21
THAIS
An hour went by, one long and tortuous hour, thinking of my sister and everything that had happened. Get up, the voice inside my head told me, but I ignored it. Another hour, and the voice was still there, trying to interfere, to take from me all that I had left: my sorrow.
Get up. Do what Sosie could not. Get up. Getupgetupgetup!
Sorrow turned to anger, anger to determination and vengeance—I wanted to live now more than ever, I wanted to live to get back at the world for what it did to my family.
I wanted to live.
I wiped my tears away with the back of my hand—tore them away from my face with fury and resolve—and I stormed across the room, grabbing the backpack I’d already partially filled with stolen supplies.
I went around Atticus’ room and stuffed as much as I could into the bag until it was almost too heavy to carry. Once the bag was full to bursting, I lifted it onto my shoulders to test the weight and it nearly toppled me over. But I straightened, with difficulty, and walked around the room. I walked across flat surface; I stood on Atticus’ bed and walked across unsteady surface; I walked upright, and with my body hunched over; I walked with and without my shoes—I thought any practice was better than no practice.
When I had nothing left to do but wait, I went over to the window and gazed out into the night. The rain had stopped falling; the moon was a giant orb in the sky peeking over the tops of the surrounding buildings.
“I’m sorry I couldn’t protect you, Sosie. But I’m going to try…I’m”—I swallowed—“Sosie, I’m going to try to make it. And if I live long enough, I will tell people about you, about my beautiful Sosie who was a beautiful poet. Tell Mother and Fa—”
The sound of exploding wood stopped my heart, and I whirled around to face the door. Crack! Bang! The door swung open; pieces of the wooden frame fell onto the floor. My scream pierced the air, and in the same instant I lost my breath. A burly, dark figure towered in the doorway like a monster, a crowbar in his hand, a twisted smile on his face mixed with maddening retribution, revealing the gap between his yellowed teeth. It was the brute.
My already weakened legs shook beneath the thin fabric of my dress; my stomach clenched; my lungs tried desperately to find air again but to no avail. My eyes darted around the room in search of the gun, anything I could use to protect myself. But all I had, I realized quickly, were my words.
“What are you doing in here?” I demanded. I tried not to look afraid, tried to control the shaking of my hands as I raised them out in front of me in gesture. “The Overseer will not be pleased—”
“The Overseer isn’t fucking here,” the brute cut in. “He’s in Ohio. The cocksucker who took you from me, and has been hiding you up here in his goddamned room”—his grin spread so largely it looked like it could take off my whole head—“well, he’ll be dealt with soon enough.”
He lumbered into the room toward me. I backed my way toward the window, both hands blindly feeling behind me for something to grasp.
“I-I don’t belong to you,” I stuttered. “I-I’m supposed to become Rafe’s wife. If you touch me—”
The brute tapped the rounded head of the crowbar he’d used to break the locked door open with, against his camouflaged pants. “You’re to become my wife,” he growled, still coming toward me. “I was next on the list, and I won’t have some pussy soldier like Hunt cutting in front of me in line.”
“But Rafe—”
“Fuck Rafe!” the brute barked.
And then he grabbed me, and my own scream deafened me.
ATTICUS
I had two backpacks—one hung from my shoulder, the other I carried in my hand—full of supplies I’d hidden in various places throughout the city. It was late morning, around three a.m., and I was on my way to see Peter Whitman when while passing down an alley to avoid the patrols, I noticed I was being followed. A mass of shadows all grouped together moved along the wall of the brick building behind me. Voices carried on the air lowly.
I felt my legs swell with energy and I picked up the pace. I swung the other backpack on the opposite shoulder, and then reached behind me, pulling my gun from the back of my pants. Small lights cast by makeshift street lanterns shone out ahead, and just beyond them I could see the building where Peter lived. But when another mass of shadows grew largely against the asphalt in front of me, I knew I wouldn’t make it that far.
“Atticus Hunt,” a voice taunted; a small group of six men replaced the shadows and stepped out from the side of the building.
I turned to place the face with the voice, and I counted five more men blocking the path behind me—fuck.
