Story There Is No Such Thing as a Thornless Garden

[Kathy in FL]

Warning: This is another one with some significant darkness to it. Not appropriate for all readers.

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There Is No Such Thing as a Thornless Garden

Prologue

They say you can get used to anything. They lie. Don’t let anyone ever fool you into believing that, because once you do you stop fighting the fall. And when you stop fighting you might as well have given up. And if you’ve given up then you might as well go dig your own grave, climb in, and pull the dirt over you and be done with this life. I learned this not because someone told me but by watching the others. I’m pretty sure I’m the only one left. The fire ran through everything in the red district. Even before that most of them were dying of something; some just from life itself. It’s a hard and cruel way to live, especially for those of us that didn’t chose it.

Maybe a few escaped and ran away. If they can last and find someplace that will let them start over and chose a different life, then more power to them. My mother … my real mother and not the woman that called herself Mother Mary … would have said their escape would be a blessing. Me? I’m not so sure. People aren’t the way they used to be. Or maybe they are and the part of them that used to keep it under control is gone. Either way? Nah. Doubt the girls will find such a Wonderland as all that. Too many strikes against them. Too many strikes against me too.

I don’t even know if I’ll be able to find us such a Wonderland. You maybe, and that’s about all I’m really counting on. Maybe because of who you are. We’ll have to see. If not there then I’ll find us someplace else away from people. At least away from people for a little while. At least long enough for me to teach you how to survive and take care of yourself.

One of the ways I’m going to do that is to show you how important honesty is. The only way I’m going to be able to show you that is if I’m honest. And one of the ways I’m going to be honest is to write this all up for you. I’m not sure if it will be a book – or a real book anyway – but it will be a story, a true story, our story. This is about how I came into this world and it will be about how you came into this world too. The beginning is pretty nice, the rest of it up to now not so nice. I want to make your story better than mine but you’ll only understand why it is going to be better if you understand my story. Maybe it will help you in other ways too.

It’s not like I have a whole lot to do right now. Even if I did I can’t; the snow is piling up in deep drifts and I’m just too fat to try and get through and look for a new shelter to hide us from them. I’m not as fat as I’m going to be in the Spring … if there is a Spring this year … but I felt my muscles drawing up over my stomach as I brought in what wood there was. I cramped up a bit too and as much as I hate what has happened to me and how much I know it would be easier if I was trying to run on my own, I know it isn’t your fault. I don’t want to send you away though Emerald told me in the early days it was cruel to keep you with the world being the way it is. That does worry me a little – that I’m being selfish – but I think you came into my life for a reason and I don’t want to send you away just because it would be easier for me alone.

This place where we are at isn’t much different than the storage locker where I was when you happened. On the inside anyway … metal, square, and bare, with only a narrow bed and a small window. At least they left me with a few extra covers, that’s something. As similar as there and here are on the inside, the outside is very different. There was near the water on a wharf where big trading boats and fishing fleets once docked. They called it the Red District. Used to be called the Red Light District but no one on that side of town has lights anymore. I heard they still had lights in some of the government buildings but it has been a long, long time since I’ve seen anything that wasn’t a candle or lantern. Actually I think that’s what caused the fire but who knows for sure, it could have been a terrorist or the anarchists or someone with a grudge that got out of hand or a crazy person or … it doesn’t matter. The fire happened and it killed a lot of people. It almost killed us if it hadn’t been for the other one. I’m still hacking up gunk even almost a week later.

I’m not sure where here is. I know that we are far away from there … or at least as far away as I’ve been since I was put there. I know that there are enough trees around here that it looks like a forest but I’m not sure if this is a forest. I’m pretty sure it is but I won’t call it that for sure until I know. And the reason I don’t know is because they don’t want me to know where here is. For a while they put a blind fold on me until I kept puking and couldn’t stop. It wasn’t much better when they took the blindfold off but at least it was a little. And then when we got out of the truck and onto the horses I puked some more until I got used to being joggled around all the time. My down there parts still hurt but I’ve hurt worse in that place and at least the horse didn’t mean to. Soon enough you’ll hurt me there too but I know you won’t mean to either. Hurting there is just something you have to learn to live with.

We got here two days ago, before the storm came up. When they were trying to decide what to do with me they had a big bro-blow. Both wanted the other to be the one to stay with me while the other went to where ever they were taking me to explain things and get … permission I guess, or maybe dump their problem in someone else’s lap. Or maybe they just wanted some help figuring out what to do. Hard to tell the way they were shouting at each other; shame and fury warring in the both of them and against each other. In the end they both decided to go after giving me some supplies and telling me that someone would be back as soon as they could arrange it. Not sure if I believe that. Oh well, not like I really expect anything different. Men are like that, at least these days they are.

I don’t know for sure when that started but I remember a time when the men that I knew weren’t that way. My father, the men that were his friends, other men in our family. I can just sorta remember what they look like but it’s more about how they acted and how they made me feel compared to how men act and make me feel now that I remember most. That’s what I want to find for you.

