Thread: El Cereso Prison (Steel Butterfly & Adam)

The cargo. Was such the way in which her presence had been announced? The way in which one of these so called cops had deemed it fit to describe a human being? Joanne felt the previously dormant anger within her flare anew as she was roughly pushed forward, the sudden movement almost tipping her off-balance. The momentary struggle to remain on her feet only added to her humiliation, which in turn fed her frustration as she glared at the man who had so unceremoniously presented her to the man behind the desk. It was not that the research journalist - assuming that she would ever be able to return to her home-country and exercise her profession once again - had not suffered from likewise indignity. It was not that she had been treated with much kindness the past few days, the days leading up to the trial in which she found herself condemned for a crime she had not committed. Charged for a murder which supposedly had been committed in the name of the very drug cartel whose activities she had been tracing. It... Even now, the mere realization - or perhaps, her lack of understanding, the inability to comprehend just how she had ended up in all of this - still dazed her. Her feverish mind had never ceased its seemingly futile struggle as it tried to wrap itself around the events from the past few weeks. First, there had been the lead, the initial peaking of interest when she had stumbled upon something. She had been helping a colleague who was working on article on Mexican prisons, which in and of itself had been nothing special. Everyone knew how corrupt the Mexican system was how the few honest law enforcers were out-numbered by their many crooked and corrupt colleagues. How the violence of the drug cartels had infected the entire society - prison bars unable to stop most if any of it. The files had been documenting several interviews with prisoners, described some of their activities. But there had been more, Joanne would quickly find. More to the often sad and harsh stories of those who had ended up behind the bars. The bloody trails of the cartels did not stop at their prison bars. Instead, she had found clues pointing that the corruption had spread towards the States. Which again, was nothing new. Money was money and for all the violence and death that surrounded the drug cartels, it was the promise of decadent riches that kept them going. However, this time the trail had not led to a simple US cop near the border. It had been far worse. The dedicated journalist had found traces leading all the way to an US senator and like any proper research journalist, she had continued to follow the trails, determined to bring out to the truth. Even when the trails led her back to Mexico, where she hoped to meet up with some people who might provide her with more substantial evidence, cementing the information she had found up until now. Everything had went well - or well enough - when suddenly events had taken a grim turn. It had started with the call. A call from the security company, telling her that her home-alarm had been set off. Joanne found it odd, given how she had taken great care to make certain that her neighbor turned on the lights every now and then, closing the curtains at night and what-not. In fact, very few people knew that she was away from home. It had been enough reason for her to return to the small motel where she was staying - to make sure that it was just a coincidence. That someone had simply broken into her apartment in hopes of stealing the over-sized TV perhaps. When she had returned to the motel however, things went really awry. There had been two police cars outside the building. The kind lady behind the improvised reception had regarded her nervously as she saw her appear, saying something to the cop which stood next to her. Then things went fast. Too fast. The cop had approached her - gun drawn. Shocked, Joanne had simply complied with his demands, vaguely recalling something about a murder as she was forced onto the ground. She had been taken to a small police station, where she had to confirm her identity, which she did. Charges had not been made still - even though one of the cops had regarded her with disgust as she was rough-handled into another car, a day later. She had been taken to another police station where she learned that she had been arrested on suspicion of murder. A triple murder at that. The outrage did not stop there however, for they presented her with the evidence. Photos of a murder so horrid and callous that she found herself looking away in disgust were shoved in her face over and over. The gun, which had been found in her motel room. With her prints. A witness. More witnesses. It had all been one big blur and her profound lack of sleep in the small holding cells and damp interrogation chambers in which she had spent most of her time had done little to improve her situation. She denied, of course. She begged for a lawyer. Which was denied too, of course. The evidence was overwhelming and were it not for the fact that she knew that it had not been her finger pulling the trigger on those three people, she might have believed herself guilty too. And then there had been the actual trial. Her denial had made little difference within an hour she was found guilty and sentenced to three lifetimes in prison. One for each of her victims. For once, the Mexican legal system had worked surprisingly swift and quick. Now, she found herself here. Her hands cuffed behind her back like the dangerous criminal she was thought to be, her two handlers ready to surrender her to the next step in the justice system prison itself. Where she was to remain for the rest of her life. Joanne still refused to believe it, telling herself that she would be proven herself innocent soon enough. Her fierce eyes studied the man as he 'welcomed' her into the prison, trying to determine his worth. El Cereso. The name sounded vaguely familiar to her. Her thoughts however were interrupted by the sudden hunger she noticed in his previously cold eyes. He was staring at her. Or more precisely, staring at her breasts and the dirt bag was not even trying to hide it..! Offended by his almost hungry stares at rather specific features of her slender frame, Joanne found herself struggling with her cuffs, instinctively wanting to cross her arms in front of her chest - obscuring them from his view as her cheeks began to glow. She growled softly when she felt the cuffs straining against the flesh of her wrists, the pain reminding her that all of this was more than just a horrid nightmare. Her green-brown eyes stared at him angrily as she felt herself taken aback by the shamelessness of this man. Get your eyes off of me! Joanne hissed, feeling how the pent-up frustration with her situation, with everything, began surfacing anew. Perhaps it had even been inspired by the smug smile which had accompanied the man's comment - or had it been the comment itself, the suggestion that this could become her home, that strangers like him could stare at her like that without any consequence. Perhaps it simply had been her, that inability to cope with injustice of any kind - that same drive which had caused her to follow the trail of corruption all the way to Mexico. And also, the same drive which no doubt had landed her here. In what appeared to be nothing short of a set-up by those same corrupted people she had sought to persecute... She knew not what had caused the anger, but she was grateful for it. Grateful for the anger that steeled her backbone rather than the feverish fears which had plagued her for the past days, weeks even. Instead, she now faced up to the man behind the desk with defiance, biting back her fear and forcing herself to narrow her previously wide-open and more fearful eyes. Of course, there was little victory to be had here, the woman unable to shelter herself completely from his bold stares, but she would not have him treat her like that.