might as well have been glued closed. Michael's ghost standing next to her wouldn't be the slightest bit helpful, either. I was on my own.

"...Do you happen to be... Kim Sarang?" Dane had told me to never show weakness or fear. I'd understood that just right, but my voice hadn't quite figured it out yet.

"I am Kim Sarang." There was a dangerous glint in her eyes and her smile was razor-sharp. "And if you'll excuse me, I have cookies to eat and a movie to watch. I'm only warning you once: The right place for conceited know-it-alls and schizos leaving their cells a bloody mess is the back of the room."

I could see why Liz didn't want to talk to this girl. Her smug glare and perfume stench made me feel both sick and terrified. But we had a mission, a purpose. If I had to brave a conversation with Kim to avoid my parents needing to be informed of my untimely and tragic death, then so it would be.

"The conceited know-it-all and the schizo are here to do business, not to be insulted," I said, looking around frantically, anywhere but into those scrutinizing eyes.

Kim snorted. "Business?" She took a chocolate chip cookie, turned it over in her hands. Long, sharp fingernails covered in red nail polish dug into the poor sweet and I wondered if the girl had ended up in prison for using those dangerous nails to rip out someone's vocal chords. "Who sent you here?"

I didn't dare lie to this chick. If she turned out to have the ability to look into my mind and soul, I wouldn't have been surprised. "Daniela Guerrero."

"Great Dane?" The cookie Kim had been holding met its end between her teeth. "She's good people. Deranged. But good people nonetheless."

The most auspicious reply she could've given me. I could've wrapped her into a hug for it if that wouldn't have meant certain death. "Good enough people for you to consider helping us out?" I asked, allowing a bit of hopefulness to sneak into my words.

"Depends on what you want from me," said Kim, making it clear she wouldn't make any promises just yet. It didn't bother me. I was still rejoicing over having caused her initial hostility to evaporate, if only for a short time.

I leaned forward, conspiratory, and readied my most professional look. "We need a Ouija Board and a bag of potato chips."

A silence fell, only broken by the sound of fictional hyenas marching on TV. 

"I don't think," Kim replied slowly, "that anyone's ever asked me for those particular things in the same sentence."

I shrugged, lightly hitting Liz, who'd broken out into nervous giggling, on the shoulder to shut her up. "First time for everything," I said with an awkward smile. "I'm serious about it, though. Do you think you can get that for us?"

With a flick of her perfectly manicured hand, Kim Sarang signalled something to one of her minions. The girl turned towards us and offered Liz and I a cookie, which we were happy to accept.

"I'm assuming that's a joke," said our friendly neighbourhood contraband smuggler, "because no one with a functioning brain would even think about asking me that. Get it through your head that I can get everything done, yeah?"

I nodded, faster and longer than originally intended.

"Thing is," Kim continued, "my services aren't provided for free. It's a quid pro quo situation. I'm prepared to help you, but are you prepared to help me?"

It wasn't like we had a choice. As much as I hated it, this was the best offer we were going to get. The look Liz gave me confirmed the same: we had to do Kim Sarang's bidding or find another way to get the board we needed, something easier said than done.

"What use could you have for us?" I asked, silently praying Kim's request would be at least somewhat reasonable. Anything too outlandish or degrading and I'd rather have had Counselor Taylor come scratch my eyes out.

Kim pulled a small, crumpled envelope from her chest pocket. She held it up, showing us the name written on it in a meticulous handwriting: Mark. "This," she said while Liz and I observed the piece of paper, "is a secret message meant for Mark Chen, who resides in Lonewood's boys facility. See to it that it reaches him one way or another and I'll get you what you need."

That sounded like a whole bunch of effort. 

Truth be told, I'd forgotten about the mere existence of Lonewood's boys facility, the building next to ours, until Kim brought it up. It had never been of any significance to me and while some girls may have had platonic or romantic contact with boys there in some way, I'd never been social enough to want to learn more about their endeavours and communications. The one person I'd always hung out with was Dane, but Dane was pretty much the contemporary incarnation of Sappho herself and she probably hadn't devoted a single thought to the boys' since coming here.

"Can't you just get an officer to deliver it for you?" Liz blurted out, dropping her apparent vow of silence. She seemed to regret the words the moment they left her mouth; her eyes widened and a grimace appeared on her face.

Kim Sarang, to my frustration, didn't miss Liz's annoyed undertone. "Blackmailing officers only gets you this far, Phillips," she replied, her words nothing but icy. "Someone you blackmail has a reason to start snooping around your personal affairs to get back at you. Using someone who wants something from you to deliver messages, on the other hand..."

Liz didn't make the mistake of speaking again. She swiped the envelope for Mark Chen from Kim's hands without another glance and stood up, wiping cookie crumbs off her clothes. With an impatient gesture, she motioned for me to follow as she walked away, her brother in tow.

The conversation had ended. Kim shrugged and turned away from me without as much as a good luck, choosing to focus on her friends and the movie again: "Nari, Nari! Fucking hell, I'm never watching Disney movies with you people again!"

I seized my chance and rushed off after Liz before the Koreans could either change their mind or start discussing the sex appeal of fictional lions once more. I had more pressing matters to think about and caught up with Liz in the middle of the corridor.

"I despise the Koreans," Liz grumbled, quickly shoving the envelope in her chest pocket so no one would see it. "They think they're hot shit, but they're pathetic. Horrible people."

"Pathetic and horrible or not," I said, "we've got a message to deliver somehow. What do you think would be the fastest, most reliable way to go about it?"

"Right." All the annoyance she'd bitten back in the TV room filled Liz's eyes now. "That message. Get ready for a field trip, Bailey. I hope you're as religious as your last name implies, because we're going to church."

She sped off, fuelled by rage, and left me alone to contemplate the meaning of what she'd said.