Safe. I can remember how that felt. That’s what I want for you. Even if I never have it again I at least want to give it my best shot to see that you have it. I want you to learn how safe feels and I want to be the one that helps you keep feeling safe for as long as I can. If I can’t be the one that gives you that then I at least want to find you someone that can. I don’t want what happened to me to happen to you. And I guess that is where I should start my story. I have to go back to the beginning or it won’t make any sense. It doesn’t make good sense now but it doesn’t change the fact that it happened.

I was eight when things went crazy the first time ….

 

[Kathy in FL]

Chapter One

“Children! Children!! Listen to me. I want you to all sit at your desks, put your heads down and be quiet. The busses will be arriving soon.”

A boy in the front raised his hand. “But Miss Preston, I don’t ride a bus. My grandmother or auntie picks me and my sister up.”

The teacher nodded though we could all see that something was wrong. There were giant sweat stains under her arms like the air condition had been off, but it was blowing full blast and so cold I wished that teacher would let me get my jacket out of my cubby hole.

“Everything will be just fine. Office staff will call you when your parents – or your ride – arrives to pick you up.”

It wasn’t that very long later that a voice on the intercom said, “Bus 1055 has arrived. Please check your rosters and have all children that ride this bus ready for pick up.” My hand shot up; that was my bus.

I grabbed my stuff from the cubby hole that had my name on it and then they walked us down to the bus circle. It was weird to see 1055 to be the only one there. I heard all of the adults talking quietly and could tell something bad was happening but I didn’t know what. When I got on the bus it was very scary to see that all the big kids were there until I saw my brother and I went running back to him and almost got in trouble.

“Young lady …” growled the mean, fat woman that had been the bus driver that day.

“It’s ok. She’s my sister,” Tim had said before pulling me into the seat with him and a girl that I can just barely remember being his girlfriend. I don’t remember her much and she isn’t a part of the story anymore but I mention her because my brother treated her nice, not like men do today, and he was just a kid too. He was fifteen.

“Where’s Geri?” I asked.

“Shhh. Keep your voice down Sissa. She’s already at home. The bus from the middle school is already home. Look, I know it’s going to be weird but I need you to sit on the floor here.”

“Ew. It’s dirty down there. And your feet stink.”

He jerked me around and that was the first time that I got really scared. Tim had never been rough with me and he didn’t look like he wanted to be rough with me then either, like it hurt him to do it. “You can’t cause problems Sissa. Just do what I say. And when we get off the bus you hold my hand and we are going to run home as fast as we can. You got that?” All I could do was look at my big brother and nod.

And that’s what we did. Mom met us at the door crying. Geri was crying too and I didn’t understand why a big thirteen-year-old girl would be crying. Then I saw Daisy and her husband there and it got really freaky.

“Where’s Daddy? I want Daddy!”

Tim turned around and said, “Knock it off Sissa.”

Daisy came over and snapped, “Take it easy Tim, she doesn’t understand. I’ll take her up to her room and get her packed.”

“Packed? Where are we going? And where’s Daddy?!”

Daisy took my hand and pulled me up to the room that was mine alone after Daisy moved out and Geri got her old room. “Daddy is picking up Uncle Rick and his family.”

“You promise? He’s not sick or anything?”

“Why would you think that?” she asked as she dumped my dirty clothes bag out and started putting my clean clothes in it.

“’Cause Momma looks just like when Uncle Wesley died. She’s all white and crying and stuff.”

“Mom’s just … look Sissa, you’re too little to really understand and I know you hate it when we say that to you but this time it is true. Something bad, really bad, happened in the world today. A big bomb went off in this place called the United Nations building.”

“I’ve heard of the United Nations. It’s in New York.”

Daisy said, “It is … was I mean. Now it’s not anymore and all around where the building used to be there is this bad stuff called radiation. And the people that did it are … are scaring people and telling them they are going to do it in other places too. Daddy and Uncle Rick are going to take us to the farm. We are going to stay there a while and be safe until things can get back to normal.”

I really didn’t have a clue. All I cared about was that Daddy would be home and the family would be together and we were going to the farm and then we’d be with more family.

We did move to the farm and we lived there until I turned ten; long enough for life to change forever. I learned lots of things from my grandmother, mother, and aunts. How to make do, make over, or do without. How to hoe. How to stand on a stool and help make whatever we were able to grow … and keep, because the government was always around taking a bunch of it away to keep the people in the cities from coming out into the country and taking it themselves. Long enough for Daisy’s husband to get drafted and never come home. Long enough for my brother, cousins, and other male relatives to get involved in something called a militia and get the whole family in big trouble.

That was an election year, the last one there’s been since. Just in case they still don’t have them by the time you are old enough to read this, an election year is when people are supposed to be able to vote for who they want to be the boss of certain things. Only there were a lot more people in the cities than there were in the country so it was their people who won the elections and those newly elected people had promised the people in the city that had voted for them more food and more other stuff and when they couldn’t deliver on their promises fast enough they blamed the people in the country for being ignorant and selfish. That’s when things blew up in my life all over again.

