58
THAIS
I felt suffocated the moment I stepped off the ferry and headed deeper into Paducah, Kentucky. Hundreds—maybe a thousand—people walked the streets, toting shotguns and rifles and axes over their shoulders, pulling vicious dogs on leashes; one man walked with a bear, and it was a wonder how he had not yet become the animal’s meal.
Kade pushed his way through heavy crowds with me beside him, still bound with my hands behind my back. Painted faces watched me—dark makeup, motor oil, charcoal—it was unsettling to see the whites of their eyes stark against the blackness following me coldly as I moved past.
I shrieked as a heavily muscled dog with long, gnashing teeth came at me; it growled and snapped and lunged at me on its leash. Kade put himself between us just as the dog’s owner yanked back on the thick chain; the dog withdrew and lay submissively on the concrete next to the woman.
“Looks like you’ve been fishing again,” the woman said, looking down on me for she was incredibly tall. “Doesn’t look like a fighter. I may have to take her from you.”
I looked back in search of Atticus, seeking the comfort of his eyes, but he was gone. I panicked, struggled to pull my arm from Kade’s hand; I pushed up on my toes to see over the heads of so many people, but Atticus was nowhere to be found.
“Where’s Atticus?” I asked with anxiety. “Where did they take him?”
Kade tugged on my elbow, pulling me toward him.
“You’ll see him later,” he said, and then turned back to the woman.
“If you want to fight me for her,” he challenged, a grin in his voice, “then by all means; we can settle it here, or in the arena later tonight.”
The woman’s free hand came up, the tips of her thumb and index finger moved over her bottom lip. “Hmm,” she pondered, looking me over with the surveying sweep of her gaze. “She’s too skinny—maybe next time.” The dog sprang to its feet when she jerked on the leash, and the two walked away together, disappearing amid the crowd.
Kade looked at me; I swallowed nervously.
“Around here,” he explained, pulling me toward a building, “you’re only my companion for as long as I can keep you.”
“You mean your slave?”
He ignored my icy comment.
“Still have to watch my back though; you’re new and the people here like shiny new things.”
“Shiny new slaves, you mean to say,” I kept on.
He stopped on the sidewalk and gestured a hand at Paducah’s residents. “Every person you see here either wants to be here—”
“I don’t,” I cut in, sneering.
“Either wants to be here,” he repeated more sternly, “or hasn’t figured out how to change their situation. If you’d like to leave, all you have to do is find a way out. Your freedom is up to you, sweetheart. If you’re strong enough to take it, then you’re more than welcome to keep it.” He pointed at my bound hands and said matter-of-factly, “Those are on your wrists because you let me put them there.” He smiled. “Your limitations are what got you into this mess. Think about that for a while.”
I wanted to claw his eyes out! But strangely enough, it was his logic, not his actions, which provoked it.
We went into motion again, heading for the building. “You can’t live out there, alone, like the two of you were doing in that cabin. What were you thinking, anyway?” He glanced at me, his brows drawn.
“We could live alone,” I bit back, “if people like you would leave us alone. Just because the world ended doesn’t give you the right to oppress everybody else. Because civilization was set back hundreds of years doesn’t mean we, as humans, have to devolve with it.”
Kade’s bright eyes smiled thoughtfully, and then his mouth, wreathed in a black beard and mustache, shortly followed.
“A lecturer,” he stated. “Can’t say we’ve had too many of those around here”—he glanced at me, raised a dark brow—“But that could play in your favor.”
“How so?” I asked, but with little hope.
“Nobody here wants to hear that shit,” he said, pulled me along. “So no one will bother challenging me for you.”
He led me around the building toward the front. Dozens of graffiti-covered school busses were parked across the large parking lot, the windows and doors left open, some were covered by sheets, and people sat outside in lawn chairs.
The building in front of me had tall diamond-shaped windows positioned dramatically over the wide entrance and low steel-and-glass awning. I was surprised to see that the many glass doors and windows were all still in-tact.
Kade pushed open a glass door and took me inside the once-extravagant building. Vulgar graffiti covered the walls; the smell of burnt wood and the mustiness of a slowly-dying building lingered on the air, smothered by the stench of body odor and unwashed clothes and marijuana, and, of all things, the after-burn of a methamphetamine cook. I knew that potent smell all too well—my neighbor, Terry Wiltshire, blew his house up and almost took mine with it one year because of a cook gone bad.
