Chapter Text
“What the fuck did you just say to me?”
The girl seems to wither to nothing in front of Agatha’s eyes. “It—it’s a soulmates program,” she says, much less confidently. “You get time off if you sign up and try to find true love.”
Agatha snorts. How utterly ridiculous. “And if I sign up and fuck my way through the entire group and don’t find my soulmate? Still get time off?”
The girl grits her teeth and shrugs both shoulders. “I—I don’t know. No one’s ever asked that before.”
“I’m not gonna be doing that,” Agatha snorts again. She turns to walk away and at the last second reaches out to swipe the flyer from the girl’s outstretched hand. “Gimme the fucking paper.”
--
Agatha sits in her cell brooding for the rest of the afternoon. Does she look like someone who’s going to find a soulmate at all, let alone in a prison full of people just like her? Not fucking lik—actually wait. Maybe she has a better chance of it in here than anywhere else.
No, it’s stupid. Not worth her time.
She crumples up the flyer and throws it in the toilet, then rolls onto her stomach and grunts into her pillow.
--
Two weeks later her cellmate won’t stop yapping about this girl she met in the soulmates program. Agatha literally puts a pillow over her head and clamps it down over her ears to drown out the endless prattle. That of course is her last resort, after threatening, more threatening, and actual bodily harm hasn’t worked. A punch in the mouth wasn’t enough to shut the woman up about it.
The longer she lays with a pillow suffocating her the more trapped she feels. She needs to get some air. Except they’re locked down for the night so she can’t.
Finally she can’t take it anymore and she flies out of bed in a rage, grabbing Jennifer by the throat and dragging her out of bed, slamming her up against the bars of the cell.
“Shut. The fuck. Up!” she screams.
Jennifer just makes a disgusted face at her and ignores the choking and the slamming. “Go to one event, Agatha,” she says with an air of superiority that Agatha doesn’t understand. “I’ll never mention it again if you go to one event.”
For the first time in her adult life, Agatha feels helpless. There’s nothing she can do to shut her cellmate up. Nothing but give in.
She lets her hand fall away from Jennifer’s throat and sulks her way back to bed. “You’re not giving me a choice. If I don’t want another ten years for snapping your neck…” She runs her hands over her face and breathes as slowly as she can. “Fine. One event. And then you shut the fuck up about it or I’ll risk the extra ten years.”
Jennifer slides smoothly back into bed across the cell and grins. “Wonderful. There’s a dance tomorrow night.”
“A dance?” Agatha nearly shrieks. “Jesus fucking Christ.”
--
But she goes. She puts on her cleanest jumpsuit – God, she looks washed out in orange – and she goes.
She gets asked to dance a couple times and figures why not. She’ll get to cop a feel. But nothing’s vibing, no one’s catching her interest. Until the rec room doors open and a woman walks in that makes her heart stop.
She fumbles her step and excuses herself from her latest dance partner, then quickly finds the closest place to sit before she falls.
Her heart starts racing as she watches the woman walk across the room, all grace and poise with soft steps and long, flowing black hair. She’s in an orange jumpsuit as well and Agatha can’t imagine those delicate hands killing anyone. She’s got a manicure, even in prison. Which means she’s either got money on her books or she’s well connected.
Her eyes are so dark that Agatha can’t tell what color they are from this far away, and—
Her studious pastime is rudely interrupted by a group of younger women flocking toward Agatha’s prey. She can feel a snarl curl her lip and a growl rumble low in her belly.
Before she has time to even stand up, the woman is dancing with one of the groupies.
Agatha is intervening in a flash, hand on the back of the intruder’s jumpsuit lifting her clear off the floor and tossing her a few feet away.
She doesn’t know what to expect in response, but a cool, collected smirk and a lifted eyebrow isn’t it. “I’m not impressed by displays of aggression.”
The woman’s voice is low. Quiet. Captivating. It sends a chill up Agatha’s spine.
“What are you impressed by, then?” Her heart is still thumping doubletime against her rib cage.
The woman’s smirk fades and she looks deadly serious. “Chivalry.”
Agatha nearly chokes. “Chivalry? In 2026 in a prison?”
“That’s what I said, isn’t it?”
There’s no amusement in her tone or on her face.
