Chapter 1: The Shower Confrontation
The steam hit her first, a thick, wet blanket that smelled of cheap industrial soap and something underneath—mildew, maybe, or just the persistent sweat of a hundred bodies. Piper stood at the edge of the shower room, her towel clenched tight under her arms. The fluorescent lights buzzed overhead, casting a sickly green tint on everything, making the tiles look like they were sweating too.
Voices echoed off the walls, laughter bouncing into shrieks, conversations layering into a low, constant hum. It was too exposed. All of it. The open stalls with no doors, the collective nakedness. She kept her eyes on the drain by her feet.
But she’d felt her watching. All week. A prickling on the back of her neck, a shift in the air when she walked by. Alex Vause didn’t just look; her gaze had weight.
Piper stepped under the water, hoping the noise would drown everything out. It was too hot, scalding her shoulders pink, but she welcomed the burn. It was a clean feeling. She scrubbed her scalp with the tiny, state-issued shampoo, eyes squeezed shut.
When she opened them, Alex was leaning against the stall partition, already dressed in her khakis and a worn grey tee. Her dark hair was damp, slicked back. She wasn’t smiling, not exactly. It was more like her mouth was just resting in a shape of quiet amusement.
“You’ve been staring at me all week,” Alex said. Her voice was calm, cutting easily through the rush of water.
Piper’s heart did a stupid, clumsy thud against her ribs. She fumbled with the soap. “I haven’t.”
“You have.” Alex pushed off the wall and took one step into the stall. The spray misted the sleeve of her shirt. Piper instinctively shuffled back, her bare shoulder hitting the cold tiles. “So tell me,” Alex continued, her eyes tracing the line of Piper’s throat down to her collarbone. “Are you curious, or just scared?”
A shaky breath left Piper’s lips. Curiosity was a trap. It was what landed you in places like this, with people like her. She knew that. But the word vibrated in her chest anyway.
Alex’s fingers were surprisingly cool when they touched her skin, a single fingertip drawing a line across her collarbone. Piper flinched, but she didn’t pull away. The contrast was dizzying—the scalding water on her back, the chill of the tile, the pinpoint coolness of that touch.
“I’m not…” Piper started, but her voice cracked. She tried again. “I’m not scared.”
“Good.” Alex’s smirk deepened. Her hand slid up, palm flattening against Piper’s throat, not squeezing, just holding. A claim. Piper could feel her own pulse hammering against the pressure. “Because it’s okay to be curious.”
Someone laughed loudly a few stalls down. Piper jumped, but Alex didn’t move. Her eyes were dark, unreadable pools in the harsh light. Piper’s gaze dropped to Alex’s mouth. She’d thought about it, in the silence of her bunk at night. Wondered what that smirk would feel like.
“You think about it,” Alex murmured, leaning in. Her breath was warm against Piper’s ear. “What it would be like. Don’t you?”
It wasn’t a question. It was a fact, laid bare in the steam between them. Piper gave the smallest, most treacherous nod.
Alex’s other hand came to rest on Piper’s waist, thumb stroking the dip above her hip. “It’s easier here,” she said, her voice dropping to a whisper. “The rules are different. You can want what you want. No one out there has to know.”
The logic was seductive, twisted into something that felt almost like freedom. Piper let her head tilt back against the tile. The water beat down on her closed eyelids. Alex’s lips brushed the corner of her mouth, a ghost of a touch. It wasn’t gentle. It was a question, firm and expecting an answer.
Piper answered.
She turned her head, catching Alex’s mouth with her own. It was clumsy, desperate. Alex tasted like mint toothpaste and something sharper, something uniquely her. Her hand tightened on Piper’s throat, just for a second, a spike of control that sent a shock straight down Piper’s spine. Alex kissed her back slowly, deliberately, taking her time like she had all of it in the world, like they weren’t in a grimy shower with a dozen other women just feet away.
It was different. Rougher. Realer than anything Piper had let herself imagine during those lonely nights. Alex’s tongue traced her lower lip, and Piper opened for her, a soft sound escaping that was lost in the steam.
Then, as suddenly as it began, Alex pulled back. Her eyes scanned Piper’s face, reading the dazed hunger there. She looked satisfied.
“See?” Alex said, wiping her thumb across her own bottom lip. “Not so complicated.”
She turned and walked out of the stall, leaving Piper standing there under the relentless spray, skin singing, body humming with a strange and terrifying new electricity. The water was starting to run cold.
Piper turned the knob off. The silence was abrupt, loud in her ears. She wrapped the towel around herself, her hands trembling. She could still feel the imprint of Alex’s hands, her mouth. She walked back to her cell on numb legs, the echo of the shower room fading behind her.
Lying on her bunk that night, staring at the crack in the ceiling, she replayed it. The touch, the words, the kiss. The way Alex had looked at her—like she was something to be unwrapped, understood, and used. A part of her, the part that still believed in the person she was before, recoiled. But a bigger part, a part she was just beginning to meet, stretched awake. It was hungry.
She rolled onto her side, pulling the thin blanket over her shoulder. Outside, she heard the clang of a gate, the distant shout of a guard. This was just the beginning, she knew that now. And the thought filled her with a dread that felt indistinguishable from want.