I think they are all dead. I think they would have tried to find me if they weren’t. Or maybe they did try and they think I am the one that is dead. One of these days I would like to know for sure. If they think I am dead I’m pretty sure that I’ll let them keep thinking it. My family were nice people, I don’t think they could deal with what really happened to me. I think it would hurt them too bad and I don’t want to have to live with that on top of everything else.

 

[sssarawolf]

Thank you, been a while since I re read the chapters on this one.

 

[Kathy in FL]

Chapter Two

There were people in uniform crawling in and out of every place on the farm. I remember crying and screaming. I remember some guns and some shooting but it wasn’t just the people in uniform shooting and it wasn’t just my family either. Other people were there on both sides and it got really crazy. Then things get black like for some reason I passed out or something. I remember I woke up in the bedroom I shared with my parents but they weren’t there. Everything is still hazy and confused even after all this time. People were still crying but it seemed far away, like it was not just outside but away from the house, maybe behind the barn. There was a woman in the room with me and I remember she said, “Good. Get up. You are old enough to pack your own things.”

She wasn’t very nice but I remember she was wasn’t exactly mean either, not then. I remember thinking it wasn’t me that she disliked but her job and that I just was getting caught up in that. I’m not sure why I thought that, maybe I was still inclined to give people the benefit of the doubt back then. It was just an impression that I got from her. She pushed me to hurry up and was giving me instructions faster than I could follow them which made her angrier than she already was. I was allowed three sets of clothes and some hygiene articles. I tried to put pictures in my bag, a book, some toys and the old raggedy bear that I’d had since I was a baby. She pulled them all out except for the clothes and told me I didn’t need any of that stuff where I was going and that I was too big for it anyway. When I started to cry she slapped me. “Enough. Stop being such a baby and do as you’re told.”

That was the first time that anyone had ever slapped me. It wasn’t the last. What the woman didn’t know was that the bag that I had chosen to pack my stuff in was a special one that Mom and Dad had made for me. It had pockets in it that they had sewn specially. The pockets held important stuff but I didn’t even remember it at the time I was so shaken up.

Then I was marched out onto the porch and then onto a bus. I kept looking for my family but they weren’t there. Not in the house, not in the yard that I could see, not on the bus. Then I remembered the lessons about strangers.

“I’m not supposed to go with strang …” SMACK!

This time the smack came from another woman. “You’ll speak only when spoken to. I’m not going to put up with any crap from some six toed hillbilly that probably hasn’t bathed in months. And don’t give me any other kind of trouble either or you’ll be sorry. This is your own fault you selfish little retard.”

I had no idea what she was talking about; I’d had a bath just the day before, I’d always made good grades in school, and I grew up hearing that there wasn’t room to be selfish in our family. But I was already learning. Don’t talk. Don’t cry. Don’t make noise. And don’t get noticed.

I wasn’t the only kid on the bus; there were others. Some I kinda recognized from school and church, most I didn’t. I imagine we all looked scared. I was one of the oldest ones on the bus which was a weird feeling because normally I was the youngest in the family. It’s why I didn’t have my own bedroom and still slept on a cot at the foot of my parents’ bed. Before the end of the day the bus became crowded and smelled. Some of the kids had puked and not a few of them had messed themselves. When it happened that kid got the snot smacked out of them, but they didn’t get cleaned up. After a few times this happened the rest of us got the message loud and clear.

Eventually we arrived at this place. I can’t remember the name. It was something-something re-education center. It was dark and they started separating us; boys and girls, by age. Suddenly one of the women from the center grabbed the back of my neck and started dragging me away. A harried looking man yelled over to her, “Hey! Where are you taking that one? You’re throwing my count off. She’s assigned to B Dormitory.”

“This one? She’s already got demerits. She’s going to the Director’s Office. Where she goes from there is up to him.”

Again I didn’t know what the woman was talking about. I didn’t have demerits. I was a good girl. I didn’t give anyone any trouble on the bus. I’ve always wondered if I had would the same thing have happened to me. We turned the corner and suddenly something covered my mouth and nose and I couldn’t breathe.

I woke up in a dark, smelly place. I tried to scream for help but I found that something had been stuffed into my mouth. I couldn’t move my hands or feet either. I was in a near panic when suddenly there was a bright light as a door above me was opened.

Two people looked in. “Good. Another young one. She’ll fetch a good price. Can you get more of these?”

A woman answered, “I don’t see why not. So long as the Director keeps getting his cut.”

There was some nasty laughing and I was jerked out of what turned out to be the trunk of a car. I was carried like a sack of potatoes – strike that, like a bag of garbage since potatoes have value – and thrown into the trunk of another car. I don’t know how long I was in there; a long time. I came in and out of consciousness. Between the rag stuffed in my mouth and the tape holding it there and then the fumes in the car trunk I would have probably suffocated eventually. I do know that when we arrived at the final destination some woman had a fit and started beating up the guy that had delivered me saying that if he’d botched it and she lost her investment she’d take it out of his hide.