“I—but how do I—” Agatha stutters for the first time in her life. Her face is hot and her heart won’t stop shredding her chest.
“Ask me to dance,” the woman says with a shrug.
“I wanna do more than dance with you,” Agatha says without question.
“This is a soulmates program, not a pimps ‘n hoes party,” the woman says, scrunching up her nose.
It’s the most adorable thing Agatha has ever seen and she has a hard time keeping her mouth to herself. “Looking at you makes my heart race,” she blurts out. Jesus Lort what is she doing?
The woman’s face softens away from amusement and into a charming smile. The gap in her front teeth makes Agatha swoon.
“That’s closer to chivalry than trying to get in my pants on the first date,” the woman says, and Agatha feels hands on her waist that instantly make her clench. “My name is Rio.”
Rio. Fuck, she’s beautiful. She’s ethereal, honestly. What the fuck is she doing in a prison?
“Agatha,” Agatha says, her voice pathetic and wispy.
“Agatha,” Rio repeats, tilting her head to the side the slightest bit as if weighing the name on her tongue. “Well, Agatha, I’m not going to dance with you unless you ask me to dance. Properly. Chivalrously.”
“Did that little twink ask chivalrously?” Agatha sneers.
“As a matter of fact, they did,” Rio says, biting a subtly-painted lip. “Not that it’s any of your business.”
Agatha has never wanted to possess someone so badly. Every single thing about Rio is so fucking appealing that she’s afraid she’ll lose her mind. She’d better get her ass in gear before Rio goes back to the chivalrous twink. “Will you dance with me?” she asks, stumbling through the question.
Rio hesitates a split second too long, then gives a marginal shake of her head. “No.”
“Why not?” Agatha blusters, eyes wide.
“You didn’t ask properly.”
“Are you fucking with me?” Agatha asks, wide eyes narrowing. “How else am I supposed to ask?”
Rio clicks her tongue and turns to walk away, and years of instinct kick in before Agatha can think better of it – she has Rio pinned to the wall in two seconds flat.
Something flashes in Rio’s deep brown eyes and she goes from docile to charged in an instant. “I may be mild mannered but I will slit your throat in your sleep,” she says without blinking, and it’s a deadly promise delivered in cheerful wrapping. Her voice isn’t even unpleasant as she says it, and yet Agatha knows without a doubt that it’s true.
“Will you please honor me with a dance?” she whispers, squeezing Rio’s hips where she has her pinned.
Instead of speaking, Rio answers with her body, pressing herself forward and draping her arms around Agatha’s waist… and then she lays her head on Agatha’s shoulder.
It’s far too intimate to be comfortable. And yet… she is. The last time someone tried to snuggle her she’d gotten out of bed, left the woman’s house and never called again. She’s made it a point her entire life not to get attached; not to get entangled. “Never go farther forward than you can back up.” That’s what she wrote on her bedroom mirror in lipstick when she was fourteen and that’s what she’s lived by ever since.
But she can no more nudge Rio’s head off her shoulder than she can sprout wings and fly.
The warm breaths against the side of her neck are almost enough to make her forget where they are.
Her own breath comes out in a quiet curse. “Fuck.”
“So do you not believe in soulmates at all, or just not for people like us?” Rio asks.
“People like us? Murderers?”
Rio moves her face even closer to Agatha’s neck. “Lesbians.”
Agatha barks out a laugh. A real laugh. And then shakes her head. “I don’t believe in soulmates at all.”
“Then what are you doing here?”
“Trying to get laid.”
“I guess you didn’t read the charter. No sex in the first month.”
“What the fuck? How are we supposed to know if we’re ‘soulmates’ then?”
Rio moves her head lower, pressing an ear to Agatha’s chest. “Did your heart beat faster when you saw me?”
It starts racing again. “No,” she lies quickly. Too quickly.
Rio’s arms squeeze her waist the slightest bit. “I think it did.”
“What does it matter? I’m sure yours didn’t.”
Rio’s fingers dig in to the dimples on her lower back. “My heart beat so fast I could feel it in my throat.”
Agatha’s breath catches at that and she finds herself asking, “then why did you dance with the chivalrous twink?”
She only realizes they haven’t yet moved their feet once Rio starts swaying to the music. “Because I’m polite.”