To Steal the Heart of a Thief {Pokemon Ranger Fanfiction} (Pokemon Watty Awards 2015)

Chapter 40: Begin Again

(Third Person POV)

"...got any threes?"

"Nope. Draw."

"Shit..."

Rena's lips involuntarily curled up into a tiny smirk as she held her cards in her hand, winning at "Go Fish" against her cell mate.

Kim Daley, Rena's former classmate and a total bitch, bitterly pulled a card from the deck on their cardboard box table, glancing at the metal bars that confined them to this tiny, below-average room. "I swear you're cheating or something, Ren'."

"What?" Rena somehow managed a laugh at just how ridiculous that was. "It's Go Fish! How do you even cheat at this game!?"

Kim threw her cards up into the air out of frustration. "How the hell should I know! You just are! ...somehow." She glanced down at the cracked concrete floor, furrowing her ginger-colored eyebrows together as she rolled her neck to the side.

The two girls dressed in grocery-bag-esce orange jumpsuits with thick, greasy coated hair pulled up into ponytails were enjoying their typical day of playing cards with each other in their prison cell. They did this every day; yesterday, Tuesday, was black jack day. It's not like either of them had much else to do, anyways... Rena had luckily found herself jammed in a cell along with another woman her age by the familiar name of Kim Daley.

Kim Daley, the single most horrible person on earth who gave Rena such a hard time when they first met, had been in prison for nearly two and a half years now for stealing hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of Stylers from the Ranger School and setting Rena up for it. She still had one and a half years to go, unlike Rena, who was stuck here for life. The brunette had only been here for two weeks now, but after being cell mates for that long, Kim couldn't help but throw old grudges aside and get along with her. After all, she wasn't completely inhuman.

Prison and solitary confinement changes a person. That was a lesson Rena learned her first day when she met Kim again. She remembered how she was a little more than just nervous at first about getting to stay in the same cell as her, concerned the ginger might shank her in her sleep, but the two actually sort of became friends and watched each other's backs while they were locked up. Even if Rena had Kim for company for only less than two years, she was still grateful.

KNOCK KNOCK!

The loud pounding on their cell door echoed throughout the hollow prison and sent chills up through the two convicts. Rena casually swung her head around with a lazy roll and stared at the moderately armed prison guard addressing them with a bored expression.

The female guard stared into Rena's cell with her typical, unamused glower as her inky hair brushed over her eyes. "Hey, Deveraux. You've got visitors."

Rena's eyebrow shot up into her hairline at the sound of those odd words. "...What? Who?"

The guard shrugged carelessly, not really giving a damn about who or what was in the prison. "Don't know, don't care. Let's go."

Kim watched her cell mate slowly get up, crack each joint in her elastic body, and walk through the door the guard unlocked. The former adversary of Rena called out to the woman of dark brown hair really quick. "Hey, Ren'... Again, I'm really sorry for what I did to you."