Once again I was carried and then thrown onto the floor of an office, I knew it was an office because it reminded me of the principal’s office at school the one time I had been in there. I was closer to dead than I understood at the time. In a way that was a good thing. What the man and woman did to me afterwards didn’t register as much. When they were through with me they sent for another woman – actually she was a girl only a couple of years older than me but she looked far older because of all the make-up and the type of clothes she was wearing.

“Get her out of here so I can make some phone calls. Find her a place and get her dressed in something better than what she had on but play up the little girl angle. You know the drill. This one is going to make me some money.”

 

[sssarawolf]

Another one to re-read, thank you.

 

[Kathy in FL]

Just a reminder to anyone reading this story. It is ... dark. It does have its lighter moments but it was written while I was working with a mission that served human trafficking victims. Not just those from south of the border but also some from Eastern Europe and some Asians. Some of the stories I heard during that time made their way into this one.

Life and people can be very cruel. Gender doesn't matter. Age doesn't matter.

The stuff I learned from that time is in part why I feel as strongly as I do about illegal immigration and human trafficking.

I know some of you have soft hearts so please read with care. Or don't read and know I don't take any offence at that.

 

[moldy]

It is a good reminder that we should not trust anyone due to position, but due to character.

 

[Kathy in FL]

Chapter Three

They changed my name. They started out calling me Flower. Soon enough though it was changed to Thorn. I’m not going to go into all the details of those early years. I don’t like having to live with them, I sure don’t want you to have to live with them too. Suffice it to say that my life was a living hell of revolving men that stripped me of my innocence and the remainder of my childhood. I learned to stop thinking about yesterday and tomorrow. I learned to survive today. But I never stopped fighting. I suffered for it but some men like that and Mother Mary as she demanded we call her was happy to supply what men liked regardless of the flavor … for the right price she’d supply anything they wanted.

One of the few things I can say for myself is that I never did was fall for the drugs or the drink. My other “sisters” used it as fast as it was dished out, mostly to numb the pain I think. But for whatever reason not me. Mother Mary used to laugh at me and say I must like the pain. Some of the other girls and women made fun of me too, would wind a man up just so he would hurt me more so they could see just how much I could take. Sometimes I wondered myself. Some days the pain was the only thing that felt real, that made me feel alive like a real person. Sometimes the pain was the only thing that kept me from going crazy.

I know that is a terrible explanation but it is all I have. I don’t think about it anymore than I have to. It is in the past. I’m never going to live that way again. I’ll never let you live that way. I’ll kill us both before that happens. I’m going to make sure you are safe from that life one way or the other.

What I haven’t explained yet is how I eventually came to understand that it wasn’t just my world that had changed, but everyone else’s too. It took time but I did eventually notice there was a world outside my hell. It came in dribs and drabs. Like how Mother Mary was always complaining about the cost of feeding us constantly going up, how she had to sell a couple of girls to another stable to deal with increased expenses. Then instead of money she started taking barter from men to allow them to spend some time with “her daughters.” Eventually she got rid of the cleaning staff and we “sisters” had to help with housekeeping chores and the smarter of us had to help in the office. She stopped having to buy girls and started turning them away at the door when they came begging for work just to get fed. The changing world is one of the reasons why I can still read and write and do math. I got a lot of practice as it turns out that I was the only other one in Mother Mary’s gang besides herself that could do more than the basics so I had to do a lot of the office work.

I hated it in there. And I hated Mother Mary. But it was better than the alternative so I put up with the beatings and being ordered about. Anything was better than being on call. Night or day didn’t matter; if it was your turn then it was your turn.

Then the lights went out. It started in the District and spread through the city. Riots occurred often and sometimes they even touched us. I made the mistake of saving Mother Mary once during one of these riots – I don’t know why, it was mostly by accident to be honest – and the next thing I knew I was her pet. Oh she still sold me but the clientele she sold me to changed.

Because she kept me close I was one of the first to figure out that Mother Mary was sick. Actually the witch was dying and dying hard.

“I’m selling the stable,” she told me out of the blue one day. I froze. “Did you hear me Thorn?”

“I heard.”

“You want me to slap you B****? I’ll give you to Brian; maybe that will pull you back in line.”

Brian was her enforcer and he was a wicked mean sadist. He’d had me once as punishment and I knew I wouldn’t survive a second time. I turned to look at her. “I heard you Mother Mary.”

“That’s better.” She looked at me hard. “You remember that blonde scarecrow what had you three days ago.”

For the sake of argument I told her yes as I tried to forget every man as soon as they left my sight.

“He’s offered me a proposition. He’s willing to pay your keep for a year so long as he is the only one that gets to have you.”

I didn’t believe her. In the world I was living in that was tantamount to saying Prince Charming was coming and the shoe was going to fit your foot. Before I could stop myself I asked, “Why?”

“Hell if I know. You’re easy enough on the eyes but there’s others that are better looking than you. Maybe he just likes it rough.”

Then I remembered and shuddered. He’d been the man that had tried to be nice. Mother Mary cackled believing the exact opposite. I let her.

“Thorn, I own you. I own everything about you. I own the clothes on your back, the food in your belly, and even the air you breathe. I could sell you and there’s not a damn thing you could do about it. You know this?”