I straightened my back and rounded my chin to show them I was not to be intimidated, though deep down, I was. Eleven men against one; possibly two bullets in my gun—my chances of making it out of this alive were slim. I had, in fact, killed eighteen men in a single night with my bare hands, but this was different—this was so very different. And yet, all I could think about was helping that girl, making good on my promise, finding absolution for all the fucked-up things I had done. And for failing my mother and sisters.
You’re gonna get yourself shanked in an alley somewhere. Wolf’s words rang true in my head as I looked up at the tall building walls on both sides of me—I was a fish in a barrel.
I removed both bags from my shoulders and set them on the concrete by my boots.
“A bunch of weak cowards,” I said boldly, looking to my left and right as the men advanced from both sides. “Can’t fight me on your own? I guess I can’t say I expected anything else.”
The men were not deterred.
“You’ve worn out your welcome,” the man who had called out my name before said. “And we heard on the grapevine something about you becoming the new Overseer when Rafe’s promoted to General.” He made a tsk-tsk noise with his mouth, and his index finger rocked side to side in a punishing fashion. “Now, I’m sorry but that just ain’t gonna work. Because, we have needs”—he pointed at me—“and you pose a threat to those needs.”
The man, with buzzed blonde hair, stepped right up to me. “What is it with you anyway?” He grinned impishly. “You like men or somethin’? You never take a wife. You’re always up there in that whore’s room at the brothel, always the same whore—I bet you’re not even fuckin’ her, are ya? I bet it’s all just for show.” He raised both hands out at his sides, a big slippery smile stretching his features, and then he dropped his hands and clasped his fingers around the button on his pants. Laughter sounded all around me. “If that’s the kind of thing you like”—he slid his zipper down—“I’d be happy to bend you over by the dumpster over there.”
The butt of my gun rammed into the man’s face and the crowd exploded in retaliation.
Fists were flying at me from all directions; shouts and grunts and curses filled my ears, closing in on me as the men tackled me like football players. Rapid, white-hot pains seared through my head simultaneously, and I felt the gun fall from my hand. Another set of knuckles crashed against one side of my head; black spots sprang in front of my eyes.
Reaching for any body part I could, I held on tight and brought one soldier down with me; my hands were around the man’s throat; choking noises were barely audible in the scuffle over the sound of boots shuffling against the concrete, fists making contact with flesh, and the ringing inside my ears. I somehow pushed several men off me and stood my ground. I swung out, knocking one man down; I swung out again and a tooth went flying through the air; I swung out once more and brought another man to his knees; I kicked outward and heard ribs cracking underneath my boot.
But then the world spun when my feet came out from underneath me. Blood sprang up in my mouth when my face hit the concrete. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t see. I could hear nothing anymore other than the hammering of boots knocking against my ribs and my arms and my legs and my head and my back—thump-thump-thud-thump-thump-thump! The beating seemed to go on forever, the pain unimaginable as I lay curled in a ball on the warm street, trying to cover myself from the blows, my cheek soaking up the heat from the asphalt.
Then everything stopped.
The air around me gradually became cooler as the group backed away. Blood pooled on the concrete around my mouth. My left eye felt swollen like a balloon; the right one stung as if a piece of rock or glass from the street was wedged behind the lid. My lips felt slimy and cracked. My ribs and my back and my tailbone felt like they’d all been singled out and beat upon with a fucking hammer.
The blonde-haired man crouched in front of me; the rancid smell of breath and body odor swirled around me like a fresh pile of shit.
“Courtesy of Private Masters and Private Bell,” he said.
Private Bell, I recalled the rapist—I knew sooner or later I’d pay for letting that girl shoot him.
Spit hit my face and ran down my neck.
Still reeling from the pain in my ribs, I tried desperately to move, to raise myself from the street; my eyes were clenched shut as the pain traveled through every limb. Behind me somewhere I heard the men talking, and what sounded like items from the backpacks being rummaged and thrown on the ground.
“Looks like he was planning on going somewhere, after all,” one man said.
“They were right,” said another.
Clink, clank, thump, crash—everything that had been packed inside the backpacks was tossed.
I finally got to my knees, both arms braced across my midsection, and I raised my eyes just as the group of soldiers slipped around the corner and out of sight.
I was alone. But I was alive.
