An hour or so later, Nell found herself in a jail cell with a Caucasian skinhead. Before she could introduce herself to the woman, a loud buzzer blared twice, and the cell gate reopened.
The woman gave Nell a once-over with frank curiosity. She sported a similar forearm barcode tattoo and a few personal ones like the chunky, gold chain of hearts around her neck and the word Dani in large scroll down her thick bicep and humana potentia down her opposite forearm. Her blonde eyebrows and the stubble on her scalp hinted at her hair color. The woman dipped her chin. “You comin’ or are ya too busy gawkin’?” and scanned her barcode tattoo on a wall screen. When it beeped, she stepped outside to join a line of inmates outside their cell.
Nell made the same motion with her new tattoo and stepped out of the cell, her neck stretching to take in the long queue of women before she joined them in line. Gritty inmates with snooker-ball scalps, either recently shorn or in various states of regrowth, like Peony’s had been with her Celtic tattoo, a hand with a sword, telling Gabe at dinner it was her MacAlister Clan insignia. Nell never had the chance to ask Peony why her hair was shaved off and if she had done it voluntarily. Nell touched her dark waves now as if to bid them goodbye.
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