15
THAIS
I slept like I hadn’t slept since before my home was attacked, and as I stirred awake, I felt that my legs were spread-eagle, my arms stretched above my head. I woke the rest of the way in a quiet panic, rising swiftly from the cot and covering myself with a sheet. But the sheet I covered with wasn’t there the night before, I realized. I gazed across the sunlit room at Atticus’ bed and saw that the only sheet on it anymore covered the mattress.
I shot up from the cot, determined to dress myself before he came back. I stripped off my sweaty gown and put on my dress.
I was alone in the room—alone. The realization filled me with adrenaline. I glimpsed the door behind me in the reflection of the mirror—it was unlocked. It’s unlocked!
Darting across the room, I practically flung myself against the door. The door clicked open, and I gasped because I couldn’t believe it. Am I seeing things? Am I still asleep and only dreaming? I peered through a one-inch crack in the door, my eyes scanning. There was no soldier on guard in the hall—there was no one. I could leave now. I could a make run for it.
But I didn’t, and Atticus knew that I wouldn’t, otherwise he would’ve locked me in. Having no idea where in the city full of buildings Sosie might be, if I escaped, the chances of finding her before someone found me, were slim to none, especially in broad daylight.
I closed the door and locked it for added protection—the brute still thought I belonged to him; and then there was Petra I had to worry about. But why was I not much afraid of Atticus? How was I able to sleep so deeply and for so long in a room alone with him? Was this what too much trust did to a woman: changing the makeup of her brain as easily as switching a song on a radio? Yes, this must be what too much trust feels like. Either that, or this must be how conformity begins. “Soon, I’ll end up like Petra,” I said aloud to myself. “I could end up crazy like Petra…”
I paced the room slowly, taking everything in. It was filthy: dust had settled on every stick of furniture, every book on the two shelves lining the walls, every map and useless trinket that lay atop the desk by the window; candle wax hung over the sides of the desk like frozen icicles from a roof. Clothes were strewn about: socks that may have once been white hung in random places; shirts and pants and underwear had been tossed with abandon. It reminded me of my father’s bedroom; I’d cleaned it nearly every day for him because my mother was no longer there to do it. But I’d be damned if I lifted one finger to clean this man’s room.
I went to the window and peered out at the city. A crowd was gathered in a familiar place in front of a large stone building with a dome-shaped roof. It was the building I’d stood in front of when I last saw Sosie, when Atticus ripped us from one another.
He stood there now, in the same place as before, at the top of the concrete stairs. Soldiers packed the crowd; there were women—and men this time—bound by ropes. I wanted to look away but I couldn’t help but watch. No one screamed or begged to be set free; these prisoners were either happy to be here, or already too broken to care.
I watched Atticus the most, the way he ordered this and that person into this or that “profession”. I watched how his expression never seemed to shift, how he remained indifferent, and confident, and maybe, deep down behind those stark blue eyes, a little conflicted, too. But then I snapped back into reality, realizing that I was eight floors up and could barely hear his voice much less see the true definition of his face, and that some of what I had been seeing was just my memory of the day I stood before him.
I would never forget it; it would forever be etched in my memory.
I left the window and went to the desk, ran my fingers over the map that lay atop it, unfolded and marked upon by red and blue ink. It was a map of the United States of America, with rectangular creases equally distributed throughout the paper as if it had been folded compactly and sat on a rack in a gas station at one time. With the tip of my finger I traced a line of red ink from Kentucky to Ohio and then over to Virginia and downward to the panhandle of Florida. There were many hand-drawn lines along the map, but nothing that made any sense. Several circles had been marked with red ink in a strange pattern, most confined to the eastern and northeastern states. I couldn’t even guess what they meant.
A knock at the door startled me, and I jerked my hand away from the map as if I’d been doing something I wasn’t supposed to. The sound of knuckles rapped three more times on the wood, but I couldn’t move except to look out the window again and see that the Overseer was still there, so I knew it wasn’t him on the other side of the door.
Thank God I locked the door.
“Miss Thais,” I heard a familiar voice say. “I’ve brought your breakfast.”
