A Whole New Set of Rules.

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Three hours later, Elizabeth was literally being dragged down what the guards of Alcatraz prison call 'Michigan Avenue' in nothing less than utter pain and dismay and completely unable to move her legs fast enough to walk along with the guards.

Her beautiful dark ringlets of hair had been completely shaved off in the barber shop. She also found out that the 'markings' that the Warden had spoken of were nothing of the sort, but rather black tattoos across the tender flesh about two inches up from both her scarred wrists and the back of her neck that read 'W01Az' and were for the moment covered in white gauze.

She had also changed into standard issue Alcatraz inmate clothing. Light blue long sleeved un-collared button up shirt, top of the neck and both sleeve buttons were to be undone at all times and shirt to be tucked in. Rather uncomfortable blue and white trousers that were a touch too long in the leg and definitely too baggy everywhere else being that they were made for men but were nonetheless held up with a brown webbed belt that read 'W01' on it in black bold letters - the number on the belt to be in the center of her back at all times - and standard black prison issue shoes.

"Ms. Oldin, how very nice to see you again. I almost didn't recognize you without all your long beautiful hair." The Warden was standing in front of a small and rather bleak looking cell with its door open.

"It's Mrs. Oldin, if you don't mind Warden," Elizabeth retorted, her bright green eyes not meeting his but instead falling upon the Warden's chest as he stood before her.

"Only before you killed your husband." A malevolent grin spread across the Warden's face and again he bared those pearly white fanglike teeth and looked Elizabeth up and down. "Now Ms. Oldin, this is your cell." The Warden pivoted on his foot and walked inside; with a hard shove the guards pushed the dark angel in after him.

"You will keep your cell neat and tidy at all times." He turned around and glared straight into Elizabeth's eyes as he spoke. "You will report for breakfast every morning promptly after cell count. Like all the other prisoners here you will be expected to keep quiet at all times during the day no matter where you are. After breakfast, you will be back here for cell count before you go about your daily duties. I think you can work in either the kitchens or in the barbershop fixing clothes. All details are in this book," he pointed to a thick spiral bound book sitting on the small bed.

For half an hour the Warden continued explaining the lengthy rules to Elizabeth who stood in the center of the cell and only half pretended to listen to the drawling voice and trying to pick the hint of an accent in his words.

"One last thing Oldin, the uniform rule clearly states that inmates are to wear their shirts with sleeves rolled down and unbuttoned and top neck button undone, although, for you, being a woman confined to a prison full of men I am thinking that perhaps we can change that rule slightly." With a malevolent twinkle in the Warden's steely blue-gray eyes he reached out a strong hand and plucked off the next two small black buttons on her shirt with great ease. "Yes I think that three buttons undone will be much more appropriate for you, just to make sure you're not hiding anything down your brassier. Oh sorry that's right, I was just informed the other day that you're not allowed to wear one. Oh well. I think we should keep it at three anyway. Any questions?"

Elizabeth wanted so desperately to punch the Warden right in the mouth much like she did her husband, not ask any stupid questions. Although not wanting to stay silent for too long while actually given the opportunity to speak she asked the first thing that came into her head. "I can guess the Az on the tattoos but why 'W01?'"

"You Ms. Oldin just so happen to be our very first woman prisoner on Alcatraz Island, ever. The W is obviously for woman and the 01 pretty much speaks for itself I would think. Anything else?"

Elizabeth nodded her head in understanding, her face and bright green eyes completely devoid of any emotion and thought of another rather pointless question, knowing the answer before she even asked the question. "And what happens to me if I do so choose to not comply to these rules of yours the way you want me to Warden?"

"Did you happen to see those metal stairs leading down to another level in our A-block just down from the barbers? Well right down there is what some of the inmates around here like to call the dungeons. They were used for storage when this island was a military base long before it was a prison and still now we mainly use them for storage. But when it comes to some of the slightly more difficult criminals that come by every now and then those are our real solitary confinement cells. Make-of-the-art they are. If you chose to not comply with our rules, we stick you in dungeon solitary until such a time as you do decide to comply with those rules. Or until you cannot argue anymore one way or the other, I hope you understand that." The Warden walked out of the cell and slammed the door closed behind him. "Is that all Oldin?"

