Deuce worked in the kitchen; she’d spent some number of stolen hours smelting a ballpoint into a shiv, melting the end in the gas burner, then rubbing the pen against a rough concrete corner until it held its edge. The word whispered across the line is that the guard—a squat, hairy comma of a man known to take liberties during pat-downs—grabbed Deuce in her crotch. Her response was to coolly slip her hand into the waistband of her sweatpants, spring her shiv, and, in one silky move, slip it knuckle deep into the guard’s neck. It was, the whisper-line said, like watching a viper uncoil and sink
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