After bathing her and switching out her clothes, the medical staff sent her back to the dorm accompanied by two guards. An hour after the treatment, Tasìa was still too weak to carry herself. She limped along, held up between the two men.
At just under five feet tall, and ninety-five pounds, she did not impose much of a burden on anyone.
The guards laid her on her cot where she sank down on the mattress before thanking them. After the guards left, two inmates came by to gawk and peek into her cell. Divider walls, six feet in height, defined the individual cells in the larger dorm.
"Are you all right, honey," asked the older woman. The same lady who had snitched her out earlier.
Tasìa clamped her teeth together in a continuous pensive grind to deter the anger she felt. Tasìa was uncomfortable being rude to others. Even those who deserved nothing but absolute derision.
She wanted to snarl with bared teeth and even hiss at the woman like a spitting cobra to express her disgust. Instead, Tasìa covered her mouth with a tightly curled fist.
The other woman, a slim young thing with a lazy eye and uncontrollable hair whom other inmates called 'Este-Oeste', started to speak.
"Missi," she began, "wanted me to tell you that you won't be allowed in the gym until the painters have a chance to cover the walls in some kind of acrylic that prevents climbing."
Tasìa nodded. She expected as much.
"It's for your own good," said the older lady in a voice dripping in condescension.
"Fuck you, Javierra," came a voice heavily Argentinian in accent from behind them. As she entered the cell, Felicité smirked.
On the streets of Asunción, Ria Javierra was a mafiosa dame of rank. She wasn't use to being spoken back to roughly.
Javierra was caught by surprise. She snarled at first, but then backed up with an astonished look on her face when she realized it was Felicité.
The tall blonde approached into the older woman's space. Her shoulders spread out archly as she stood in a hauteur pose with her long, gaunt Lombardian figure on full display.
On her right side, her hair was long with the silky light sheen of new corn shucks. The left side was cut in a fade.
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Stark cold blue eyes held above a hawk nose now turned on Javierra.
"Leave," she commanded.
As the blonde watched the pair leave, Tasìa got a good look at the cochlear implant beneath Felicité's right ear. A dampener.
Once they were alone, the Argentinian's eyes set on Tasìa.
"Can you believe those cows," Felicité asked.
"Quite bold of you, Felicité. She knows people. She is people."
"Fuck the mafia. Do you know how they get their pull? By licking the jackboot that set their franchises up in the first place."
Tasìa and Felicité were not truly friends, but neither was the thief afraid of her nor did she avoid the anarchist' company. Unlike the other girls, Tasìa liked her.
She gestured to a plastic chair as she pulled herself up from her bed.
"Come in, have a seat," Tasìa said.
Felicité shook her head. She held some things in her hands.
"I won't be here long. I brought you something. This-" the Argentinian said as she lay a pill bottle on the top of Tasìa's locker, "-is for your nausea and your pain. "This-," she laid down four mini bottles of vodka beside the pill bottle, "-is to wash the pills down with."
Tasìa smiled, thinking it was good having the anarchist of notoriety in her corner.
"I can't possibly thank you enough, Felicité."
She reached over to the locker top. The blonde helped her with the pill bottle top cap.
"That is where you are wrong, sister. Oh, it is not free," she said with a smirking giggle.
Felicité's tone changed to an empathetic one as she tapped two pills into Tasìa's hand.
"But the price isn't that high either. Starting tomorrow evening, I have orderly duties in Spore Isolation. I need help with the power vac and pressure wash, and the other equipment, as well. You see, my arms are on the skinny side."
Felicité clenched her biceps in demonstration.
Tasìa chortled as she answered, "And I am less than one hundred pounds, soaking wet."
"Working together with the equipment we should be okay."
"You keep me supplied with this, I'll help you every night," Tasìa said.
She swallowed the pair of pills and chased them down with a drink.
Placing a firm grip on Tasìa's forearm, Felicité pointed to a nearby intercom speaker with a nod of her head. She then scooped the thief's naked ear and she mouthed the words, 'you hear it?' Twice Felicité repeated to ensure Tasìa understood.
Tasìa listened. Indeed, there was a slight feedback coming from the intercom. Someone was listening in on them.
Felicité passed her a note.
It read: I need to talk to you when we get some privacy over in Spore Isolation. Some friends of mine are interested in you.
'About what," Tasìa mouthed back, silently.
Felicité peeked over to the intercom, then she put her lips to Tasìa's ear.
"Who told you that you have cancer? Did they supply you with any evidence?"