"No actually it's not," Elizabeth said walking towards the bars still showing absolutely no emotion on her face. "It's just one last question though. Can you tell me what the time is?"

The Warden looked at down at the expensive silver watch around his wrist, "it's just nearing 4 o'clock. I'll be back soon. While I'm gone you should get to know your cell, get acquainted with it and comfortable, you're going to be in there a while from what we hear. And make sure you read that book before I get back; you'll need to know everything inside it if you want to survive around here. At 4:35 you will hear a bell sound out through the speakers, it is the count bell. Stand in front of the bars facing outwards, when you hear the bell sound again the cell door will automatically slide open, I'll be here before then."

Elizabeth stood in the middle of her cell as intense stabs of pain gripped at her wrists and neck and calmly she watched the Warden turn and walk down the corridor back the way she had come with the two guards only a few paces behind him. "Asshole," she whispered under her breath as soon as the three men were out of earshot.

Elizabeth walked around the cramped 9 by 5 foot cell; noticing just how little space she did have inside her new home before slumping on the small and seriously uncomfortable bed and sobbing into the pillow.

* * * * *

Elizabeth awoke to loud footsteps coming down the corridors and up the metal stairs at the end of her hallway. She guessed it was the inmates coming back from their work.

Metal doors slid open and clanged closed all down the corridor and above her. No one walked past her cell to get to their own though.

She got off the bed unsteadily and stood in front of the bars, trying to see anyone down the corridor, but the man she saw so clearly walking down the long corridor towards her confined little cell was not any man she wanted to see. Warden McNeill and two large guards in Alcatraz clothing were striding confidently down the hallway.

"Shit," the dark angel whispered to herself in a panic and quickly picked up the rulebook she had been told to read and sat on the bed with her back pressed against the wall. Flicking to somewhere in the middle of the large book Elizabeth make it look like she had been reading.

"Oldin!" McNeill yelled in a fierce voice as he turned to face her cell.

Elizabeth didn't move at all but to flick her green eyes up from the pages of the book to look at the Warden standing before her cell.

"On your feet for the Warden convict!" one of the guards shouted at Elizabeth loudly as he took a step forward and glared at her menacingly.

Her eyes flicked from the guard back to McNeill, moving slowly and making no attempt to do otherwise, Elizabeth closed the book carefully and placed it down on her bed before she slowly moved from the spot where she had been sitting and stood in the middle of the cell. Looking at McNeill with an intense glare but once again showing no emotion whatsoever on her pretty face.

The Warden returned the glare through his cruel blue-gray eyes with a deadly and clearly malicious intent, his face staring sternly at her.

Elizabeth decided she would be the one to break the uncomfortable silence hanging thickly in the air between the two of them. "So are you going to tell me what's going on out there?"

McNeill laughed forebodingly and a sick smile spread across his face but the glare of wickedness in his eyes never once faltered. "You didn't get that far in the book yet I take it then?"

"Not yet."

"Most of the men are coming in from work. You'll be starting tomorrow morning, all the necessary arrangements have already been made. You will be working in the clothing section. But, I do need you to fill these forms out when you can." The smile faded and his face turned ice cold again as he handed his newest inmate the papers through the thick metal bars.

"What for?" Elizabeth asked as she reached out and carefully took them from his hand, making sure she never once touched his skin.

"They'll allow you to receive and send mail, if you don't have those papers filled out you don't receive mail from anyone. You can receive mail from only four people that you nominate and you can send two letters each week but only to one of those four people. You have pencils and paper on that shelf behind you, both of which will be topped up weekly."

An alarm bell loudly sounded out around them. Elizabeth suddenly broke eye contact with McNeill from the startling noise and looked about, still appearing completely emotionless.

