10
THAIS
The defiant girl struggled against her bonds, kicked and spit at the soldier who dragged her by the rope.
“Let me go!” she shrieked.
The soldier grabbed her around the waist, hoisting her into the air; she flailed and cursed as he carried her underneath his arm.
“Sosie,” I whispered, “just do whatever they say, okay?” I tried to sound encouraging.
A loud thwap! sounded behind me, and a mass of long, dark hair pooled around the defiant girl’s head as she fell onto the concrete. Lifting her face from the sidewalk, blood appeared on the back of her hand when she withdrew it from her mouth. The soldier standing over her yanked on the rope and forced her back to her feet. His hand went up to strike her again, but before he could bring it down, the man, who I assumed was the Overseer, stepped forward and held out his hand to the soldier. Reluctantly, the soldier relented, and then handed over his end of the rope.
The defiant girl glared at the Overseer through puffy, reddened eyes; blood trickled from one corner of her mouth.
“If you don’t let me go,” she growled, “I’ll kill every one of you.”
The Overseer reached for a knife at his hip, removing it from a leather sheath attached at his belt. The girl’s eyes widened; she took a step back, but stood her ground instead, rounded her chin and invited whatever fate the Overseer had in mind to serve her.
“Hold out your hands,” he told her.
Reluctantly she did, and to the surprise of everyone, he cut her wrists free.
“You can run if you want,” the Overseer said, “but where will you go? Back into the mountains? You’d be buying yourself weeks, maybe a few more months of false freedom before the cracks come and take everything you’ve got and slaughter your family. Or the savages find you and cut you into pieces.”
I squeezed Sosie’s hand so tight.
“Or,” the Overseer went on, “you can stay here and live in a structured society, protected from outsiders.” He dropped the rope from his hand and sheathed his knife with the other.
The defiant girl scoffed. “A structured society?” She laughed. “Sure, a structured society of kidnappers and rapists and murderers—fuck you!” Droplets of blood spewed from her lips.
The Overseer turned to Marion, a look of question on his face.
Marion’s broad shoulders rose and fell with an irritated sigh; he looked through the crowd at the men, and then gestured three fingers at the rapist known as Private Bell.
“Did that man violate you?” the Overseer asked the defiant girl as Private Bell walked up.
“No,” she answered with an offended look.
She raised her hand and uncurled her index finger, pointed at the quiet girl bound by the rope in Private Bell’s hand. The victim refused to speak, or even to lift her head.
The Overseer stepped up to Private Bell.
“Is this true?” he demanded. “Did you rape this girl?”
Private Bell’s eyes narrowed. “Yeah, it’s true,” he admitted. “So fuckin’ what—are you gonna throw me in jail?” He laughed and so did many others.
My ears hung on every word, my eyes drank in every movement. I watched the Overseer from the side, studying his tall height and athletic stature. He had short chestnut-brown hair and severe blue eyes that both intrigued and frightened me. But there was something else about him, something…different. And although I wanted to understand it, I didn’t have time to investigate.
Private Bell jerked the rope in his hand, pulled the quiet, broken girl toward him. “Look at her,” he insisted. “You know as well as anyone here that she’s destined for the brothel.”
The victim stood with her bound hands down in front of her; her small, bony shoulders slumped over. She wore a dirty dress stained with blood and hardship, and white lace-up shoes coming apart.
Private Bell wrenched her chin in his large hand, raised her face to the Overseer; what meat was left on her cheeks forced around his thick fingers as he squeezed.
“Look at her!” Private Bell repeated, the desperation growing in his voice. “Look at her and tell me Rafe wouldn’t have put her in the brothel.”
The Overseer looked back at Private Bell, his unbreakable expression never faltering.
“Give me your gun, Private,” he demanded evenly, holding out his hand with expectation. “I said give me your gun.”
Private Bell shoved the girl aside and removed his gun from his waist, placing it into the Overseer’s hand with an unforgiving sneer.
To the shock of everyone—including me—the Overseer held the gun out to the victim first, offering it to her. Too broken to acknowledge him, he turned to the defiant girl then, placed it into her hand instead. She looked down at it, bewildered. Gasps and whispers rose up all around me.