“Yes Mother Mary.”

She stopped for a moment then glared and threw some papers on her desk before going over to the window to stare out. “Take this offer. Do what you can with it. He says that he’ll give you something to tide you over between his visits. Save it. In a year … in a year you could have you a nice little stake to start your own business maybe. Or close. It’d be a start anyway.”

She turned back to me and caught me staring back at her suspiciously. She snorted and then winced in pain. “Don’t be a dumbass girl. If I’m alive in a year I’ll have you back and you’ll be on your back as often as I say and with whoever I say. But, say I ain’t around …”

I had convinced myself up to that point that I wasn’t like the other girls. I fought. I always fought. Whores don’t fight, they give in. I knew what people thought of me but this was different. I was facing a choice that would make me a whore, making me a willing whore.

I’m sorry. Maybe I was weak. I wanted out of the life I was living so badly that in the end I convinced myself it was just another type of fight … this one a fight for survival. But that’s not much of an excuse for saying yes.

 

[Kathy in FL]

Chapter Four

Mother Mary wasted no time. She was a big woman then, before the sickness really got into her, but even big she could move fast when it suited her. She contacted the customer who sent money and the contract was made. I was put into a taxi – a glorified rickshaw kind of thing since gas was rationed and reserved for the government and their special friends. I left the stable yard for the first time in four years, since I’d arrived and it was disorienting; seeing stuff up close is different than seeing them through a small window far away. And the light was too bright and the sun hot against my exposed skin. I saw the faces of my “sisters” at every window of the old office complex. For a brief moment I could swear I even saw Mother Mary from her office window but I’m not sure if it was a trick of my imagination or not.

I was driven to an area further down the wharf where there were “condominiums” made of old shipping containers where higher priced and supposedly higher classed whores lived. We had the appearance of a little more freedom and a little more space but the reality was we were still prisoners … the prison just had different guards.

I was escorted to my “condo,” pushed in, then locked in. It felt odd. Compared to the way I had been living – sharing a room with at least ten other girls when we weren’t working or when I wasn’t fetching and carrying for Mother Mary – the shipping container was almost a palace. Compared to what my life had been like before Mother Mary the “condo” wasn’t much better than a doghouse.

The furnishings were simple. A wooden bed with a fairly new mattress supposedly guaranteed to be bug free. A small table and two chairs. A closet in the back. A small window with bars across it to remind you where you were. That’s it. Nothing else. The whole place said that when a visitor came it was for one purpose and one purpose only.

I was dealing with a wave of self-doubt, second guessing my decision, when the door behind me began to unlock. Cautiously I turned around and watched it open. A vaguely familiar figure stepped in and shut the door behind him.

We stood looking at each other. I may have decided my own fate this time, but I didn’t decide to give up who I was. No way was I just going to go lay down on the bed like a side of beef.

Slightly uncomfortable he continued to stare and then blurted, “Is your name really Thorn?”

I snorted, “You tell me. Apparently you are renting me for a year. You can call me whatever you want.”

I saw his jaw harden. “I did. And I expect to be treated with some respect.”

I shrugged. “Is it respect when you have to pay to get it?”

He took a threatening step towards me but didn’t raise his hands. “Dammit. Why are you making this so hard? I thought you would be … be …”

“Grateful?”

A little plaintively he said, “Yeah. Yeah grateful.”

I sighed. “I suppose I am. What is it you want?” I stopped and rolled my eyes. “Stupid question. You’re a man what else would you want.”

“Well for starters … tell me truthfully … is your name really Thorn?”

I sighed. I hated it when they tried to be nice. It was so much harder to straight up hate them. “No.”

“What’s your real name?”

“Why? I haven’t used it in a long time.”

“Why?”

“Why what?”

“Why haven’t you used your real name?”

“Because Mother Mary took that away from me and gave me a new name. If you don’t like Thorn then pick something else.”

“She named you Thorn? Why?”

“She started out calling me Flower. Thorn suits me better.”

“Sure as hell does. But,” then he got a ferocious look on his face. “I own you. At least for a year, so I want to know what your real name is.”

Trying to be nonchalant I told him, “Narcissa.”

He rolled his eyes this time and in a pretty good sized pet snapped, “I said your real name.”

“Why the heck do you think she decided to call me Flower?”

He blinked. “So … that’s your real name.”

“That’s my real name.”

He grinned and said, “That’s a hell of a thing to hang on a kid. Were your parents crazy?”

Trying to rein in my temper at bringing up a past and memories I tried to protect and keep separate from the life I led I snapped, “Family name. Pick something else or just stick with Thorn.”

“Hell yeah. I’m sure not going to go around calling you Narcissa that’s for damn sure. Makes you sound like an old woman and that’s not what I want.”

He finally got down to what he wanted and afterwards he sat a bag on the table. He didn’t say much beyond he’d know if I tried to run off and to not get stupid since he’d come back around when he was good and ready to and what was in the bag would need to last until then.”

