Dangerous Territory

Eleven

"Those are the ground rules," Tanya mumbled as they walked through the hallway, the only other sound being the clicking of their heels against the hard floor. "You'll learn the rest as we go along."

Mala nodded, choosing the overlook the fact that the woman refused to make eye contact unless absolutely necessary, and that she always walked a couple paces ahead. It was exactly the same thing that blondie had done; who she hadn't seen in the hours that she had been at work. The prison was like a ghost town: hauntingly quiet.

"We'll spend most of our time on the ground floor, room G5, which is one of the camera rooms, overlooking the front of the building and the prisoner cells. Always have your notepad and always document."

"Okay."

Tanya stiffened at the sound of her voice and walked a bit faster, "we'll go there now and you can introduce yourself to the camera men. They are..." she trailed off and Mala didn't bother to question her on what she was going to say. "After that you're done for the day. Tomorrow I'll take you through some things and Thursday will be your official start."

Mala couldn't wait to get away from the woman, fed up of her jumpy attitude, yet at the same time she wished that she could be in the penitentiary for that little bit longer. She was starting to get used to some of the layout, recognising halls and rooms that she had briefly been in before, and she wished that she was able to ask further questions, however she knew there would come a time for that. For the moment, she had to pace herself.

Rushing would be her downfall if she gave into the urge.

Plus, in about an hour she had to be at the university campus, signing in for the first day of class as well as picking up all the work that she would need to catch up on. She just didn't have the time to spend too much longer at Irongate.

Hopefully she would get a glimpse of Auden soon though. The bond was tugging on her, whispering to her that she should turn around and trail the pull towards him.

They didn't walk for too much longer before stopping in front of room G5.

Tanya seemed to have a bit of a wobble before pushing open the door and walking inside.

Mala knew immediately what the human had been trying to say earlier.

The whole room smelt like shifter.

At their entrance, the two men in the room turned to face them, eyes trained on Mala. They were sat on rotating office chairs in front of the numerous camera screens, wary expressions on their face.

Tanya spoke up first, looking at the notebook in her hand rather than any of the shifters in the room, "this is Joan's replacement."

Mala plastered a nice smile on her face to cover up the sad pang that hit her chest at Tanya's pathetic introduction, "I'm Malandra. It's nice to meet you."

She walked forward and held out her hand to the man that smelt an awful lot like chocolate chip cookie dough. He towered over her when he stood up, thick black hair and dark moles over his face being the second thing she noticed about him. He had permanent smile lines around his mouth, and a particularly intense scowl on his face.

"Jon," he said simply, shaking her hand with a firm grip before retracting it just as fast.

The second, lemon and lime smelling man, gave her a once over, his shocking olive eyes narrowing when he was done with his observation.

"Mattheus." He said, reaching to shake her hand in a similarly unenthusiastic manner.

Mala took note of his light brown hair and the stud in his nose, the way he quickly turned away from her and looked back at the cameras as though she was the most uninteresting thing to happen to the room. Jon looked at her for one second longer than his friend and then was turning away without another word too.