Marion stepped forward in protest. “I don’t think—”
The defiant girl raised the gun at Marion then; his hands shot up in an instant, and he stepped back.
She turned, eyes wild, hands shaking, and pointed the gun at Private Bell.
“Go on,” the Overseer urged her. “Serve him his punishment.”
Private Bell’s eyes locked on the Overseer, filled with disbelief and alarm. Only a second later, a shot pierced the air, echoed off the buildings that surrounded us in the city center. I sucked in a sharp breath and my bound hands flew over my mouth; even Sosie trembled uncontrollably next to me. I pulled her closer, buried her face against my chest.
Private Bell crumpled to his knees, both hands covering his crotch; blood seeped through the green of his pants and pooled around his fingers. “Nnnnauuughhh!” he cried out. “Fucking bitch! Mother-fucking-bitch!” He fell over onto his side; his big square head knocked against the concrete; his body curled into a fetal position.
The Overseer took the gun from the defiant girl and casually handed it to Marion, who accepted it, wide-eyed. He and the soldiers gawked at the Overseer as a collective, dumbfounded by what just happened.
The defiant girl leaned over Private Bell. “Piece of shit!” she spat, and then stepped away.
“Someone take Private Bell to the medic,” the Overseer ordered casually.
Two soldiers stepped up immediately, grabbed Private Bell by his arms and pulled him up. They carried him through the crowd of stunned and angry soldiers.
“I think we may not be on the same page here,” Marion said to the Overseer; he looked at him in a sidelong manner, his eyes darkening. “Private Bell may be a sick bastard who deserves to be put in his place every now and then, but he’s a good fighter, a hard soldier, and a loyal soldier, and last I checked, soldiers were more important here than whores.”
Dozens of heads nodded in agreement, and a low wave of voices carried over the crowd.
The Overseer waited until the voices ceased before he spoke.
“Yes,” he began, in the same confident tone he had spoken with since we’d arrived. “But last I checked, the Overseer is the only one with the authority to pick and choose who is placed where within the city’s infrastructure.” He stepped closer to Marion, challenging him. “If Private Bell, you, or any other man here feel you have the right and freedom to step on the Overseer’s boots whenever you see fit, who’s to say what other things in the Overseer’s power you’ve taken advantage of at your own discretion?”
Marion rounded his chin, appeared to chew roughly on the inside of his mouth. “We’re loyal men,” he argued. “And Rafe has never had an issue with the way we choose to do things.”
“Perhaps not,” the Overseer came back, “but what do you think he—or Overlord Wolf—will do to the men they find out violated any one of their wives before they were brought here by any of the scouting parties?”
The low voices rambling behind Marion stopped in an instant, and several heads shot up with guilty faces frozen in a quiet panic.
Marion narrowed his eyes suspiciously, then he turned to see the men standing in the vicinity.
“What are you talking about, Atticus?” he asked the Overseer, though what the question meant was: “Are you threatening us?”
The Overseer, named Atticus, looked at us then, and a chill traveled through my bones.
“If any of the wives were ever questioned,” Atticus began, “about what happened to them on their way to Lexington City, I wonder how many of them would confess to being violated by your men before they became the wives of your leaders.”
Marion’s eyes narrowed.
Other heads looked downward and away from the Overseer whose words were too telling of their crimes.
“And it is common knowledge,” Atticus went on, “that neither Rafe nor Overlord Wolf have ever been in the habit of sharing their wives with other men.” He looked up in thought for a moment. “If I recall, last year Overlord Wolf cut off Private Barber’s beloved cock before hanging him in the street, because Barber made a pass at his third wife”—he tilted his head to one side thoughtfully—“and his cock had never even touched her.”
The air was rife with silence.
“And unless one day,” he continued, “we want a mutiny of pissed off women who band together behind the walls of the brothel, the walls of your very homes”—he pointed, but at no one in particular—“to orchestrate the cutting of every man’s throat while he sleeps, then I think you should be more careful how you treat them.”