After he left I cleaned up using the strong soap I preferred that I’d brought with me from my old digs. It cleaned the smell of him off me. So what if it took a layer of skin with it at the same time. The problem was the new was starting to wear off and I began to wonder where and when and how I was supposed to get stuff like soap and toothpaste that Mother Mary had always supplied. I wondered where and when and how I would get more water and cursed myself for not making sure to have some kind of container around to save what had been in the jug on the table.

I had just enough time to really get worried when I heard noise at the door and wondered if the man had come back so soon. “Room service,” a woman’s voice called.

“I didn’t order anything,” I said back through the locked door.

“Geez … you really are a newb,” came the cynical reply. “Stand back and no funny business. He may be paying for your keep, but I’ll still get the guards to beat you if you pull something.”

I stepped back and the door eventually opened to show a woman past her prime but still kind of handsome if you like that sort of thing. She looked behind her and said, “Bring it in.”

Two men brought in a plastic barrel and took it over to the closet space which was actually two closets. I got my back to the wall and carefully observed them attach a pipe to the top of the barrel then close that section of the closet. They walked out only to walk back in with a plastic foot locker which they put against the wall and a half barrel that they sat in the middle of the floor. When they walked out this time they didn’t come back in. I looked at the woman and she looked at me and then shrugged. “My name is Emerald. I hate newbs. It gets old having to explain things enough so you’ll stay out of trouble.”

I kept my mouth shut. She snorted. “Yeah, I heard. You’re supposed to be tough. Well you better hope you are. Just don’t be a smart ass.” I continued my silence. I’ve learned it rattles people and I felt I needed to in some way win this round or my life would become an endless misery. Emerald was tough and she didn’t rattle, all she did was get annoyed and decide to try and rattle me. “You see this place? Consider it solitary confinement. The men want to make sure you don’t have no extry company to make any side money off of. Some of the girls here, they go crazy after a while and get pretty damn grateful when the men do come around.”

I continued to keep my mouth shut. “Mark my words, no matter what you think you’re really just like all the rest. And lucky you has a year lease. You better pray he don’t forget about you or you’ll wind up crazier than most.” She gave a derisive chuckle then said, “Now for the rest of it. That barrel in the closet is hooked up to the water system. What you get is what you get, and refills depend on the weather so don’t waste it. And speaking of weather, during the summer these things can get pretty damn hot and in the winter they get pretty damn cold. It’s up to your man whether you get any help for either condition. That container? Sheets, rations for when your man forgets to feed you, and a few other odds and ends to help you hold off the crazies. You’ll get restocked every two weeks. If you run out before then, too bad unless you can talk your man into bringing you something. The one you got though, don’t expect to get much extry out of him. He bitched about every penny. That other thing is a tub. Use it. No one wants the place getting stunk up. I’ll scrub you raw myself if you forget. Now for the rules … no fighting, no drugs unless your man brings them, no liquor unless your man brings it, no trying to bribe the guards male or female, yada, yada, yada. If you’re smart you’ll learn the rest of the rules before you break them. If you’re stupid you’ll break them a couple of times before the beatings sink in. Your choice to screw this up or not. You screw up we beat the shit out of you and send you back to Mother Mary … unless she don’t want you then we’ll work you down on the docks until you’ve paid off your contract. Any questions?”

I shook my head. She snorted and then left, locking the door behind her.

I decided that it was time to investigate what was in the bag the man had left and it was cheese, sausages, some rolls, and some fruit. Not much different than the crap I ate at Mother Mary’s Boarding House for Wayward Girls.

I investigated the footlocker and the rest of my cage as well. When that was done I sat at the table, put my head down, and for the first time in a very long time I cried.

 

[Kathy in FL]

Chapter Five

That was the sum total of my existence for about six months. In the early days he came almost daily, sometimes more than once. Even when I had my monthly, he would come by and talk at me. And I mean just that, he talked at me rather than to me. He rarely needed a real response, but he did require that I appeared to pay attention to what he was saying. Most of the time he wasn’t rough which made it hard for me to fight him but there were days he seemed to come spoiling for a fight. He never hit me but there were a few times he did hurt me.

Only one time did he come in drunk, and I think it was that time that you happened. He was on me so fast and hard that protection never entered either of our heads. It was also the only time he slapped me around, only it wasn’t just slapping by the time he wore out. Apparently his brother had come to do a surprise check up on him and whatever business he was overseeing. He used me to take his frustrations out on. I’m still not sure he meant to do what he did. He’s never brought it up and neither have I. It doesn’t matter. It wasn’t the first time I’d woken up in a pool of my own blood and it wasn’t the first time that I’d seen hate in a man’s eyes as he blamed me for what he’d chosen to do to me. It also wasn’t the first time that I’d seen fear in a man’s eyes as how far he’d gone sunk in.

Emerald got involved that time. She took her job seriously. Sure, she was mean and hateful, cynical and sarcastic, but she prided herself on doing the job she had the right way and sticking to the rules. There were plenty of rules for the whores but there were also rules for the men and women who used them. First off was to pay what was owed. But the second rule was that while some rough housing was expected, men were not allowed to permanently deface the merchandise since they were only renting them for however long their contract was for.

