Bent Not Broken: Hannah Tree, #1

By D M Macdonald

The Prequel to the Hannah Tree series where Hannah first takes on justice.

 

To survive after her shattered childhood Hannah Trevelyan has few options. Removing  the word 'surrender' from her dictionary is one. To exist she must win. In that fight she sometimes runs afoul of the law. But to Hannah the law and justice aren't aways the same.

For instance she gets attacked, she goes to Juvie.

She planned to sit out her time quietly under the radar. Keeping herself to herself. Then came Shelby. A very unwelcome roommate. Shelby's beaten, scared and vulnerable so Hannah reluctantly agrees to take on her enemies.

She knew a roommate would be a pest but as she pursues the twisting and turning evidence she finds something far more sinister than a prison fight. Her belief in justice throws her into a storm of deceit and death as she faces a killer who has Hannah in her sights and ruthlessness on her side? Can Hannah match it, outwit her and stay alive in an environment where snitching to the screws can bring the whole place down around her ears?

• Language: English
• Publisher: D M Macdonald
• Release date: Aug 17, 2022
• ISBN: 9798201589103

Book preview

1

Ilike my sleep. It's hard enough to get any with screams, moans and clanging coming from outside my cell, without my cellmate sobbing and howling day and night inside it. They keep telling me it's not a cell, it's a room. I am sick of being surrounded by people who know the truth but tell you you're wrong when you say it. It's a cell.

And this is one of the very few two person cells. Double rooms they call them. Not much bigger than the singles but with bunks. Two for the price of one. I'd been as comfortable as you could expect in my single cell, then two days ago, without any explanation, I was moved to this one and saddled with Miss Whinge and Howl. I reckon my saying, why me, was fair enough.

I hate cellmates. I accepted that I had to stay in that hole of a place but torture is a crime and sharing with this dumb bitch was torture. To be fair the occasional yell or even scream because of bad dreams is okay. I woke myself up doing that sometimes, but two days and nights of this was a deal breaker.

Obviously complaining to the screws wasn't an option. Anything more than a request for constipation relief was the limit. As far as I was concerned I was a prisoner of war. Name rank and serial number only was my code. That night after another hour of this stupid kid's whimpering escalating into downright howling I'd had enough. I swung down from my bunk and stood in front of her.

`Okay, what's the fucking problem?'

She got such a shock that she stopped immediately. Her eyes bugged and her jaw dropped onto her skinny chest. That's when I noticed for the first time that she was a mess. Her face was wet with tears and she had two black eyes. That was just the bruises. The whites of them were red. I stared at her. You don't get eyes that red just from crying. Even for two days. Around the edges maybe but not the whites. I'd been around long enough to know that someone must have given her a hiding. A bad one.

She hiccupped and wiped her face with her arm. `You wouldn't understand,' she muttered, another sob escaping.

She was right, but anything to stop the noise. `Try me and if you start that howling again I'll deck you.' The sobbing started again. `I told you. Stop that and tell me what's going on.' I didn't really want to know but I couldn't put up with the crap anymore. `Well?'

`I think I'm going to die.'

`What? Don't be stupid. How old are you anyway?'

She was one of the younger girls, around thirteen at a guess.

`Fifteen, why?' I shrugged. So a baby face and playing it. I'd keep that in mind because she wasn't that much younger than me.

`I don't mean I'm sick or nothin', I mean they're goin' to kill me.'

`Oh yeah, who's they?' She burst into even louder tears. `I can't help you if you keep doing that,' I snapped. `Stop now or you're on your own.'

I was so surprised at what I'd said that I had to grab the side of the ladder to steady myself. Had I offered to help someone? I never did that. I didn't give a shit about other people's problems. I didn't ask for help with mine and I expected them to take care of theirs. It was the only way to survive in a world that's always out to get you.

She looked up at me again. `I don't think you can. I don't think anyone can.'

That did it. I didn't have to help her, I had to win against her enemy. Totally different.

`Okay, what's your name again?' Maybe I should have known because it was two days since she was put in here, but I'd paid as little attention to her as I could, given her noise.

`Shelby.'

`Right, Shelby, who's after you?'

She looked pointedly at the camera high on the wall and whispered, `I can't tell you that or I'll be dead before I—'

`Jesus! We're the only ones in here, Shelby. Like just us.'

She stared at me, wet faced, eyes wide and said nothing. That told me everything. She was shit scared of the screws. Whether they were threatening her and what about, we'd see.

`Right. That's cool,' I said smiling at her. She wanted to play silly bugger games. Why not, it was keeping her quiet. I mimed, I get it. I picked up my notebook and a pencil then did something I never, ever did. I sat next to her. Then I wrote - don't nod or smile - just point - screws alone or someone else or both? -

She pointed at the - both -. So she was terrified of the screws and some other prisoners. They hated me describing us as prisoners. In Juvenile Detention we were detainees. We were detained in this nice, safe and secure environment where we could be assisted to address our offending behaviour. Pity about the people whose offending behaviour was why we'd offended in the first place. They were walking free.

I whispered to her that we sit on her bed with our backs to the door. In the bottom bunk the camera, there for our safety, couldn't catch what we were doing. I wrote - why? -

She took the pencil - I seen something -

I wrote - What? -

She whispered, `I can't tell you? I told you that.'

I sighed. This was one dumb kid. As if the screws wouldn't know someone was hiding something when they whispered that they couldn't tell a cell mate? Sheesh. I kept humouring her though. It was the red eyes.

I thought of something. `Shelby, where were you before last Sunday?'

`Here.'

`No. I mean what cell were you in before this one? Were you sharing and with who?' I might get more sense out of her ex-roommate. She buried her face in a tissue, shook her head and mumbled something. I took a guess. `Solitary? What did you do?'

`Nothin', I was in the infirmary for a day and then they stuck me in there for three days. They never said why.'

I gave her a look. If you were put in solitary there was usually a good reason.

`They didn't,' she wailed.

Maybe it was because she was screaming and howling and drove everyone nuts so they put her away in a cell by herself. Made sense to me. They should have left her there until she shut up, then I wouldn't have to put up with her. What did I do that she was transferred to share with me?