Chapter 0 - Prologue

I couldn’t tear my eyes away. Not bewitched, not dazed—just caught staring for what felt like forever. My neck ached from craning downward, but still I kept looking at it.

Nothing changed. It stayed stubbornly round and full, bold enough to sit on this body as if it belonged here.

My hand hovered, then settled over it. Even through the rough fabric, the give beneath was shockingly soft, obscene in its realness. I squeezed harder, greedy, and it spilled past my palm. Whatever this was, it wasn’t my chest.

‘…’

At least two cup sizes bigger.

I bit down on my lip, kneading again. The only thing I’d ever hated about my real body—smaller breasts—was suddenly gone, replaced by this heavy, ridiculous flesh.

And it wasn’t just my chest. I scratched at the tiny mark beneath my fingernail out of habit. A faint, heart-shaped dot. I’d never had that. The hands, the feet, the split ends of the hair—they weren’t mine.

This wasn’t my body.

Whose body was this?

A sharp blow cracked against the back of my skull. White sparks burst across my vision. A gravelly, phlegm-choked woman’s voice rang in my ear, vulgar and loud.

“Look at this b**h. Feeling herself up in broad daylight like some kind of whre.”

“….”

“Nothing I hate more than sl*ts who can’t keep their hands off a man.”

Her permed hair hung wild around her face as she sneered. Yellow teeth flashed when she clicked her tongue, and bile rose in my throat. She must’ve caught the disgust in my eyes, because her face twisted mean.

“What, you got a problem with me, b****? You lookin’ at me like that—”

Smack. Smack. The sting of those all-too-familiar hands landed across my face. I dropped my head, curled my arms over it, tucked into myself, and took the hits as they rained down on my back and skull.

This is a dream, I told myself. Just a dream. I’ll wake up, laugh it off, tell the dancers and the manager what a stupid dream it was.

I’d been whispering that same line to myself for a week. But—

The cold air of a room with no heat. The faint stench of piss. The boots driving into my ribs. My senses left no room for doubt. This wasn’t a dream.

Clenching my jaw against the kicks, I forced my eyes down to the chest I’d been groping only moments before. On the shabby blue prison uniform, stitched into the fabric, the numbers glared back at me.

Inmate No. 89-7059.

That was my name now.