"That's the count bell," McNeill said in a satisfied way at the slightly surprised reaction the noise had evoked in Elizabeth. "Stand in front of the bars and wait for the alarm to sound again." His steely gray eyes were still boring deep into hers in a failed attempt to be somewhat intimidating to the convicted woman.

Elizabeth put the small pile of papers the Warden had handed her down on the bed next to the unread book then turned around and made eye contact with McNeill again, her eyes glaring defiantly at him before she slowly stepped up to the thick metal bars. Her face was merely inches apart from his now, their eyes playing a deadly game of Russian roulette. Elizabeth thought that if she held eye contact with McNeill, he wouldn't remember the buttons he had removed from her shirt and look down the rather large gap the open shirt left on her chest.

A menacing smile spread across his face as he indeed remembered the buttons he had removed from her and realized that she was trying to distract him. His ice-cold blue-gray eyes glided slowly down from Elizabeth's eyes and stopped on her slightly exposed chest and he nodded his head in approval. "Good to see you understand our three button rule Oldin."

Elizabeth leant in closer and reached her hands out to grip the bars, her beautiful green glaring eyes burrowing deep into the Warden's.

The guard on his left turned around and shook his hand to the man walking past in the upper gun galley, the man nodded his head back at the guard in approval and continued on his way to finish the count.

Soon after that the alarm sounded again, Elizabeth quickly let go of the bars but didn't move at all as the door between her and McNeill clicked loudly and slid open with a bang.

Footsteps sounded out almost deafeningly on the metal balconies above them and on the stairs as the inmates exited their cells and made their way into the hallway. "Go take your places in the dining hall, both of you," the Warden commanded, turning his head slightly to the guards.

Both the men nodded their heads at their orders and without a word walked off to the dining hall situated at the rear of the prison.

"What now?" Elizabeth asked, still not moving a single muscle in her body or showing any emotion upon her face.

"Supper time. I'll take you off to the dining hall when the rest of the boys have cleared off. Wouldn't want you getting mixed up with the wrong inmates on your first day here now would we?"

"Sure." Elizabeth stepped forward so she was standing directly in the entrance and leant her body against the side of the metal door, continuing to keep her bitter eye contact with the Warden.

Shortly after the noise had died down around them McNeill stepped aside. "Come on then," he said in an icy tone of voice. "Don't want to be late for your first meal with your fellow convicts now do you?"

Elizabeth stepped into the hallway next to the Warden and he immediately latched his strong hand around her upper arm, using the pads of his fingers to zone in on her pressure points and started dragging her towards the dining hall. "You can eat as much or as little of your ration as you like, as long as you eat everything that you have on your plate. No skipping the lines. No pushing. You may go to the coffee urn when there's no one else there. Do you understand me Oldin?"

Elizabeth didn't answer.

McNeill stopped dead in his tracks and with a painful squeeze of his hand around Elizabeth's arm and a violent jerk of his shoulder he flung the dark angel powerfully in front of him. "Do you understand me Ms. Oldin?" he yelled at her menacingly, his hard blue-gray eyes commanding an answer from her.

"Yes," Elizabeth said in a quiet voice as a bolt of fear quickly flicked through her eyes then disappeared again.

"Yes Warden," McNeill pressed as he tightened his grip on her arm.

Elizabeth hesitated even as she felt his fingers digging deeply into the flesh of her arm. The pain was excruciating. "Yes Warden," she replied through tightly clenched teeth, her eyes throwing daggers at him once again, she knew this was not a man to cross too many times in one day.

McNeill continued walking again still dragging Elizabeth by the arm with him. "I have told you already, treat others around here with respect and you will be treated the same. Do you understand that Ms. Oldin?"

"Yes Warden," Elizabeth whispered trying not to let him see the intense pain she was experiencing as McNeill's fingers continued to dig deeper and deeper into the flesh of her arm.

"Do not shout in the dining area, there is strictly no smoking in there also, do you understand Ms. Oldin?"

"Yes Warden," Jonathon had grabbed her by the wrist once or twice in their marriage and tried to tell her things were going to be done his way. Elizabeth had always slapped him across the cheek and not so politely told him to wake up and face the reality. Being dragged along in such a manner by McNeill was nothing less than degrading.

