"Take it up with the judge," the officer said flatly without any remorse or care. "We just deliver where we're told."
The van stopped in front of a concrete building that looked more like a fortress than a prison.
The back doors opened, and rough hands pulled Shuyin out. Her legs had gone numb from sitting, and she stumbled on the pavement.
"Move it," a guard barked, hauling her upright.
She marched through a heavy steel door into an intake area that smelled of mold and bleach.
The walls were concrete, unpainted, with cracks running through them like veins.
The fluorescent lights overhead flickered intermittently, casting everything in an unstable, sickly glow.
The guards here were different from the ones at the courthouse. They were bigger and harder.
Their faces showed no sympathy, and no humanity, just some cold indifference.
One of them, a massive woman with close-cropped grey hair, looked Shuyin up and down with open disdain.
