11
ATTICUS
“Raise your head,” I said to the blonde-haired girl, gently at first, but when she didn’t respond, my voice rose. “I said raise your head.” I could see right away that she was Rafe’s type: young and beautiful and already broken.
She didn’t move, despite my demands.
The soldier next to her jerked the rope that bound her wrists. “You’re blind, not deaf, now do as you’re told, girl.”
“Leave my sister alone!” A dark-haired girl stepped between us; Private Masters, a giant compared to her, yanked her back violently, and forced her against his encompassing chest.
“Please, sir,” she said, tears in her eyes, “I beg you to keep her with me; wherever you send me, let her go with me. PLEASE!”
I ignored her. “Is it true that she’s blind?” I asked the soldier standing next to the blonde.
“Yes, sir.”
I reached out and cupped my hand underneath the blonde’s chin and raised her face. There was nothing in her eyes: no emotion, no acknowledgment, not a care in the world—and she was definitely blind. I’d seen this before: the gray color of the eyes where it should’ve been white; the dilated pupils; the blood around the irises—this girl had The Sickness once upon a time, one of few who lived to tell about it. Because of her handicap, I knew Rafe wouldn’t want her.
I released her chin.
“But she’s an otherwise beautiful girl—.” I stopped myself, and hid the look of indecision that had crept up on my face. Evolve with the rest of humanity or become extinct. Evelyn’s words turned over and over in my mind. And the faces that stared back at me amplified her voice in my head: merciless men waiting to see just how merciful their new Overseer was; Marion waiting to see if I would fuck up the only chance he was willing to give me to prove myself; the brown-haired girl terrified she’d be torn away from her sister forever.
Evolve with the rest of humanity or become extinct.
I knew what I had to do.
“Send her to the brothel,” I said, and a roar of cries and shouts and excited whistles erupted amongst the crowd.
“No, please! You can’t do this! Please!” the sister screamed. “Then send me there with her! I beg you!”
Private Masters held the sister at the waist, his big arm pressed around her ribs, his gapped teeth on display between his wide, grinning lips. I wanted to hit him in the fucking mouth on principle, but I couldn’t. It would give the real me away.
I walked away from the sisters, trying to push down the guilt I felt for what I had to do, and I made my way to the other girls. And one by one, I made them into workers and whores, leaving only the brown-haired sister, and one other blonde.
“These two will come with me,” I announced. “Rafe’ll want to see them first when he returns.”
Private Masters let the sister go and she fell to her knees on the concrete and cried into her hands. Ignore her, Atticus…do what you have to do.
“Wait a damn minute!” Private Masters snapped. “I’m next on the list for a wife, and I was told—by Rafe—that I would get first pick of the next group.”
“And you have it,” I told him; I waved my hand at the other women. “Choose.”
Private Masters grunted and gritted his teeth; a noticeable vein throbbed in the side of his head.
“But I want this one,” he demanded, pointing at the brown-haired sister crying on the ground beside his boots.
“And you can have her,” I said, “if when Rafe returns he doesn’t decide to keep her for himself.”
Private Masters inhaled the deepest breath any man had ever taken; he stepped back, rounding his giant chin, his big hands clenched into unbreakable fists at his sides.
“Watch yourself,” Marion warned. “Atticus is right in this matter and you know it. All of us heard him: if Rafe doesn’t want the girl, then she’s yours; no one here will dispute that.”
Private Masters and I stood nearly toe to toe, until finally he relented, stepped back and sucked down his pride and anger. It was a good move, because two more seconds and I would’ve put a bullet in his head.
THAIS
I remained on my knees, sobbing into my hands, thinking only of my sister and what was to become of her. I cared little for myself anymore, knowing that no matter which man I would become prisoner to, that it would all end the same way: I would do what my mother did all those years ago and end my own life if I had no other way out.
“Escort these two to the room across from mine,” I heard Atticus order. “Stay with them until I get there.”
Another soldier stepped forward in front of me; he was of average height and average build with boring, average brown hair and an average-looking face, though set within it was a pair of the brightest, greenest eyes I had ever seen.
“Yes, sir.” The green-eyed soldier nodded once and reached for me.
“I’m begging you!” I cried, my voice becoming hoarse. “I can’t leave my sister! She’s not well! P-P-Pleeeeassse!”
The green-eyed soldier took hold of the rope. Letting all of my weight drop, I fell to the concrete again, scraping both knees on my way down, and I refused to budge. With my knees bent beneath me, my back arched and my arms laid out across the concrete above my head, I sobbed; the heat from the sidewalk warmed my face as my cheek lay pressed against it. I could see the bright, cloudless blue sky above me, and it was all I wanted to look at.
“Just get up,” I heard a soft voice say.
I felt a hand on my upper arm, but it was not the powerful, rough hand of a man. Reluctantly letting the blue sky go, I let the girl’s face come into focus. It was the blonde-haired girl hunkered over my body; her long hair draped both shoulders.
“You have to get up,” she repeated in a quiet voice. “If you don’t cooperate they’ll use your sister against you—you have to get up.” She tugged on my arm.