"Good to hear Oldin." They got to the end of the long corridor and turned left. There were two large doors along the wall on their right that were both open in towards the room.

With his hand still clenching Elizabeth's scrawny little arm, McNeill dragged the young woman inside with ease.

Every man in the dining hall instantly stopped what they were doing and looked at the two of them, silence quickly befell the room. Some of the men whispered to each other and the guards looked on in amusement. McNeill stood almost proudly beside his newest little toy and had a smile the size of Texas spread across his face.

"Boys, this is our new inmate, Ms. Oldin."

For a moment all the inmates in the room just kept looking at her, not quite knowing what to make of it then almost simultaneously they started talking amongst themselves again.

"Follow that line over there Oldin." McNeill pointed to the short line at the right hand side of the large room and let his grip on her arm loosen.

Elizabeth pulled her arm away from the Warden as fast as she could and without a second thought the dark angel started walking slowly and somewhat unsteadily towards her designated line. Looking uneasily around the room at the male inmates she would likely be spending at least the next five years with, if not the rest of her life. Most of them were eyeing her up and down almost suspiciously as she walked through the room to the meal line.

Warden McNeill took up his regular post next to the entry doors and started chatting to the guards posted either side of him.

As Elizabeth grabbed a food tray from the pile and joined the end of the line she turned to face the wall and fiddled with her shirt, trying to make it cover her breasts a little better than it did.

"McNeill do that to you?" the man standing in front of her asked, not bothering to turn around and address her face to face.

"What?" Elizabeth asked the man quietly as she turned her head towards him, not entirely hearing what he had said the first time.

"Your shirt," the man clarified as he turned slightly to speak more clearly to the new woman. "Did McNeill do that to you?"

Elizabeth gave a halfhearted laugh and shrugged her shoulders as she shook her head. "You bet he did."

"I'm Sutton, Dean," the man said as he turned his large and rather muscular body to face her slightly. His dark brown eyes were warm and friendly and his smile was the most welcoming one Elizabeth had seen in far too long she thought. "Where they got you staying?"

"Michigan Avenue, A-block, East. Ah, first floor, at least I think that's what my new address is." Elizabeth paused for a moment, thinking of something else to say. She wasn't incredibly keen on silence, especially when the only other noise in the room was whispers of the inmates and guards talking about her to each other. "How long have you been here?"

"Five years," Dean Sutton replied almost happily. "I've only got ten more to go before I'm free of this place. I'm surprised they would put a woman in here though. How long have they given you?"

"5 years here, another 20 somewhere else. If I'm lucky enough to survive I guess," Elizabeth replied grimly.

"Jesus! 25 years? What the hell did you do girl?" he asked in shock.

Elizabeth shook her head. "Honestly Sutton, I ask myself that every single day and I wish I knew the damn answer."

Sutton reached the front of the line and started to collect small bowls of different foods on his tray. Several men stood on the other side of the counter serving up only a few bowls of sloppy food at a time.

"Don't get too much of any chow the first time you come up," Sutton said as he moved down the line and Elizabeth reached out for a bowl. "Even if you're absolutely starving just take a little bit at a time and come back for more if you want it once you've finished. Some of this rubbish they serve is surprisingly filling and McNeill will go absolutely crazy on you if you don't finish everything that's on your plate."

"Oh." With a cocked eyebrow and a look of disgust Elizabeth picked up a small cream coloured ceramic bowl filled with what bared a striking resemblance to incredibly unappetizing dead rats and rice.

Elizabeth continued down the food line following Sutton and picking up only very few bowls of 'chow' as the inmates called it that looked more and more disgusting the further she moved down the line.

"You can come sit with me and my boys if you like Oldin," Sutton offered with a warm smile of his slightly yellow teeth as he rubbed his hand over his short thick black hair.

"Ah, okay then, thanks." Elizabeth casually smiled back at the man who seemed to have befriended her and picked up a stale bread roll that was slathered in what looked like

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