Insofar as I could tell, Paducah was a disgusting place, occupied by disgusting people, who, as I walked past, looked at me as if I were an annoying fly they wanted to swat and be rid of.
Oh Atticus…where did they take you?
“Where did they take Atticus?” I said out loud as Kade led me up a wide flight of stairs.
“Ah, he’ll be all right,” he said, brushing it off. “He looks like the kind of guy who can hold his own. And if not, then you don’t need him protecting you anyway. We’ll see soon enough.”
What does that mean? I clenched my hands behind my back, and bit down on my bottom lip. What does that mean?
Another floor and down a weaving hallway and we came upon a room. Kade led me inside, and cut the bonds from my wrists.
Before I could take in my new surroundings, a tiny young woman with a soft cloud of black hair around her head scurried forward and stood before Kade, her hands with long, gentle fingers were linked down in front of her like a little basket. She was clothed in a sheer ivory gown that clung to her petite form, revealing her deep brown skin underneath.
“Drusilla,” Kade spoke up, “this is…” He looked to me askance.
With a short sigh of surrender, I told them my name.
“It is nice to meet you,” Drusilla said, slowly smiling; she had delicate, round features, but set within them were a pair of fierce brown eyes, hinting at something far stronger underneath than what appeared on the surface.
Drusilla reached out a hand, and reluctantly I took it. Rings were slid upon all ten of her fingers; jewels hung from her earlobes, and her dainty neck, and her wrists.
“See to it that Thais is dressed and fed,” Kade said.
“Yes, sir.” She smiled at him, but to me, it appeared forced, vengeful even.
Kade’s eyes grazed the spacious room filled with random furniture, and a king-size bed, and tables covered with rolls upon rolls of fabric, and baskets and shelves chock-full of yarn and thread and various other sewing supplies.
“This room is a fucking mess,” Kade told the girl with the wave of his hand.
“Yes, sir, I will clean it before you get back.”
“Good,” he said with a solid nod, and then he turned on his heels.
“When can I see Atticus?” I asked, but Kade’s tall form slipped out into the hall and disappeared, the door closing behind him.
“They’re going to make him fight,” Drusilla spoke up from behind. “Whoever Atticus is.” She retreated back to the spot on the floor where she had been sitting when I entered the room.
With dread in my heart, I went toward the girl. “Fight? Why? With who?” I stood over Drusilla as she sat cross-legged, surrounded by small strips of fabric in an array of designs and colors.
Drusilla moved pieces here and there, appearing to match each one with another one that best complimented it; she rarely ever looked up at me when she spoke.
“Everybody fights eventually,” she explained; her dainty hands moved gently over the patterns. “You either stand up for yourself, or if you can’t, you find someone willing to stand up for you. Of course, that way isn’t free, either.” She glanced at me, a hidden meaning in her eyes, and looked back down at the strips of fabric on the floor.
I sat down in front of her, needing to see her face, wanting the girl to see mine so she’d understand my desperation.
“I have to get out of here,” I whispered. “Can you help me?” I never expected the girl to help me, and even thought the request too bold and too soon, having just met her less than five minutes ago, but there was no time for getting to know one another.
“What do you expect me to do?” Drusilla said. She looked right at me then, the fabric she’d been holding resting within her lap. “I’m in the same predicament as you are—I can’t even help myself.”
“And what predicament are you—are we—in exactly?”
Drusilla looked me over. “In exchange for Kade’s protection, we do whatever he wants us to do—unless you’d rather fight him for your freedom.” She cocked a curious brow, which meant she thought me incapable of such a feat, considering.
I jumped up and ran toward the door; it opened easily, which surprised me, and when I looked out into the hallway there were no guards waiting to thwart an escape; people walked past without even looking at me. My heart hammering against my ribs, I let out a long sigh, and my dainty shoulders slumped forward, and I hung my head low, feeling defeated. Because although Paducah seemed starkly different from Lexington, the one way they were the same was that I was a prisoner, locked behind an unlocked door, unable to take advantage of it because I would never leave without Atticus and I had no idea where he was.
“Kade will take you with him to the fights tonight,” Drusilla said. “You’ll see your Atticus there.” She got quiet, which caused me to turn around to see her. “For his sake, and yours, I hope he’s strong.”
I went toward Drusilla slowly, dread and uncertainty in my steps, afraid of Drusilla’s words but needing to hear them.
