chapter two

daisy

The walls shook with the sound of bell, waking Daisy from her sleep. During the night, she wasn't able to get much and if she did, it wasn't very deep so she woke up exhausted.

She slowly sat up, remembering to bend her head so it didn't hit the top bunk, and groaned at the wet pillow, stained with tears. Her cheeks flushed in embarrassment at the thought of Owen hearing her cry throughout most of the night.

Her cellmate was standing in the small area they had next to their beds, leaning against the wall and looking out of the bars as if he were waiting for something.

"Good," she started but coughed from her dry throat. "Good m-morning." She said shyly to him.

He didn't look at her but replied quietly, "we don't have 'good' mornings here."

"Sorry." She quickly apologised. Daisy didn't really know what for but she didn't want to get on the bad side of anybody, especially her cellmate.

"You have to toughen up if you want to survive here. Can't go around being all small and quiet. You n-need to show people they shouldn't mess with you." He told her, pushing his glasses up his nose and avoiding all eye contact.

"So, I have to be tall and loud?" Her eyebrows creased at his advice.

He confirmed, "yes."

"I can't do that."

Just as he was about the reply, someone, who she assumed from the uniform was a prison staff member, wheeled a cart past their cell. He didn't linger as he quickly looked on the cart and passed some material through the bars of the cell to Owen, before moving along to the next one. She watched Owen quickly glance at the labels and then throw the balled up clothes at her, hitting her in the face. Daisy mumbled a thank you and then looked at what she was given.

Immediately, she could tell it was several sizes too big, just like her orange jumpsuit. With the little courage she had in the early morning with no food in her stomach, she shyly asked, "isn't there a smaller size?"

Owen turned to look at her and raised both of his hands in a mock defensive position, one hand holding his own prison uniform. "Oh I'm sorry, princess. Is that not good enough for you? I'm sorry they don't have Prada or Gucci here." He said sarcastically.

The malice in his voice made Daisy's eyes start to water so she lowered her gaze and played her fingers. She didn't even dare ask him about undergarments. Eventually, he sighed, before ordering, "get dressed before they open up the cells for breakfast."

Her eyes widened and looked up at the cell doors. If anybody walked by, they would be able to clearly see right into her cell. Then she looked at Owen with worry, wondering how she'd get changed with people watching.

He rolled his eyes and walked to her. Daisy shuffled back so she was close to the wall and further away from the cellmate. She watched curiously as he reached up to his bunk, grabbed his bed sheet and then walked to the cell door. Holding it up as high as he could, he covered the door with the white sheet, effectively blocking the view.

"Quick." He snapped.

She took this as the cue to get dressed as quick as she could. Though not taking any chances and risking her dignity, she crawled under her sheet and, while struggling, successfully changed out of her jumpsuit and into the grey sweatpants and top.

"Done." She mumbled quietly and emerged from the sheets.

He put the sheet down and threw it back on the the bed.  The small girl began to fold her sleeves with a pout of her lips, frowning at the abundance of extra material. "Turn around. I'm not giving any free shows here." Owen said to her, making her jump and blush in embarrassment.

A moment later, the familiar bell sounded and the cell doors opened, followed by a buzz of people shouting, startling Daisy once again. She found that since being in the prison, despite only being there for a night, she was very on edge all the time as evident from her jumping at every sudden sound.

"C'mon. If you get lost, don't expect me to find you." He looked her in the eyes and added, "stay close."

Daisy smiled at him a little, thinking that he wasn't too bad and she could've had a much worse of a cellmate. She considered herself extremely thankful to have met Owen.

Climbing out of the bed, she slipped her shoes on and hurriedly rolled her pants up, both at the waist and the legs. She was eighteen but felt like a five year old in all the oversized clothes had been given.

Seeing that Owen was already at the door waiting for a large group of prisoners to pass, she sped over to him, timidly hiding. As soon as there was a gap, he walked forward and turned around to see that Daisy was following closely by.

People already starting noticing her, clear from their crude gestures and bad words. They purposely walked closer, squashing her between many tall, large men. Some of them didn't care and carried on walking to breakfast but many others reached out to touch her by grabbing her arm or stroking her hair. She looked at the many hands and saw them connected to the prisoners. They had some differences in the way they physically looked but all of them held creepy smiles. It all made her cringe and squirm away.