It didn’t break the contract because I didn’t die. And he didn’t die from the beating he took from Emerald’s enforcers. But it was awhile before he did much more than come by and throw a bag on the table. He couldn’t stand to look at me. He wasn’t exactly a beauty queen either and I got the impression that after Emerald’s enforcers had had at him the brother had added to it.

“Why does he have to come around anyway?! It’s like they don’t trust me or something. I’ve never given them any reason not to. The money I take out is my fair pay and I don’t care what they have to say about it.”

I must have been bored that day because for some reason I asked, “Him who? They who?”

“Oh so now you’re interested. You never ask questions and the one question you do ask is about HIM?!”

I wasn’t up for another beating and he looked in the mood to deliver one so I calmed him down by saying, “Normally you explain things so good I don’t have to ask. If you don’t want to tell me then don’t. It is your business.”

“Damn straight it is.” He went stomping around. “Roman … my brother.”

After a moment I said, “Roman is the him and he’s your brother.”

“Yeah. The rest of them … well … hell, family is family and what would you know about it anyway.”

That was just one of his little digs to try and make me less of a person, someone that since I didn’t’ understand what was happening to me he didn’t have to feel so bad about it. I’d learned early that they only hit harder when you made them think you were human and not just some unfeeling doll built for their use. Guilt does strange things to a man.

“So basically your brother is giving you grief.”

“Roman is always on my case. That’s why I left. But a man needs to make a living and I’m a hell of a lot better at this than most of them would be. Let them live out in their little enclaves and have their special little members-only clubs. I’m the one that brings home the bacon so they get to keep playing in the dirt out in the woods.”

I’d known he didn’t have a lot of respect for his family in general, or at least in whatever it was his family did, but for the next three months or so I suddenly became his confidante for every wrong he felt he’d ever been dealt. It got old. It got old real fast. On the other hand, I could live with it. I figured out if he used up his energy on that he had less for the other. Then during one of my monthly physicals, required by state law so that Emerald could keep her business license, I got handed the news.

It was Emerald that told me. “You’re knocked up Thorn. Doc isn’t sure if you’ll keep it or not ‘cause he said you told him you spot off and on. I thought you were smarter than that. It is too late for a pill now and the abortionist costs money. Better hope you man will pay up.”

That’s when I realized when it must have happened.

Alex didn’t want to believe it. He wanted to know who I’d been fooling around with behind his back.

I didn’t feel calm but I tried to sound calm when I answered him. “You and Emerald are the only two people that ever come in here and that door stays locked unless you or she opens it. How am I supposed to have fooled around with anyone else?”

Eventually he believed me. It took about a week and by then he found out his family had put him on a short leash and he didn’t have the money to pay for an abortion. It took me a week to realize that I didn’t want one and that they’d have to kill me first and by then it wouldn’t matter.

“Don’t think you can blackmail me Thorn,” he said menacingly.

“Forget it Alex, things have changed. I’m not out to blackmail you, it doesn’t sound like you have the money for it. But you are going to help me.”

“Bull shit.”

“Right back at you. And no slapping or hitting. I’ve stuck to the contract to this point but from here on out I’ll fight you … and I know lots of dirty tricks that will hurt you permanently if you fight me.”

“Then you can just starve.”

“For that to happen you’ll have to break the contract. You’re already in enough trouble with your family, you want the kind of trouble that Emerald can make for you?

He blanched then whined, “You said you weren’t going to blackmail me.”

“And I’m not. But we are going to get a few things clear. You are going to keep bringing food like the contract says, and it isn’t going to be crappy rotten stuff either. I’ve heard how some men are when they want out of a contract but want to push the girl into it so they aren’t the ones that have to pay the penalty. You’ve only got three months left to put up with me. Between now and then you’re going to help me save up a little extra so I can disappear and go have the baby some place besides the dock.”

“Yeah right. They’ll have you right back where you came from.”

“Wrong. Word has come down. Mother Mary only has a couple of weeks at most to live. I hear she isn’t much more than skin and bones these days. And no one wants what is left of her stable because it is some kind of STD that got her and now the men all think the girls have it too. I know Emerald, she’ll still try and make a few bucks off of me but I’m done with that.”

“What are you going to do? Go teach Sunday School?” He laughed at his own joke.

“Don’t worry about it. That part isn’t your problem,” I told him. What I didn’t tell him was that I didn’t have a clue, all I knew was that I was getting away from the dock and getting as far away as I could. Not the best plan in the world I admit but it was what I had at the time.

 

[Kathy in FL]

Chapter Six

Emerald gave me grief every chance she got for a while then she just stopped. She had some new girls, and they were causing problems. She stopped paying attention to me because neither I nor Alex caused her any more grief. In fact, she pretty much stopped paying any attention to me at all … it was like she felt sorry for me or something and couldn’t stand to look at me.

