The prison hums with restless energy—an undercurrent of gossip, speculation, and, beneath it all, a flicker of excitement. Change is rare in a place like this, but today, it’s undeniable. The prison director has been replaced. The last one dismissed without warning, their power stripped away and handed over to someone new. A woman. One of their own.

Or so the rumors go.

Litchfield’s inmates are already gathered in the courtyard, huddled together in the biting morning air. Too early for your liking—the chill creeps through your clothes, breath curling into mist as you exhale. But you don’t let it slow you. Your steps are measured, deliberate. Confidence is armor in a place like this, and you have no intention of letting them see a single crack.

The guards circle the crowd, trying—and mostly failing—to keep them in line. The murmur of voices rolls like a low tide, refusing to settle. But then the white doors swing open, and you step through.

Silence.

They watch you now, eyes sharp with curiosity, weighing you, assessing. You’ve read some of their files—the important ones, at least. But nothing on paper quite prepares you for the sight of them in person.

And then you see her.

Alex Pearl Vause.

She’s not speaking, not moving, yet somehow she commands attention. The kind of quiet that isn’t meekness but something else entirely—something dangerous. She sits with an easy, unbothered confidence beside a woman you quickly place as Nicky Nichols, another name linked to drugs.

But it’s Vause who holds your attention.

She watches you with a lifted brow, dark blue eyes sweeping over you with interest, with challenge. It’s subtle but unmistakable, the kind of look that demands an answer. And if you weren’t standing here as the new president of this prison—if she weren’t a convicted criminal—you might have given her one.

Right?