“Treat them?” Marion’s head reared back with disgust; his dark eyebrows knotted tightly in his forehead. “The women in this city are treated well. After they’re rescued from certain death out there”—he pointed behind him angrily—“they’re fed, they’re protected, and they’re free to go wherever they please, to associate with whomever they choose.” He waved his hand at the dozens of men standing all around us, and then back at himself. “There are no rapes in the streets of Lexington City. When we go to the brothel, the women there are not only willing, but they enjoy what they do.” He stepped up to Atticus, bursting with confidence now. “If anything, they owe us their pathetic lives, and will never be our equals unless they’re fighting alongside us to protect this city and every cunt that lives within it.”
A flurry of excited voices rose above the crowd.
I kept my gaze fixed on the Overseer, realizing now what it was about him that was so interesting before: the more he seemed to stand up for women against the dangerous soldiers that outnumbered him, the more I believed that he could somehow help Sosie and me.
But then all of that hope came crashing down when he said to Marion, “I agree with you”, and my heart fell into the pit of my stomach.
Atticus stepped away from Marion, passed me and Sosie, and made his way back up the concrete steps where he stopped at the top and turned to face the crowd.
“However,” he began in a loud, clear voice so everyone could hear him, “when it comes to new women, you all know as well as I do that Rafe and Overlord Wolf always get first pick. And Rafe chooses who goes where, not any of you who take it upon yourselves to choose for him.” His eyes scanned the crowd. “And none of the women, no matter where you think they’ll be placed, will be violated before your leaders have seen them first.”
“So then where does that leave you?!” someone accused.
All eyes were on Atticus, even mine—especially mine.
“It leaves me with the temporary authority to put these women where they belong within the city,” he answered. “Because the Overseer post was appointed to me, and I will do the job that I was entrusted to do.”
“Even taking any one of them for yourself!” another soldier called out.
“I have no use for a wife,” Atticus said. “But I will keep watch over any of them I feel might be of interest to Rafe, since Overlord Wolf is not currently interested in taking any more wives. The others will be sorted accordingly.”
The same men opposing him, were now slowly agreeing with him. Heads nodded, whispers of acceptance were exchanged, disgruntled faces became expressions of approval.
After a moment, Marion walked to the bottom step. “I may have misjudged you, Atticus,” he said. “Though I hope you’ll understand that I’m just here to do my duty same as you are, and as leader of my scouting party, that includes the protection of my men.”
Atticus nodded. “And hopefully your women as well,” he said, and looked down at the defiant girl. “Because that one”—he pointed at her—“I’m assigning to you, Marion. She could be of use to an outfit like yours. Teach her to fight and how to shoot—though I gather that won’t be hard to do, considering.”
Marion looked like he wanted to take back the words of apology he had just spoken.
“I’m not going anywhere with him,” the girl shot back, her dark eyes boring into Marion beneath scraggly dark hair.
“You will,” Atticus told her, “and you will cooperate, or Marion will bring you to me and I’ll kill you myself.”
The girl’s lips snapped shut.
“Fine,” Marion grumbled. “And if she tries to kill me?”
“Then I suggest your hand is quicker than hers.”
Marion and the girl shot each other with angry glares.
“Now, let’s get on with this,” Atticus announced, and turned his attention first to the girl who had been raped. “Bring her forward,” he told Marion as he descended the steps.
Marion stepped up with the rope in his hands; the girl followed without argument, kept her face down, as always.
I did the same, to avoid drawing attention to me and Sosie, despite knowing the attention was inevitable.
“Don’t worry, darlin’,” the brute holding my rope said. “I already know where you’re going.” He smiled, displaying his largely gapped front teeth.
I closed my eyes and said a silent prayer.
“The girl will go to the workers,” Atticus announced, to the surprise of everyone.
Marion did a double-take.
“What?” he asked, with the same disbelief the other soldiers shared.
“Look at her, Marion,” Atticus said, pointing. “Who, other than Private Bell, who isn’t so pretty to look at himself, will ever want to fuck her? If I put her in the brothel she’ll be a waste of space. She can’t defend herself much less fight to defend anybody else, and no man here is going to want her as his wife, so with the workers is the only place left to put her.”
Atticus motioned an old woman over.
“She will be under your authority,” he told her, and the woman bowed, took the girl’s hand and walked her through the crowd.
Atticus then turned his attention to Sosie, and my heart sank into my feet.