Even though Sisler had ended their game with Chase at arm’s length, Chase went to bed that night feeling optimistic that progress had been made and that before she knew it she'd be friends with all of H-Block. Unfortunately, though, over the next few days there was little progress made.

It seemed like she made inroads with Heidi and Sisler that first day back from solitary, from then on they mostly left Chase alone. If Sisler was just somebody she played cards with, Heidi was just somebody who clapped Chase on the shoulder that one time and encouraged her to get in more fights.

Even Liz, once she was out of solitary, kept her distance. Chase was not particularly bothered by this; she was undecided as to whether Liz was friendly or foe-y. Sure, she picked a fight with Chase for no apparent reason, but perhaps she thought she was doing Chase a favor by showing the others how tough she was. And she wasn’t wrong: Chase did like to scrap.

Regardless, she ended up spending most of her time with Louise. Louise had not been in H-Block very long herself, and so there was not much she could tell Chase about the other inmates that Chase couldn’t figure out herself, just by watching and listening.

Heidi and Brianna stuck together for the most part. Sisler’s table was open to anyone. Chase saw everyone sit down and play cards with her at one point or another.

Olivia had three members of her group in all. Aside from Crystal, there was the latina, named Angel, and the short girl with highlighted hair, named Molly. Angel was like Crystal. According to Louise, her blood was strong. It was killer’s blood, no doubt about it. When she was around, Louise could practically hear it racing through her veins, could feel the heat from it. She had tattoos, which Louise told Chase implied she was a part of a gang. Molly was just a hanger on. She was only in here for killing a family while drunk driving. She wasn’t like the others in H-Block, she gravitated to Olivia’s group out of fear and a need for protection.

Everyone else was a loner. Chase saw potential with them but was unable to forge a connection, but not for lack of trying.

“Hi!” said Chase to the native American girl one day at lunch, after noticing she was sitting alone. “Am Chase! Who you?”

“None of your business, white girl,” the native responded, before Chase even had the chance to plop her lunch tray down on the girl’s table. “Fuck off.”

Shocked, Chase returned to the table she and Louise had taken. “Told you,” said Louise, as Chase sat down.

“How you know?” asked Chase, sitting back down.

Louise wasn’t sure she was the one to explain this to Chase. “That’s just how Irene is. It ain’t you, it’s all the white man. Can’t say ah blame her for bein’ sore,” said Louise. “That’s kinda why she’s here. She was part o’ some protest with her tribe, lookin’ for land and whatnot, and things went bad. Cops started leanin’, they leaned back, national guard had ta get involved. Ended up takin’ a couple o’ feds hostage and killin’ ‘em.” She dipped a tater tot in her ketchup and ate it. “Yer best off not tryin’ with her.”

Another loner she noticed was Monica, the frog-eyed girl who kept to her cell. It didn’t take long for her to realize that this was not exactly by choice. Unlike everyone else, who was free to roam the H-Block common area during the daytime, Monica’s cell was never unlocked. She sat there quietly, watching the others or reading books which were brought to her. She was not even allowed to come to lunch with the others. The guards always brought her her food in her cell.

Chase thought this was very mean. One day shortly after she was discharged from solitary, she walked Monica’s cell to make friends.

“Hi!” said Chase brightly.

Monica smiled as she saw Chase approach. “Oh, hi,” she said in a trembling voice. “Your name’s Chase, isn’t it?” She whispered to herself, “Chase, isn’t it?”

“Yes!” said Chase. “How you know?”

“I heard somebody else call you that,” said Monica. She got up and came to the cell door, holding onto the vertical metal bars. Again, she subvocalized, “Heard somebody else call you that.”

“Oh!” said Chase. “That, good! I know you too, Mon! Us friend, now?”

“Sure. Sure, we’re friends,” said Monica. Quietly, she added, “We’re friends now. Come close to the bars.”

“Why you lone, Mon?” asked Chase. “Why Mon in there, not out here?”

“I can’t say I know. Come close to the bars,” said Monica. “Can’t say I know. Come close to the bars.”

