Meta's POV

Institution #71/dormitories 

Brooklyn persuaded me to go back and try and get some sleep which I didn't need. I lay in the bed pretending to sleep. While I did I mentally recalled the pages of some of the books I had read. I found I was able to recall each page and read them again. I recalled the events of earlier and found I could remember everything about them. I could recall each moment in exquisite detail. The tone of Boorklyn's hushed voice.

Then I woke up on the top bunk with Brooklyn prodding me from below with a stick. It was the morning. The others were asleep except for Zoe. I was laying on my front. I looked down an open one eye at Brooklyn. He looked at me then silently nodded at Craven and Zoe. Craven was fussing over Zoe after she got dressed.

"You should wear your hair down it's much nicer, Love" he was saying. I hated the way he used 'love' as a pet name, it was like swallowing gravel every time I heard it. If we were normal we could so get him fired for that, but here, he was a lord and master.

Zoe stoney faced struggled, she didn't look at him. Which wasn't unusual she didn't look at anyone.

"I said you should take the hairband off. You have nice hair don't you, love?" Craven said spacing each word out. I knew Zoe wouldn't pick up on that or the way he spread his feet further apart and moved his hand closer to his taser.

Valerie yawned as she came to. Valerie leant over from the bed "Zoe on a scale of one to ten which level do you think the Warden is on?"

I had seen her use this before when she was annoying us. One was normal, ten angry. Zoe's autism meant she often pushed people up the wrong way and didn't notice it.

Zoe shrugged "One?"

She wasn't reading Craven. She had no idea what she was doing.

I shook my head "Seven" I said.

I could see Zoe processing this, but she didn't say anything.

"Hairband out Zoe. Show off your lovely hair. That's right girls?" Craven said. He reached out to Zoe and she cringed away.

"That's not how we act to our warden." Cravensaid said to Zoe continued reaching to his taser.

Voices were calm and collected, reasonable but I could sense we were moments away from a storm.

Under the bed sheet, I quickly pulled on my yellow overall. I always did this so no one saw my birthmark. I got up and sat in bed. Valerie did this as well. Brooklyn had unloaded himself from the bottom bunk. Even Hannah, dopey from her meds looked over and got down to helped Colin into his chair.

"I think you should all go get cleaned up and go to breakfast," Craven said to us.

We hardly moved. He tilted his head slightly "OR you can go on late sitting."

Late sitting was being held back for lunch, you got whatever was left. They never cooked enough so it was nearly nothing.

I jumped down and stared at him.

"You miss Meta," Craven said looking at me, "I think you need to develop your real life skills. You're going to be our waitress for lunch."

Under the guise of 'learning to be a waitress', he would get one of us to go and get his and everyone else's food. It was another one of his petty punishments. Craven didn't invent this but he used it ruthlessly.

I looked at his phone. He had it charged and had recently downloaded an app which let him store encrypted photos. He had put the app in a folder marked 'Workstuff' I guess in case his wife found it. The photos of Zoe and the other girls were gone from his photo store. Then it was like his phone exploded into a wild group of glowing writing. I could see he had used his phone to pay for a beer and a box of condoms on the way into work. I looked at him. He had washed. Combed his thin balding hair. The wedding ring was gone. I jumped to one conclusion. He was going to slam her. The sick fuck was going to do Zoe.

"NOW all of you to breakfast NOW!" Craven said. "If I have to say again it will be the grey wing for you."

We moved slowly to the door. The kids outside passing the steel safety door looked in wondering what was going on.

I turned to Zoe "You heard him. Let's go."

Zoe who had been staring at the floor trying to figure what was going on , decided to follow me.

Craven grabbed Zoe "Not you," he said to Zoe.

Zoe didn't like being touched, she made a loud noise and pulled her self away.

Craven looked furious and grabbed at her ponytail. He pulled the band out of her hair. This must have pulled a hair and hurt her because she began to scream. I hadn't seen Zoe in full meltdown mode before. The others normally tiptoed around her treated her like an unexploded bomb. Now as she started to scream I could see why. She was loud partly in pain, partly in frustration. She was loud, like a siren at the end of the world.

Craven's furious red eyes bulged like a squashed frog, he reached for his Taser. The next moment happened quickly, I turned around and reached out in his direction. I could feel the Taser - it had a GovSys Bluetooth port to signal where it was if it had been lost. I was somehow able to reach into it. By the time Craven had pushed it against Zoe's arm nothing happened. Craven looked at his hand and pressed the red button a couple more times.

"Govsys shit, batteries," he said. "fuck"

Suddenly he dropped the Taser. I could smell burning, melting the plastic. Suddenly green flames and tiny fireworks sparked from it. The air smelt like burnt electricity.

"Control" Craven said to his walkie talkie. "Control. Taser malfunction in seven. Backup required." All this time Zoe was still screaming. She had her hands on her hair and was pulling her own hair out.

"SHUT THE FUCK UP," Craven said reaching down for his nightstick.

Everything happened simultaneously. Craven started to wave his night stick around. Brooklyn pushed bravely forwards between Craven and Zoe. Zoe screamed like her hair was on fire. Valerie was the only sensible one she went to Zoe's overnight bag and started looking for another hair band. The room started to fill with more Wardens. Lee who had come into the room from next door came over to Zoe.

"Shhsss. It's OK girl" Lee said trying to calm her down. From his body movements, it looked like he had done this before.

"Grey wing for all of you!" Craven said. "All of you"

I looked at my hand. Only a second ago my palm was pointing at Craven's Tazer. Now blood was oozing from my fingernails.

Hannah helped Valerie searching for Zoe's overnight bag. Valerie found a hair band and handed it to the screaming Zoe.

"Green one" Zoe screamed defininly refusing the hair band.

"Get her a green one," Lee said firmly. "Deep breaths."

Valerie looked to Hannah who desperately got back to looking in the bag.

"Green one" Zoe now howled in pain. "Green one"

One of the other warders grabbed Zoe from behind. Zoe started screaming and kicking. Thrashing like she was being dragged into the gates of hell.

"Green one" she repeatedly screamed at the top of her voice.

"Grey Wing," Craven said shouting pointing at Zoe "Grey wing!!". He was reaching for his pepper spray.

The other warders came into the room. Brooklyn and I were being pushed back by them. I was half deaf from the screaming and my stomach was in tight knots from the tension. The room was filling with the chemical smell and smoke as the battery of the taser shorted.

"No! we can fix this" I tried to explain.

It was clear to me from Valerie's moves Zoe would calm down if she could put her hair in a green hairband.

Hannah found a hair band and threw it to Valerie. Valerie expertly caught it and handed to Zoe who was being pulled through the door. Zoe was hanging on to the edge of the door until another warder came along. Zoe grabbed the hair band and started to put the hairband back while she was frogmarched badly away. I saw Zoe being dragged away around the corner. The hairband did the jobs she calmed down.

"She's OK, Your OK" Lee said loudly. We heard staccato protests from Zoe in the distance.

The warder next to Lee looked down.

"Shut the fuck up," one of the warders said. He then took the taser in his right hand and zapped Lee.

Lee quivered and dropped to the ground. Craven started to make up a story about Zoe. Just then the smoke set the fire alarm off and the warders pulled out their batons to guide us 'to the nearest fire safety area'.