14
ATTICUS
I startled awake when what at first sounded like a muffled gunshot found its way to my ears. My eyes popped open as if a switch had been flipped in my brain, and I lay in the center of my small, lumpy bed, staring up at the shadow-patterned ceiling, wondering what in the hell that was, or if I’d only dreamt it. Another bang sounded, followed by several more, but they weren’t muffled gunshots, or just a dream, I realized quickly.
I leapt out of bed and jumped into my pants after snatching them from the floor. My room was dark, and as I rushed toward the door with my gun in-hand, I tripped on my boots and fell flat on my face. “Shit!”
The banging noises were getting louder, followed by angry voices and the screaming of women.
I picked myself up, swung open the door and ran out into the hallway with my pants settled around my hips, having no time to zip and button them.
Rushing into the room across the hall, I saw the brown-haired girl, named Thais, curled up on her cot in an upright position, one shoulder pressed into the corner of the wall; her hands were wound within her hair as if she were clutching her ears.
A giant figure stood over the blonde girl’s bed on the other side of the room where the moonlight barely reached.
“Get off of her!” I roared as I ran toward them.
I raised my gun to the back of the man, but confusion stopped me when I saw Petra sitting in the shadow beside her cot with her knees drawn up, pressed against her chest, her nightgown stretched down over them—the man in her bed was on top of someone else.
I raised my gun to the back of one head.
“Get to your feet, soldier!”
Hands rose in surrender, and as I took a few steps back to put space between us, the man stood slowly and turned around. A malicious smile twisted Private Masters’ features; blood, more black than red in the moonlight, covered the front of his shirt and stained his hands.
I glanced down at the unmoving body on the cot lying in a pool of blood; he was exposed, his pants pooled around his knees; his bright green eyes stared off at nothing. It was Private Brock, the soldier I’d commissioned to guard the room at night while I slept.
“Just doin’ your job, sir,” Private Masters said with thick sarcasm and an even thicker smile.
I looked to and from him and Private Brock, trying to piece together what had happened.
“You have ten seconds to explain yourself,” I warned, “or I put a bullet in your head.” I kept the gun trained on Private Masters.
“Well, while you were getting your beauty sleep, sir,” he began, “Private Dumbass here was fuckin’ one of Rafe’s potential wives. Now how do you think Rafe’ll react to that?” He pointed at me with a bloody finger; his smile turned into a grin, revealing the gap between his yellowed teeth. “You’re the one he’ll be looking to for retribution now—when he finds out, of course.”
I stepped into Private Masters’ space and shoved the barrel of my gun underneath his chin.
“Are you threatening me?” I growled, sweat dripped from my hairline. “Because if you are and you really want to dance this dance with me, I’ll make sure you’re buried in the same pit Private Brock here will be buried in come the morning.” I shoved the gun deeper into his throat, forcing his boxy head backwards on his tree-trunk neck.
Private Masters smiled, but he backed down.
I held my position before slowly dropping the gun.
“You aren’t even supposed to be in this building—my building,” I said, “much less on this floor with these two particular women.” I glanced at Petra, and then at Thais, for the first time wondering which of the two women Private Brock had been screwing.
“I was only protecting my property, sir,” Private Masters said, his dark eyes passing over Thais. “I didn’t trust him or any other man here to be alone with these women—and I was right not to.”
I looked at the body on the cot, and then again at Petra who’d slept there. “Did you let Private Brock into your bed?” I asked her, assuming she was the one.
“What does that matter?” Private Masters said with laughter. “Either way it happened, it happened, and Rafe won’t want her.”
I kept my attention on Petra still trembling on the floor; she wouldn’t answer.
“Yes, the bitch let him fuck her!” Private Masters interjected. “Since you really want to know: I’ve been watching him for three days, listening to the two of them whispering like sex-crazed love birds with an ass fetish.”
“Three days?” I asked.
“Yeah—I wanted to make sure it was that one he was talking to”—he pointed at Petra, and then looked over at Thais again and smiled—“because if mine had turned out to be such a whore, I wouldn’t want her as my wife.”
I glanced at a traumatized Thais. She wouldn’t even raise her eyes, and her hands were still clutched against her ears like a child trying to shut out the fighting of two violent parents.
I turned to Petra then, but said to Private Masters, “Escort her to the brothel. And when you’re done with that, come back here and get rid of this body—I don’t want it stinking up my building.”
“No! Please! I don’t want to go to the brothel! I want to be the Overseer’s wife!” Petra pleaded. She crawled across the floor on her hands and knees toward me, and she grabbed my leg but I stepped back. “I’m begging you, sir!”