It was one of Rafe’s wives, the pregnant brunette; her accent was southern, but mixed with something else—Cajun, perhaps.
I went across the room and placed my hand on the doorknob, unsure if I should open it.
“Thais, please open de door.”
After a moment, I slid the lock away and let the woman inside.
“Breakfast is a little late dis mornin’.” She set a tray of food down on a small table. “We had a’mishap in de kitchen—one stupid girl damn near burned de place down.”
She stood with her hands beneath her rounded belly, her slender fingers linked; long, dark hair tumbled like a wave of silk over one shoulder and down her back, stopping at her waistline. She had dark, fierce eyes set in a round, ivory face with just a dash of pink in her cheeks that could’ve been makeup or a natural blush.
I looked at the food on the plate; a puff of steam rose from the scrambled eggs.
“Thank you.”
I thought it would be better to wait until the woman left before digging in; it seemed she was here for more than delivering the meal.
The woman walked into the room, taking small, unhurried steps as her eyes scanned Atticus’ belongings. I watched her curiously, wondering why she was here, why she felt it necessary to take her time. I was used to Naomi’s company—this woman, for reasons I couldn’t place, made me uncomfortable.
“Can I ask ya a question?” the woman said, not looking at me.
“Of course.”
She pretended to be studying the ottoman at the foot of a giant chair, her hands still locked underneath her pregnant belly; she looked about seven months along.
“What do ya think ya can offer my husband as his wife?”
A nervous lump wedged in the center of my throat, and I couldn’t swallow it down.
“I mean no disrespect,” I spoke carefully, “not to you, not even to your husband, but I can’t offer anything; and I don’t want to be his wife or anyone else’s, and I don’t—”
“Den ya need to listen to me,” the woman cut in, and my lips snapped shut.
She stepped closer. “Dey’re not going to put ya anywhere else udder’dan wit a husband—whether it’s wit mine or some udder man in this city—or make ya a whore.” She cocked her head to one side, studying me with a scrutinizing gaze. “Dey’d never put ya wit de soldiers—don’t look like ya could beat a dog off ya leg.” She paused. “What are ya good at?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, is ‘dere a trade you’re ‘specially good at dat might be useful? Maybe ya could be a worker—but to be honest, ya probably wouldn’t want to go through what’d have to happen for dem to put ya in someplace like dat.”
“What would have to happen?” That nervous lump in my throat swelled.
The woman paused as if contemplating the best way to say it. “Well dat pretty face would have to go, for starters.”
The lump suddenly grew so big, so fast, that it was choking me.
I dropped my hands to my sides and took a small step backward, my eyes wide, my stomach as hard and heavy as an iron weight.
“Look,” the woman said with a sigh, “de least painful way out of dis is to start spreading ya legs, sweetheart. My husband, and Overlord Wolf, not even de most repulsive man in Wolf’s army wants a whore as a wife.” She glanced at the open door and then looked back at me, lowered her voice and said, “Ya could start wit Atticus Hunt. Here ya are”—she waved a hand about the room—“wit de perfect opportunity, sleeping in his room and spending ya days ‘ere. Even if ya don’t do it, people’ll talk, so ya might as well make de rumors true and buy a ticket out of a marriage while ya can.”
I wasn’t sure what to make of her advice, unsure even if it was advice, or something else.
“That’s not me,” I finally said, crossing my arms and shaking my head. “I can’t just do that. I can’t flip a switch like Petra did and become someone I’m not.”
“What else do ya plan to do den?”
“I don’t know.”
The woman tilted her head, looking at me with a strange sort of concern I felt was misplaced—it didn’t feel like concern, just looked like it.
“I’ll help ya,” she said. “If ya really want out of dis city, I’ll help ya if ya swear to tell no one.”
My eyes shot up to meet hers. Could it be true? Hope filled me again. All the time I had been trying to find a way out with my sister, I thought I would be forced to do it alone because no man here would ever help us. But I never thought to ask the women for help. They were probably just like me when they first came here: forced into a life not of their choosing; they would have more reason to help me than anyone else would.
I stepped forward, eager and hopeful.
“You’ll help me?” I said with desperation.