"Hey sweetie. Wanna join me in my cell for a fun time?"

"Looking pretty there girly."

"Little rich girl playing with the bad boys ey?"

"Wanna be friends?"

All of their voices seemed to merge together and repeat loudly in her head. What was actually two hands felt like two million and each gave her an overwhelming feeling of disgust as she walked quicker to try and get away.

Distracted by everything happening to her, she didn't notice that by following the crowd, they had already made their way to the canteen. However, she also didn't notice that Owen wasn't in front of her. She had gotten lost in the crowd and forgot to stay close to the guy like he said. She looked around for him, spinning her head in every direction but trying to avoid making eye contact with anyone.

Suddenly, she felt someone's hand squeeze her butt harshly. Daisy jumped and backed away from the hand, stumbling over the pant legs that had unrolled, before turning around and seeing that it was the prisoner that stared at her as she first arrived into the prison. Sure, everybody was staring but this guy chilled her to her very core. He seemed even more frightening up close with his crooked yellow teeth, yellow-green eyes that looked like pee and the piercings on his face. His tongue came out and liked his lips, lingering on his lip piercing as he leaned forward and eerily said, "sorry, sugar. Didn't see you there."

Daisy's whole body was shaking. She was afraid she'd pass out from fear, which would be even worse as she didn't know what he'd do to her if she were unconscious. Even if she had wanted to respond with something, maybe something to seem braver than she actually was so he wouldn't mess with her, no words would come out of her mouth.

She was slowly backing away, when her back met something hard and a strong pair of hands were placed on hips. Daisy froze. Now, she was surrounded and from the look of fear on the silent prisoners around her, the person behind her was even more terrifying than the one harassing her.

But, she couldn't help but inhale his manly scent that enveloped her, making her toes curl inside her trainers. It was a truly intoxicating smell, which confused her. She pictured what he looked like in her head and the monster did not match the feelings he was suddenly giving her.

"Leave her alone, Frank." His chest rumbled as he spoke, vibrating against her back. His husky voice held anger and threat, all making her stomach fill with butterflies as she marvelled at how his voice sounded. It sounded all the lot nicer because of the fact her was defending her.

She looked at the hands on her hips and saw them covered with tattoos. Daisy found herself wanting to look at every single one of them in detail. Slowly, she turned around but was met with a chest so her head had to be craned upwards to finally see the face of the only person to stick up for her.

His tattoos, again, attracted her eyes, covering the tan skin of his neck and disappear into his clothes. Despite the loose fit, she could tell he had a well built physique, most probably from working out during his free time in prison. His jaw was clenched in, what seemed like, anger, allowing her to notice that his jawline looked like it could cut diamonds. She wanted to stand on the tips of her toes just to look into his eyes and see deeper into the green-blue colour she saw.

All of a sudden, his eyes looked to her making her look away and at his clothed chest, blushing profusely at being caught ogling a potential psychopathic killer or rapist.

"What's it to you? You gotta share the little sugar, Seth." The one that touched her, who was called Frank, smirked in her direction.

SETH?! She remembered that he was the one person Owen warned her about. One side of her wanted to run but another wanted to stay. It wasn't fair to judge him based on something another person said and plus, she only cared about how he was acting in this moment. He didn't seem threatening towards Daisy so naturally, she leaned back into Seth, trying to get as far away from Frank as possible. She also tried to subtly inhale his smell but from the weird look on a few of the prisoners watching, it wasn't as subtle as she thought.

Seth's muscled arm curled around her front and effectively pushed her behind him. Her small hands resisted from clutching onto his arm as she didn't want him to let go, surprisingly feeling comfort from him touching her and not disgust like she felt from the other prisoners.

Her protector walked forward, her shuffling behind him closely and cringing away from the other people around them. Seth firmly grabbed onto Frank's top and narrowed his eyes, sneering, "you, don't touch her. Ever."

He pushed Frank away, making him fall back into a group of people all glaring at Seth. Shockingly to Daisy, Frank only laughed. If that were me, I'd poop myself! She thought.

"Someone's got a crush." Frank sang, waving his hands about.

Daisy fiddled with her sleeves that were also now unrolled and bit her lip in embarrassment. The idea of this model looking prisoner having a 'crush' on her was ludicrous but it still brought a reaction.