“The fights are never fair,” Drusilla went on. “It’s anything goes down there. But with newcomers”—she looked down at the fabric in her hands and went back to matching it—“it’s always a fight to the death the first time.”
I sucked in a sharp breath, and fell to my knees in front of Drusilla, the ceramic tiles cool against my legs. “Where did they take him? Please, you have to help me. I-I know you don’t have any reason to, but I’m begging you.”
Drusilla looked up.
“I can’t help you,” she said, and then her gaze strayed. “Besides, even if I could, I wouldn’t.”
I blinked.
“I know you’re afraid, but—”
“I’m not afraid.” Drusilla chastened. “I have plans of my own, and helping you do anything that might interfere with those plans is completely out of the question.”
“Then just point me in the right direction,” I pleaded. “I’ll figure out the rest on my own.”
“No.” Drusilla gathered up the matched pieces of fabric, took them over to a table and set them down next to other stacks.
Getting angry, and running out of time, I stormed over to Drusilla and grabbed her arm.
“You are afraid!” I accused. “I’ve seen that face before—I used to wear it! You haven’t given up hope yet, but the fear is close to forcing you to!”
Drusilla jerked her arm out of my hand; her black eyebrows crumpled with insult.
“You don’t know anything,” she bit back. “Who are you to come in here and tell me about myself; to come in here and tell me I need to help you? You’re crazy.”
“I’m desperate,” I corrected her. “And so are you—look at you. You’re a prisoner. A slave.”
Drusilla flinched.
“I can come and go as I please,” she argued, but with less confidence. “I can do whatever I want, whenever I choose to do it.”
“Then why don’t you? Why don’t you leave? Why don’t you help me?”
Drusilla nearly smiled.
“You think I want to help you?” she said.
“I know you do.”
Now she did smile. And then she laughed.
“You really are crazy.” She shook her head and walked away.
“If I’m crazy,” I began, “then look me in the face and tell me you like being this man’s property. Tell me you enjoy running to stand at attention when he enters the room, faking the smiles, calling him sir, assuring him you’ll have the room cleaned before he comes back as though you’re a child. How old are you? Twenty?”
Drusilla went back over to her workspace on the floor.
“I’m not going to help you,” she said at last. “So stop badgering me about it. If you want to leave, the door is there. But what you do, or where you go beyond it, is all you.”
She sat back down cross-legged and went back to matching the fabric strips.
I clenched my fists down at my sides, gritted my teeth.
“Fine.”
I marched toward the door, intent on leaving, but stopped when I heard Drusilla’s voice.
“You can go,” she called out, “but I’m asking you to stay. Just…stay here with me.” The desperation in her voice was light but evident, different from the bold, unsympathetic girl just seconds ago—the change gave me whiplash.
I turned.
“Why?”
Drusilla sighed. “You’re safe in this room,” she said. “It’s a rule that most respect: no one trespasses in another’s home. But if you walk out that door, you’re inviting anyone to claim you as their own.” The look in Drusilla’s eyes was enough to bend my resolve.
The face the girl wore before was just a mask, the same one I wore when pretending with Kade. It was how I knew, without actually knowing, that Drusilla was just like me. It was how I trusted her so easily and could ask for her help so quickly.
“Please stay in the room,” Drusilla said once more.
Relenting, I closed the door.
I walked slowly across the floor, my movements hindered by my thoughts. A fight to the death? No. I can’t let that happen. But what can I do to stop it? My eyes burned and watered; I sniffled back the tears tearing their way to the surface, and although I kept them from falling, it wasn’t enough to hide the emotion erupting inside of me.
“Don’t cry,” Drusilla told me. “Never cry over the things you cannot control—figure out how to control them.”
I pressed the bottom of my palms hard against my eyes and rubbed in a circular motion to soothe away the itch. Inhaling a deep breath, I rounded my chin defiantly, adopting strength and rejecting weakness.
“You’ll see him tonight,” Drusilla reminded me, and she went back to work on the material. “Use your time here—a few more hours—to figure out what you’re going to do. Kade will take you to the fights. He always does. Figure out your plan now. When the time comes, either it will work, or it won’t.”
“And if it doesn’t?”
“Then you start fresh and come up with another one.”
My shoulders rose and fell.
“And how long have you been here?” I asked.
Drusilla paused.
“I’m on my eighth try,” she answered, and looked back down at the fabric in her hands.
Defeat washed over me like a wave.
But Atticus doesn’t have that long…