The woman nodded slowly. “Yeah. I’ll try, but ya have to gimmie a few days. Tell no one we spoke ‘bout dis. I’ll come to ya when I’m ready.”
I nodded; my hands sweated; my heart pounded feverishly in my ears.
The woman started for the door.
“Wait.” I stepped up behind her. “What about my sister? Her name is Sosie. She has blonde hair; she’s about my height. And she’s blind. They took her to the brothel.”
The woman chewed pensively on the inside of her cheek.
“I’ll see what I can do,” she said, and stepped out into the hall.
“But I can’t leave without her,” I said at the door. “If you can’t find me a way out of here that includes my sister, then I won’t go—please find her.”
The woman nodded once and then scurried down the hallway. I closed the door and locked myself inside the Overseer’s room.
I had been hungry before, but now that my mind was racing with the possibility of escape, I barely picked at the eggs and fried potatoes with my fork as I stared off at the wall. I was too excited to eat. And nervous. I was more nervous than anything because I knew that even with someone’s help, it would not be easy.
I spent the next few hours locked inside the room alone with only my thoughts and a half-eaten plate, until the lock on the door rattling against the wood frame woke me from a haze.
“Open the door!” I heard the Overseer say, and the lock rattled again.
I went over to let him in; decided I had to act normal while I waited for news from the woman who would be my ticket out of this prison.
Atticus walked straight into the room when the door came unlocked, barely giving me enough time to move out of his way.
“I-I didn’t feel safe being in here alone,” I stammered.
His lumbering movements as he made his way across the room toward his desk suggested he might be angry, or maybe just in a hurry.
“I don’t care that you locked the door,” he said as he sifted through the contents of his desk. “It’s best that you do from now on anyway; I should’ve woken you up and told you to lock it behind me when I left this morning.”
He took the large map and moved it aside. Then he took up a warped notebook that appeared to have been wet at one time, and flipped through the buckled pages.
I went over to my cot and sat down nervously, and watched him with private glances.
Atticus scanned the text, as though he were only skimming sections, looking for something, but then he looked up suddenly, glancing at the half-eaten plate on the table by the wall.
“Who was in here?” he probed.
I raised my eyes but was slow to answer.
“I…don’t remember her name,” I began. “One of Rafe’s wives.”
Atticus went back to reading the notebook.
“Well don’t open the door for her anymore.”
“But how else am I going to eat, or get a bath, or use the restroom?” There was a slight edge to my voice.
“I’ll bring your food from now on,” Atticus said without looking at me. “And when you need to use the facilities, I’ll take you and wait outside the door—no one other than me is allowed in this room.” He looked right at me then. “Is that understood?”
I wanted to argue my point until I realized I didn’t have one. At least not one I could argue with him. I couldn’t tell him I needed to see this woman because she was going to help me escape.
“I understand,” I agreed. I would figure the rest out later.
Atticus set the notebook down and went over to the food on the table. He looked at me and then back at the food. Lifting the plate, he placed it underneath his nose and inhaled deeply.
“It’s already cold,” he said, setting the plate back down. “How long ago did you eat from it?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know. A few hours maybe.”
“Good, then you’re probably safe.”
“Safe from what?”
Atticus went back over and sat down at his desk; he was so tall he sat awkwardly in the chair, hunched over slightly with his legs taking up all the space between him and the desk.
He glanced at me. “I doubt they’d try to kill you here, but it’s been almost two weeks and you still haven’t cracked, so naturally the claws will start coming out.”
I stood up and went toward him. “What are you talking about? They’ve been really nice to me—you were the one who sent them to care for me in the first place.” Weren’t you?
“Don’t let them in here anymore,” he said simply. “Now, I have work to do, if you don’t mind.”
Angry at his non-answers, but too intimidated by him to let him know just how much, all I could do was nod. Could what he said be true? Would Rafe’s wives want to kill me? I thought it absurd, after they’d been so kind. Plus, the many opportunities they had to kill me already—it didn’t make any sense. And I didn’t want it to be true, not now especially, after I had a way out of this city with the help of one of them.
I tried another approach.