The supplies lay everywhere, the backpacks empty, collapsed on the street in a sad heap of fabric. With difficulty, I got to my feet and snatched up one backpack, stuffed everything in reach inside. But I didn’t get it even a quarter of the way full when the comments made by the men about me “going somewhere” and “they were right” rang in my head like an air raid siren. They? Who were they exactly, and what all did they know?
“Thais…”
I took off running toward my building, letting my legs carry me in large strides, despite the pain fighting to bring me back to my knees.
THAIS
My teeth clamped down on the brute’s wrist when he grabbed me.
“Go ahead and bite me,” he taunted, as he strode across the room with me kicking and screaming, “but you should know I like that kind of shit.”
“Let me go! I’ll kill myself before I let you touch me! Let me go!”
As the brute made it to the door, the stairwell door across the hall swung open.
Atticus moved so fast toward the brute that all I saw was the floor rushing toward me as I fell from his grasp; I struck the tile hard on my side.
The sound of furniture crashing in the room behind me made me turn swiftly. I watched in horror as a bloodied Atticus pummeled the brute with his fists; blow after blow after bloody blow rained down on the giant’s head. The brute, stung by the sudden attack, flailed his big arms out at his sides like a pinwheel, swiping this way and that way like a giant swatting at a fly.
Atticus took a blow the chin, but was unfazed by it; he pushed the brute across the room, knocking the desk chair onto its side, and shoved his massive body against the desk. Everything went flying: pens and pencils and writing tablets and trinkets and dishes; the unfolded map of the United States of America crumpled beneath the brute’s weight, ripped at the seams. The painful sound of Atticus’ fists pounding the brute’s face twisted my stomach in knots.
The brute pushed Atticus off him, just long enough to raise himself from the desk and get to his feet again. But in a flash, Atticus was on him once more. He had the brute in front of the window now, his large body pressed against the opening. The brute was no longer moving, just enough to show he was still alive; his bald head swayed precariously on a limp neck and broad shoulders; his bloody fingers tightened and loosened on Atticus’ arms; his massive chest rose and fell with desperation.
I moved closer; both hands covered my mouth; my eyes grew wider as the distance shortened between us and the sight of the brute’s face came into view. Tiny blood bubbles formed in his nostrils; both black eyes were swollen shut; blood drained from his mouth, covered his busted lips that no longer hid his gapped teeth—his teeth were gone, leaving only a black, glistening hole for a mouth. I didn’t know who was more the monster anymore: the brute, or Atticus.
Atticus buried his fist once more into the brute’s face with a sharp crack! and finally the body went limp.
I watched in horror as Atticus fitted his arms underneath the body and heaved it over the edge. “AhhUhnnnn!” he howled, as the brute disappeared over the windowsill. The sound of his head cracking open on the sidewalk eight floors below nearly made me faint. I was equally shocked that I could hear it that far up, but I did. Maybe it was only my imagination, but I’d heard nothing more bloodcurdling in my life.
Everything went silent.
Atticus stood there, his arms down at his sides, his bloody fists clenched, and in the moonlight bathing him from the window I watched his shoulders rise and fall with heavy, rapid breaths.
Slowly I backed my way toward the door; I wanted to run, but away from him I knew was in the wrong direction. I needed him. But he was a different man standing there, covered in blood and bruises and rage, saying nothing, doing nothing, acknowledging nothing. I was afraid of him, of his state of mind, but not of the person who I hoped was still inside there somewhere—I was beginning to worry.
I stepped toward him instead.
“Atticus?” I reached out a trembling hand and went to lay it on his shoulder, but he startled me when he turned swiftly, and I jerked my hand away.
“I have to get you out of here now,” he said, and when he raised his head to the moonlight, I got my first glimpse of how badly his own face had been battered. My hand flew over my mouth.
“Get your stuff,” he demanded and stormed past me. “NOW, THAIS!”
I gasped sharply, and froze. Then a scream rang out in the street below the window. The shock wore off when realization sank in; and as Atticus grabbed one backpack, and another gun he had hidden in a drawer, I fought my arms into the straps of the backpack I’d packed while he was gone.
Atticus grabbed his jacket from the floor and the torn map from the desk before we stormed out of the room.