Chase took a step forward. “Why?”

“It’s a surprise. A surprise. I have a surprise for you. Surprise for you. You have to come closer, though. Closer, though.”

Chase took another step. “How close?”

“Real close. Close as friends can be. Friends can be…”

Chase was about to take another step when Louise grabbed her around the waist and yanked her backwards. “Aaah!” Chase exclaimed.

“Holy shit, that was close!” exclaimed Louise. “God dang, Chase!”

Chase looked over her shoulder at the taller girl. “Lou?! What you do?”

“Chase, we don’t git close to Monica an’ we don’t git close to her cell. Ain’t nobody does.”

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

“We don’t?” asked Chase. “Why not?”

“We just don’t.”

And finally, there was Jen.

“Oh, he’s one of ‘em,” said the wide-eyed girl, watching TV with Heidi and Liz. On the screen, a sportscaster was breaking down an upcoming football matchup. “No doubt about it, he’s a reptilian shapeshifter.”

“God dammit Jen, shut the fuck up,” said Liz.

But Heidi decided to humor her. “Really? How can you tell?”

Jen looked at her, fidgeting with the buttons on her orange jumpsuit. Her pale brown hair was naturally straight, but its unkempt and unbrushed condition kept it from lying quite in that way. “It’s the eyes. Y’see, the lizards, they got two sets o’ eyelids. One goes up and down, the other goes flipways. Watch him when he blinks. You’ll see it.”

They all watched and waited. The man blinked.

“Yeah! You see that? He’s a reppie, alright. Yes siree,” said Jen.

“I didn’t see anything,” said Heidi.

Jen nodded. “It was there. When you notice it once you’ll notice it every time.”

“Heidi, please tell her to shut the fuck up. We need to stand together on this,” said Liz.

“Hi!” said Chase, walking over to them.

“Oh, here we go. Fruit loop number two,” said Brianna, sitting at the card table with Sisler.

“Looking for friends again, Chase?” asked Heidi.

Chase nodded eagerly. “Mmhmm! What you say, Jen? Want be friends?”

Jen looked her over, then quickly shook her head. “Sorry sweetie, but you got reppie written all over you.”

Surprised, Chase looked down at herself. “Do? Where?”

“If I had my reptile detector I could confirm you’re a human,” said Jen. “Hell, even some of my anti-reptile bullets would do the trick, since they only work on reptiles.” She sighed and shook her head. “That’s what I tried to tell everybody when I was in court. The fact that those people died is proof they were really a bunch of scheming reppies. If they were humans, how did an anti-reptile bullet, which ONLY WORKS ON REPTILIAN SHAPESHIFTERS, kill them? I mean, doyyyy! How hard is that to figure out? But no, they just didn’t get it.”

“You win some, you lose some,” Heidi replied.

Chase looked at Heidi, realizing she still didn’t know what crime she’d committed to be put in this place. “What you do, Hide?”

Heidi gave Chase a glance over her shoulder, then looked back at the TV. “That’s honestly none of your business, Chase.”

“She doesn’t like to talk about it,” teased Brianna.

“Damn right I don’t.”

“She ate a baby,” Liz explained with a grin. Heidi punched her in the shoulder.

Chase was shocked. “Hide?! You eat kids?! I eat kids too!” said Chase. She had no idea Heidi was so cool.

“It wasn’t on purpose!” Heidi said angrily.

“Not?”

“No!” said Heidi. “I was just babysitting and I got so high I thought he was a turkey. It was an honest mistake. It could happen to anyone.”

“No, no it couldn’t,” said Brianna.

So that was how it went. Thinking about it, it did make sense to Chase that it would be difficult to make friends in here. They were all murderers. Rather than feeling a connection with each other, didn't it make more sense to be suspicious? But then, if that was the normal way to react to someone like her...then that made the fact that Alicia, Lindsey and Caitlin took her in all the more astonishing. Why were they different? What had they been thinking? How did they look past Chase's violent history to see a person they'd want to get to know?