“Well, I was going to suggest that I be allowed to stay with them, actually,” I said, with absolutely no confidence. “I think I’d feel safer with them. Not to mention, it would be, well, more appropriate than staying here in your room, sir.”
“No,” was all he said without looking up, and he continued to scan the text of another notebook.
“But—”
“No.” His head snapped around; he set the notebook down. “My job is to keep you safe until my superior returns. That means safe from all things, primarily rape, consensual sex with soldiers like your ex-roommate, and, of course, murder. So, you’re going to stay in this room, with me, whether you like it or not. What did she say to you when she was here?”
The question caught me off-guard.
“She didn’t say anything.”
I was unconfident now in my lies, too, and I got the feeling that Atticus knew it. My demeanor probably didn’t help, either: the way I couldn’t look him in the eyes for more than a second, the way my fingers fidgeted nervously in front of me—I wasn’t this uncomfortable last night when I watched a man get stabbed to death. Sure, I had been frightened and shaken up, but this was a different kind of fear—I was hiding something, and I was afraid that he knew it.
Atticus turned back to his desk.
“Well, what’s going to stop me from leaving this room on my own?” I said boldly, and yet, timidly. I rounded my chin with as much defiance as I could muster.
“Looks like you can’t lock the door from the outside,” I pointed out, “or you would’ve locked me inside here when you left.”
“You won’t go anywhere.” He didn’t look up from the paper, and his voice was uninterested.
“I won’t?” My chin reared back.
“No. You won’t.”
“What on earth would make you think that?” I found his apathetic attitude toward something I thought quite a serious matter, maddening—Did he think me weak and stupid?
“I can slip out of here anytime I want.” I didn’t really believe that.
“You could,” he said, looking at me again, “but you won’t”—he held up an index finger—“you won’t because you know you’re safer in this room than anywhere else, and you won’t risk running without your sister. And since you have no idea where to look for her, you’re going to bide your time in this room while you try to figure out a way to find her, rescue her, and then leave the city without getting caught.” He dropped his hand on top of the desk and shook his head. “But let me save you the trouble of going through all that shit just to end up back here”—he tapped the tip of his index finger against the wood—“right where you started, except with ropes around your wrists and ankles to make another attempt more difficult.”
He turned back to his notebook and slid a hand in-between the pages.
“Besides, if I really wanted to lock you in here, and I thought you were stupid enough to try running, I could easily do so by moving the thousand-pound safe in the room next door, over in front of the door—it does open into the hall, you know.”
I bit down on the inside of my mouth and frowned. What an infuriating smartass!
“Then tell me that my sister is okay.” I stepped up closer to him. “Look, I won’t run, I won’t do anything stupid, but I need to hear someone say that Sosie is all right. I’m begging you—”
“I don’t know anything about your sister,” he said, looking me dead in the eyes. “I don’t know, and I don’t care, and neither should you.”
I threw my hands up beside me. “How can you say that?! What if that was your sister—sir?!” I spit out the formality as if it was something revolting in my mouth. “Or don’t you care? If that was your sister or your mother, you’d just send them packing to the closest whorehouse and—”
The desk jolted, and Atticus’ chair skidded across the floor as he shot into a frightening, towering stand. His eyes churned with what seemed like anger and punishment and…pain?
I shrank backward and away from him.
“Forget about your sister, Thais,” he said, and the sound of my name on his lips quietly stunned me. “Both of you can live long lives and be free like everyone else in this city if you just accept the way things are…”—he calmed, and slid slowly back into the chair—“…the way things have to be.”
I said nothing.
“You’ll be fine when the Overseer returns,” he added, going back to the previous discussion. “No one will dare touch you when he’s made you his.”
“But I don’t want to be his!” I cried into my hands. “Why are you forcing me into this?”
“It’s the way things have to be.”
“But why!”
“BECAUSE THE WORLD IS CHANGED!” he roared, sucking the oxygen out of the room; I jumped at his booming voice.
Then he gathered his composure, turned back to his work. “And because we have to change with it,” he said in a calmer voice that sounded more like an apology than a statement.
He seemed to find what he was looking for, repositioned his gun holster strapped around his chest, and left the room promptly.
I locked the door behind him and fell against my cot and cried.