It was all the convincing I needed—I struggled to get to my feet, every bone and muscle in my body fighting against my movements. The green-eyed soldier stood next to us, waiting, and finally when my body was in motion again, we left the few remaining citizens desperate for supplies, and the vile soldiers, and the man named Marion who brought us here. And as we crossed the street and stepped onto another sidewalk, I could hear the Overseer’s voice as he spoke to the people, and his words faded on the air as I got farther away.
The green-eyed soldier walked us to the entrance of a building, escorted us inside and to the stairs. He never spoke. He never looked at us. He was as quiet and unemotional as he was ordinary.
By the third floor, I could barely walk; the long three-day trip to the city, combined with my wounded feet, was taking its toll on me.
Another floor and I had to rest.
I sat on a concrete step, out of breath, lightheaded. The green-eyed soldier, to my surprise, stopped without argument and let me have my moment.
The blonde girl sat beside me in the dark; the only source of light was from candles placed on the steps; some were burning down, their tiny wicks suffocated by their own wax.
“The sooner you accept it,” the girl said, her voice a whisper in the confined stairwell, “the sooner the pain will pass.”
I did not respond. I felt like Sosie in that moment: broken.
Seconds later, the soldier tugged on the ropes.
We made it to the eighth floor and he pushed open a door to reveal a spacious room where light spilled in from a tall window.
I lifted my eyes to take in the room with purpose, searching for anything I might use to escape. But there was nothing, just a twin-size mattress barely big enough for two girls to sleep on together. And the only way out of the room was through the door we’d just entered, or the window overlooking the city eight floors down.
I looked back at the green-eyed soldier.
“What’s going to happen to my sister?” I asked him.
His boots tapped lightly against the tile as he went toward the mattress. Leaning over, he lifted it with both hands and beat on the center to knock the dust from it. Then he set it down and pushed it back into place against the wall with the toe of his boot.
“Have a seat,” he said, gesturing.
Reluctantly, I walked over and sat down; the other girl followed. The soldier went toward the closed door and stood next to it where I knew he would stay until that horrible Overseer named Atticus would come for us. And in what felt like an hour of waiting in silence, I made up my mind to beg the Overseer to listen. I would do anything, even give myself to him, if he would let me be with Sosie again.
There was a knock at the door and the soldier opened it a crack. I heard whispers but not words and then the soldier went out into the hall. Shadows moved beneath the crack underneath the door.
“Listen to me—what’s your name?”
“Thais.”
The girl laid her bound hands on my thigh; her eyes were filled with concern and urgency; although as young as me, she had a motherly way about her and it instantly put me more at ease.
“I’m Petra,” she introduced. “Now listen to me—I know it’s hard for you to understand, and what I’m about to tell you will seem like the worst thing I could ever say, but it’s also the truest thing I could ever say.”
I turned fully to face her.
Petra’s eyes were cat-like and ice-blue, her mouth was dirty as if she’d drank from a mud hole before she came here, but she had pretty pouty lips underneath all the filth, and a tender face framed by cottony blonde hair. She reminded me of Sosie.
“If you fight them,” she began, “you’re going to draw the wrong kind of attention. Just give in to them, give them what they want and they’ll lose interest in you faster. They’ll have their way with you, but if you pretend to like it, they’ll lose interest sooner.” She spoke as if she knew these things from experience.
My chin dropped, and I looked at my hands still bound by the rope that had rubbed my skin raw around my wrists.
“I can’t do that,” I whispered. “I could never do that—I will die first.”
“You would do it for your sister,” Petra said, and it stung me because it was true.
I raised my puffy, burning eyes and looked at Petra, heartbroken.
“For her, I would do it,” I said. “But something tells me that no matter what I do, or what Sosie does, or if God Himself came down from the heavens and said to those men: ‘Do not touch Sosie Fenwick lest you burn in Hell’, they’re still going to hurt her.” I made a choking noise as more tears rushed to the surface.
“There is no God,” Petra said. “But you’re right about everything else—they will have their way with your sister, and there’s nothing either of you can do but accept it.”
The door came open again and the green-eyed soldier re-entered the room, taking his position same as before.
I felt the mattress move as Petra stood up beside me. I kept my head low, but watched Petra as she walked across the tile on bare feet; the end of the rope that bound her wrists slithered across the floor beside her.
“Go sit down,” the soldier said in a calm, seemingly uninterested voice.
But Petra stepped right up to the soldier and raised her hands to the side of his face, the back of her fingers trailed down his smooth cheeks. For a moment, the soldier did not object, but then his arms came up and he grabbed hold of her wrists and pushed her hands against her chest.
“I said go sit down,” he demanded.
But Petra sat down beside his boots instead; she laid her head against the soldier’s leg. He didn’t push her away this time.
I studied his face from the short distance, and in it, behind all of the ordinary and the bright eyes that made him extraordinary, I saw that he was not so different from any other man. He liked having Petra at his feet, and he was struggling with his duties and his nature.
I looked away, no longer interested in what might go on between the two. And after a long time, when another set of boots resonated down the hallway, the soldier finally showed a more negative reaction by grabbing Petra by the back of her shirt and dragging her across the floor toward me on the bed.
Just as the soldier straightened his back, the Overseer, Atticus, in his tall stature and uniform expression, entered the room.