The Canteen Listens
The next morning, Maeve was taken back to the canteen under observation.
The room knew before she sat down.
News moved in Hollowgate without phones, paper, or permission. It traveled through laundry bags, coughs, glances, and the way officers stopped using certain women’s names too loudly.
Tasha was already there, seated at the middle table, trying to look bored.
Her followers sat close, but not as close as yesterday.
That mattered.
Maeve collected a tray and walked to the same end bench. The food was no better. The tea was weak. The floor still showed a faint dull smear where potatoes had hit the tile.
She sat.
No one spoke.
The serving hatch opened. Bev Colman placed a plastic cup on the counter and held Maeve’s gaze for half a second.
Not gratitude.
Witness.
Then the canteen doors opened again.
The governor entered with the woman from the night before, two senior officers, and Officer Patel. Behind them came Reeve, pale and sweating, eyes fixed on the floor.
Tasha’s posture did not change, but her hands did.
They curled under the table.
The governor addressed the room. “Association will continue. However, certain prisoners are being removed pending a safeguarding and corruption investigation.”
No names were needed at first.
Everybody knew.
Tasha rose slowly. “This is a setup.”
Maeve lifted her cup and drank.
The movement made Tasha snap.
“You think this makes you queen?” she shouted across the tables.
Maeve set the cup down.
“No.”
The room listened so hard even the overhead lights seemed louder.
Maeve looked at Denise, then Bev behind the hatch, then the women who had learned not to look.
“It means nobody has to kneel for your tray again.”
Something passed through the canteen then. Not victory exactly. Victory was too clean a word for a place like Hollowgate.
It was recognition.
Tasha moved as if to lunge, but two officers reached her first. She fought with her shoulders, with her voice, with every old assumption that the room still belonged to her.
It did not.
As they took her through the doors, her eyes found Maeve’s one last time.
Maeve did not smile.
May you like
That would have made it about power.
She only picked up her fork and began to eat.
