Guard: Hands on your heads, both of you, or the pepper spray comes out!
Maya: Stay out of this, officer! She started this fight!
Elena: I was standing five feet away when she attacked me unprovoked.
Guard: I said back away from the fence right now!
The two women explode into a physical struggle, grappling, pushing, and swinging at each other near the fence.
Loud grunts and the heavy sound of scuffling filled the damp morning air as adrenaline took over.
Maya: I'm going to break every bone in your body!
Elena: You can try, but you're going to need more than empty threats!
Inmates crowded closer against the security lines, shouting bets and warnings as the two figures tangled in a blur of orange fabric.
Inmate: Get her legs, Maya! Take her down to the gravel!
Elena: Back off!
One woman forcefully shoves the other backward against a large mattress leaning against the fence.
A hard impact echoed across the yard, followed immediately by a sharp gasp as Maya lost her wind against the heavy padding.
Guard: That's it! Taser deployed if you don't separate this instant!
Elena stepped back smoothly, her breathing only slightly elevated as she adjusted the collar of her jumpsuit.
Maya: You... you actually think you won this round?
Elena: I didn't come here to win rounds, Maya. I came here to survive.
Guard: Cell block C, move inside for lockdown right now! Move!
The heavy iron gates clanged shut one by one, sealing the tension inside the brick corridors.
Elena walked toward her cell with steady steps, leaving a stunned prison population in her wake.
Inmate: Nobody has ever stood up to Maya like that in five years.
Elena: There's a first time for everything.