Private Masters lifted her into the air and tucked her underneath his arm. She kicked and screamed until his hand came down across the side of her face and stunned her into submission.
“Why send her to the brothel?” he asked. “Rafe’ll find out what she did for sure then.”
“Because I’m going to tell him myself,” I said. “Better that I don’t present him a woman with the knowledge that she’d already been violated by one of his men, don’t you think?”
Private Masters snarled and rounded his chin, trying to muster what pride he had left.
“Well, what about mine then?” he said about Thais.
“First of all,” I shot back, “she isn’t yours yet, and she may never be.”
Private Masters’ big nostrils flared like a bull’s.
“And since it’s apparent that none of the soldiers here can be trusted with these women, I’ll be guarding her myself at night from now on.”
“What the fuck do you mean?” Private Masters’ face darkened under a shroud of anger.
“I mean that if I want a job done right…” I didn’t have to say the rest.
I looked over at Thais. “Get up,” I told her. “You’ll be staying in my room until Rafe returns.”
“What?!” Private Masters protested; Petra continued to struggle underneath his arm.
I locked eyes with him. “Did you think I was going to have you sit outside the door and watch over her?” I almost laughed. “Now take that one to the brothel and find a goddamn mop.”
Private Masters sucked in a deep, enraged breath, and with gritted teeth he walked out the door with Petra tucked underneath his arm; the sound of his heavy, giant steps echoed down the hall until the stairwell door closed with a vociferous bang and then all was quiet.
Only glancing at the body—I’d seen, and done, much worse—I turned my attention to Thais.
“Get your things and come with me.”
Thais slowly raised her head from her knees and let her hands drop from her ears. But she didn’t get up.
“I’m not going to hurt you,” I said. “But if you stay in this room, someone else will—now get your things.” I pointed at the air with my gun in-hand.
Finally, Thais stood. She bent over next to her bed and stacked books in her arms. Then she went toward the wall where a dress hung from a nail. Her hands were full, so I stepped up beside her, fitted both hands between the books and her arms, and took them all into my own, my gun still in my right hand, which made it difficult to grasp them.
“Get your dress,” I said with the nod of my head toward it hanging on the wall.
THAIS
I took the dress, walked past the body of the green-eyed soldier, and followed Atticus into his room across the hall. I felt my heart in the tips of my fingers; the moisture had evaporated from my mouth, and all I wanted to do was run for my life. Away from all the violence, and the dark souls who lived in this place; away from the girl who I knew would want revenge on me even though I had nothing to do with Petra being taken; and away from this man, Atticus, who I would be alone with, in his room, for no telling how long.
I stood motionless and silent with my dress draped over my arm. After many days of wanting the chance to talk to Atticus, to find out anything about my sister, here was my chance, but I couldn’t look at him, much less speak to him.
Atticus set my books on the floor beside a wall and walked past me. He left the room and came back seconds later dragging my small mattress with him. After setting his gun on the end of his bed amid the messy sheets, he kicked away a small pile of clothes next to a wicker hamper, clearing a place by the wall near the window. After placing the mattress on the floor, he went to his bed and grabbed one of his own pillows, beat it gently with the palm of his hand to puff it up, and then tossed it on my cot.
“It’s late. I’m tired. And I have to be up early.” He walked over to the door and locked it from the inside.
I still couldn’t move. I was surrounded by rapists and murderers; I wanted to stand there and keep my eyes open all night even if it meant with needles.
Atticus went over to his bed and fitted his fingers on the waist of his pants. But then just before he slid them down over his hips, presumably his ritual every night, he stopped. His shoulders rose and fell with a heavy breath, and then he zipped and buttoned them up instead.
“Please,” he urged, pointing at my cot, “get some sleep—I can’t if you’re standing there like that.”
I nodded once, though I didn’t think it was enough he saw it, and then I crawled onto the cot. His pillow felt lumpy under the back of my head, but it was soft and smelled faintly of cigars and man, neither an inviting nor an unpleasant smell.
I lay against my cot in the heat, gazing up at the strange shadows moving along the ceiling above me. Why is he being so kind? Why am I not more afraid? But I was no fool, nor would I allow myself to be by falling under the spell of a man who only pretended to be kind—that’s what he was doing, I was sure of it. But I would be the one pretending, the way I had been with Naomi and everyone else.
I rolled onto my side with my back facing the wall, and took in what I could of my new surroundings. There were many things at my disposal I could use as a weapon, even if just something hard to hit him over the head with. And I thought of the door, locked by a single slide-over lock from the inside. Why would Atticus go to sleep knowing I might try escape in the night? Because he was probably one step ahead of me, and to attempt escape with him in the room would be nothing short of stupid.
And so I did nothing.
I was a prisoner without bars.