It was a week into her stay before Chase was finally approached by someone again. She was returning from the commissary with three tasty Big Hunk candy bars in tow at the time. The other girls took note of what she had, but only one approached her: Olivia.

“Heeeyyy! Chase, right?” asked the blonde cheerfully, walking over to her.

Chase hesitated before answering. “Yes! Am Chase.”

“I'm Olivia,” said Olivia with a friendly smile. “I feel bad it took me so long to talk to you, but I watched you fight Liz and I’m not gonna lie, you kiiiinda freaked me out!”

Chase remembered what Liz had told her about Olivia, but at the same time, the girl's aura was very disarming. She didn't seem dangerous in the slightest. In fact, she seemed rather friendly (of course she’d been warned about that too). Part of it was her voice. It was warm and sweet, with some slight rasp and creak leftover from puberty. This paired with her very slender build, even slimmer than Caitlin's or Alicia's, with her skinny arms and shoulders, gave Chase the impression of a very nonthreatening person.

Chase decided to set her preconceived notions aside and give Olivia a chance. It was what Alicia would do, after all. “That fine. Nice meet, Liv,” she said, returning Olivia's smile.

Olivia looked at the candy bars in Chase's left hand. “Whatcha got there? Big Hunks? Interesting choice!”

Chase looked at them, then back at Olivia. “Yes. Nug nug is fave. Hunk have most nug nug.”

“Makes sense to me,” said Olivia. “And you've got three of them! Wow.”

“Yes. One for me, one for Lou, one for night me.”

“Aw,” said Olivia. “I was hoping you'd give one to me.”

Chase looked at the Big Hunks. “You want?”

“Yeah,” she said. “I mean, I was thinking you and me could be friends. You want that, don't you? You're looking for friends.”

“Yes! Do want friend.”

“Well, you can be friends with me and my group. I know Louise is your friend too, but like, there's one of her. Me and my friends, there's four of us. And we have a lot higher standing in here. Like, you wouldn't want me as an enemy, Chase. Let me put it that way.”

“No! Not want that,” said Chase cheerfully. She handed Olivia a Big Hunk. “Okay, here go. Us friends now?”

Olivia happily took the Big Hunk. “Sure, sure. But, uh, we have to put it to a vote, you know. Me and the other girls. Until then, you can't hang out with me or talk to me. Okaayyy?”

“Okay!” Chase replied, nodding happily. Olivia turned and walked away, giving her a wave before beginning to unwrap the bar.

Chase was feeling quite good about the whole thing. It looked like she was well on her way to making a new friend. And if a Big Hunk was all it cost her, that was worth it.

“You realize she was just using you, right?” asked a calm voice from overhead.

Chase looked up. It was the girl with the pear and the ponytail she saw on the first day, who she’d since learned was named Tatum. She was standing on the catwalk, leaning her elbows on the railing.

“Use?” asked Chase, a bit surprised. From what Chase had observed over the past week, Tatum was another one of H-Block’s solitary girls. But it wasn't out of shyness. It was a simple standoffish presence, a vibe she sent off which was impossible not to pick up. A vibe which said that she was not to be messed with, and that she defined 'being messed with' quite stringently. She would have been the last person Chase expected to talk to her.

Chase was not the only one who took note of this rare occurrence. Around the common area, the sound of Tatum's scarcely-heard voice brought a few glances in their direction.

“This is pretty standard for her. There's nobody on the outside who puts money into her commissary. She killed anybody who might have given her some,” said Tatum. “Usually she uses her cult's numbers to threaten violence in order to get what she wants, but she probably figured that wouldn't work on you.”

Chase was shocked. She watched Olivia return to her cell, where Angel was waiting. She held the Big Hunk up to show her, and they both shared a laugh. “Not friend? Just want Hunk?” asked Chase. “But...that MEAN!”

“Yeah. Good job,” said Tatum. She watched Chase for a moment, then got her attention with a, “Hey.”

Chase looked up. “Could use a spotter in the gym,” Tatum continued. “Care to join me?”