Privilege (Privilege 1)

It was an awful song. An awful and immature retaliation from a girl who should have just risen above and let her little friend Emma move on.

But then, everyone knows that teenage girls have a gift for cruelty, Ariana thought, feeling nostalgic for her former friends, her former life.

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CREATURES OF HABIT

Ariana had learned a few things in her year and a half at the Brenda T. She had learned that people were creatures of habit. That if she paid enough attention to someone's tendencies--and she did have a thing for noticing details--she could predict what that person would do in any given situation. She found this discovery both spirit-crushing and very, very helpful.It was spirit-crushing to learn that people lived by sad little routines day in and day out, because it made them far less interesting.

Helpful, because that predictability was going to set her free.

"Tracy? May I please use the bathroom?" Ariana asked, pausing outside the door to the common lavatory on Sunday.

Tracy Millet, the guard who lived to please, tried for a tough expression. As always, the effort just made her look more squirrelly and pinched than she already did. The other three inmates whom

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Tracy had been escorting to the common room, Kaitlynn included, all stopped and waited.

"You okay, Osgood?" she asked.

Ariana tried not to stare at Tracy's dry brown curls, which sat atop her head like a plate of curly fries. She put her hand over her lower stomach and swallowed hard. "I'm not sure. I think they might have served bad yogurt at lunch."

"Ugh. Nasty," Donna Short said. The former child rapper, who'd been locked up for smashing in the teeth of some rival artist and was now in daily anger-management sessions, backed away from Ariana. For a girl who claimed to have been raised on the st

reet, "Sweet D." seemed to have a low threshold for bodily functions.

Tracy's threshold, however, was even lower.

"Go ahead," the guard said with a grimace. "I'll walk these three down and then I'll be right outside the door," she warned.

Ariana shoved the door open and entered the white-on-white-on-white bathroom. Everything from the tile walls to the marble floor to the porcelain toilets was bleached to a sheen. After making sure she was alone, Ariana yanked off her shoes and placed them on the counter next to the sink, feeling the chill of the floor through her white gym socks. She turned to the silver plate that served as an unbreakable (and unreliable) mirror, and stared into the mottled reflection of her blue eyes.

"One Mississippi... two Mississippi..."

Patience. Patience was the thing. Tracy was weak--pathetic, really. If Ariana stayed inside long enough, Tracy would cave. She would

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stand out there imagining what Ariana was doing and her leg would start to bounce. Then, after another minute, she would start to fiddle with her keys. Another minute and she'd be kneading the back of her neck with her palm. Finally, she would look both ways to make sure none of her superiors were around, and then stroll casually down to her post in the common room, where she would get sucked in by Deal or No Deal and all but forget about the diarrhea-ridden girl in the bathroom.

So Ariana kept counting. When she finally picked up her shoes ten minutes later and opened the door a crack to peek into the hallway, Tracy was gone. She was now standing on the inside of the metal-and-glass door to the common room, her back to the hallway. She could still turn at any moment and see Ariana, but Ariana had the sound buffer of the door and a good thirty yards of hallway between her and the guard.

Heart pounding in her ears, sneakers clutched to her chest, Ariana kept the door open but an inch and stared out. Her palms were clammy and she could hardly swallow. Everything hinged on this moment. If this didn't go exactly as planned, it would all be over before it had a chance to start.

Thirty more seconds, she told herself. And she started to count down. Twenty-nine... twenty eight... twenty seven...Suddenly the door on the right of the bathroom was flung open. Ariana's heart flew into her throat. Nurse Knight was twenty-six seconds early. Dammit. So much for that reliable-creature-of-habit theory.

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The rotund nurse stepped into the hallway and started for the common room, her thick white shoes squeak-squeaking on the linoleum floor. Ariana had only seconds or her plan would be trashed. She couldn't wait until tomorrow night. Tomorrow night would be too late. It was either act now or keep waiting--keep rotting-- in the Brenda T.

Spurred by pure adrenaline, Ariana yanked the bathroom door open and raced in silent, socked feet to a door marked medical PERSONNEL ONLY.

It was about to click shut and auto-lock Ariana out. She flattened her hand against the door just as the metal of the latch touched the metal of the plate. The slight click sounded like an atom bomb explosion to Ariana, but she shoved into the room anyway. If Tracy or Nurse Knight were right behind her, so be it. She was not going to look back to find out.

Ariana breathed in. Waited. Nothing. No one was coming for her. The first phase of her plan was complete. She had made it inside the Drug Den.

The small, closetlike space felt like a meat locker, the air-conditioning jacked up so high her skin instantly began to tighten. All along one wall were metal cabinets with glass doors. Behind each door sat rows and rows of clear pill bottles, each filled to the brim with colorful little pills. Hundreds of thousands of little pills, all designed to keep the inmates under control, keep them sedated, keep them functioning like good little robots.