However, Seth's reaction was much more different to hers as he stepped forward and delivered a powerful right hook to Frank's face. The sound it made on impact made her wince and look away from the violence.

"What's going on here?!"

A prison officer barged his way through the crowd and finally reached them. Daisy smiled, seeing that it was Dave. He looked at her warmly as she peeked out from behind a person but frowned when he saw who her saviour was and scowled even further when he saw Frank knocked out cold.

He shook his head and rubbed his face with his hand, making Daisy assume that something like this happening wasn't unusual. "Take him to the nurse." He told another guard that had followed him. "Nothing to see here! Move along inmates!" Dave ordered the room and walked away.

The crowd dispersed and went back to it's racket. Seth turned around and stared at her. He didn't say anything making Daisy feel a little awkward as she squirmed under his gaze. "Erm. Th-thank y-you." She said with gratitude.

The corners of his lips quirked up slightly, but fell just as quick as it appeared. He wrapped an arm around her waist and began walking to the line. She tried to move away from him because even though he saved her, he was still a stranger and she had no idea what type of crime he committed. However, when his hold on her tightened so her body was touching his side, she stopped resisting and hoped he'd relax his grip a little, which he did.

He walked them to the line, grabbing trays for himself and Daisy and pushed in front of the waiting people. They looked like they wanted to protest but when they saw who it was, their mouths stayed shut. Although, Daisy still felt bad so she looked up at Seth to say quietly, "w-we shouldn't p-push i-in."

She was a little surprised he heard her with all the commotion in the canteen and the fact her voice was barely audible to even herself. But, he clearly did when he looked at her with furrowed eyebrows and eventually said, "don't worry about it, angel."

Angel?

Realising that she hadn't told him her name yet, she said, "m-my name is Daisy."

"It's pretty."

Her cheeks heated but before either could say anything, a small bowl of porridge was placed on Seth's tray. Daisy looked at the dinner lady and smiled at her as the woman scooped the food into a bowl and put it on her tray. "Thank you." She said sweetly.

"You're welcome, pet." The late middle aged lady replied in surprise of the prisoner's manners.

Seth's hand on her back led her forward, where some pears, apples and bananas were presented. He grabbed an apple and nodded his head towards the fruit. "Choose."

Her lips pursed in thought but she must've been thinking longer than she thought because the man behind her yelled, "make your mind up, lady! My stomach's rumblin'"

A glare from Seth quickly shut him up. He leant down and whispered to Daisy, "take your time, angel." Not wanting to anger anybody else or waste more time, she quickly took a banana. Although, she was going to choose that anyway.

They walked to a table, that was surprisingly empty, while people sneaked quick glances at the two. Once they sat down, Seth poured them both the one drink option, water, which she mumbled a quiet thank you to. Despite porridge being one of her favourites, the taste was bland, making her wish for a little sugar.

"You'll get used to it." Seth told her, shovelling the food into his mouth like he hadn't eaten for days. He quickly finished, while Daisy took her time.

"Thank you for being nice to me." She said between mouthfuls, eating politely like how her mother would tell her to do.

The look on his face was one of confusion and thought. "How did someone like you end up in a place like this?" He said, reaching out to touch one of her brown curls and twirling her hair between his fingers.

She tried not to focus on his skin that would graze her face, making her cheeks burn. "What do you mean someone like me?"

"Innocent. Beautiful." He listed, looking into her blue eyes.

He's doing it on purpose. He wants to make me look like a tomato. She bit the inside of her cheek to stop from smiling at the compliment as he smirked at her. Daisy didn't think anyone had called her beautiful before. The tabloids didn't count.

Her eyes, then, caught a mop of blonde hair behind Seth. It was Owen walking around with a tray in his hands as he looked around for an empty seat. Daisy smiled and waved at him. She hoped he wasn't mad at her for getting lost.

When he finally spotted her waving hand, a look of pure terror and fear washed across his face. She could see his hands visibly shaking until he dropped his tray and speed walked out of the canteen. She frowned but looked at Seth and instantly knew what frightened him. Seth's muscles tensed as he clenched his hands into fists on the table. He was glaring in the direction of Owen and he was breathing harshly through his nose.

"A-are you ok?" Without thinking, she placed her hand on his tattooed one.

He looked at her, his eyes softening, and almost immediately, his hand relaxed and held onto hers. "Perfect."