Alex became more and more withdrawn as well. Sometimes when he looked at me he got pretty green around the gills. I know my changing body made him physically ill and he stopped touching me completely. What he did do was keep making me promise and re-promise that when the contract was over I’d just disappear, go away, as far away from him as I could get and that I’d never try and contact him no matter what.

One day I’d finally had enough and risked telling him, “Enough already. How many times are you going to make me promise? Do I make you promise that you’ll bring what you agreed to when you come? No I do not. Do I give you grief about anything?”

“No,” he grumbled. “You just can’t understand. Do you know how this is cutting into my budget? How hard it is to get away lately? At least Fletcher is going back home. That should give me some breathing room.” Fletcher was a cousin and apparently was nearly as uptight as the brother named Roman was. “They’re always watching me now.”

“If you hadn’t told them you got beat up by a loan shark maybe they wouldn’t feel like they need to watch you.”

“What was I supposed to tell them?”

“I don’t know … the truth maybe?”

“Oh yeah, that’s so much better. Hey Bro, yeah I got the shit beat out of me by a couple of enforcers that work for a local whore house.”

I snorted. “It would have been the truth and they probably would have understood. They’re men after all.”

He cackled like he was slightly insane and for a moment I worried. “You don’t know nothing. That’s the last thing they would understand. And if it got back to the rest of the family … My gawd. They just don’t understand I have needs. None of them have ever understood.”

I turned away before he could see me roll my eyes. That was always the excuse. I still really didn’t understand though how he could be so sure that the truth would have been worse than the lie he told his brother. It didn’t make any sense. At least not then.

On my side of it things were going good. Well as good as they ever had for me since I’d been taken away. I didn’t have to put up with anyone grabbing at me and stuff. The end of my contract was in sight. I wasn’t puking my guts up all the time like I had been there for a while. In fact, I was feeling pretty frisky. I still managed to exercise and stay in shape. I had a nice little egg nest saved up and hidden in one of the secret pockets of my bag and not even Emerald’s room inspections found it though she found other things that I let her find just to keep her happy. I should have known. Nothing that good ever happens, not to me.

A fire started in what I’d heard Mother Mary and Emerald call the ‘hood. They tried to put it out, then control it. They tried to turn it, but no matter what they did it just kept getting bigger and it started moving towards the business district. I watched from my window as the fire kept getting bigger and bigger. Day became night but it was hard to tell because the smoke had begun to drift towards the wharf. I started to get worried. Emerald was worried too. I heard her walking around and unlocking doors here and there and telling her enforcers to take the girls to their back up location. I got packed and waited my turn but it never came.

I saw burning debris land on the warehouse where Emerald’s office and living quarters were and in no time the place was burning up. I started to panic as I heard the screams and cries down on the docks. I started to try and figure a way to get the can I was stuck in open. I’d been at it long enough that the smoke was getting bad. I was coughing and hacking and then suddenly the door was wrenched open and I was knocked backwards and two men entered.

I prepared to fight but they were too busy fighting with each other. And I finally recognized one as Alex.

“You … you came for me?”

It was a stupid question. For one it brought the other man’s attention to me and for another … we were talking about Alex. “We needed a place to regroup,” he snapped. “Just shut up and stay out of the way.”

But I didn’t have to say a word. The other man turned on Alex and yelled, “You dumb ass! This?! This is what you’ve been hiding?!!”

This turned out not to be me. This turned out to be you as he was pointing at my stomach. “My gawd Alex, this is going to kill Mom. And Dad is going to kill you!”

They would have kept going at it and I was ready to leave them there. I had grabbed my bag and stumbled out the door … straight into hell. It looked like most of the city was burning. I was roughly grabbed by my arm and the other man asked, “Where do you think you’re going?”

“Out of here. Tell Alex I consider his part of the agreement fulfilled and now I’m fulfilling mine. I’m getting gone.”

“Like hell you are. Not until I get some answers.”

“In case you haven’t noticed everything is on fire. If we don’t get out of here, we’re going to be on fire.”

“No kidding.” Behind him he shouted, “Alex. Let’s go. I see the boat pulling up.”

Sure enough there was a boat pulling up. Other people had seen it too and were making a beeline for it. The man threw me towards Alex while he used both hands to start shooting to get people out of the way. Alex looked at me then let go and for a moment I thought it was going to use the cover of the fire to get rid of me for good but he sighed, shook his head and started pushing me to follow the other man while he covered our rear.

The boat was smaller than it had looked up on the stairs. It was a battle to get all three of us in along with the guy operating the motor. People were screaming and jumping in the water trying to escape the inferno that the docks had turned into. Many ships weren’t able to get away fast enough and they too were on fire. The water was choppy and the guy drove like a maniac. I puked twice before we pulled up on a small beach.

There were two trucks being guarded by four men. Something changed hands between the boat driver and the other man. The four men and the boat driver got in one truck and the man ordered Alex and I into the other truck.

“Shut the hell up Alex and get in. We aren’t in the clear yet. And Dad will kill me if he doesn’t get first dibs on killing you.”

Alex tried to spout off which I thought a very stupid thing under the circumstances and the man simply clocked him. He caught Alex before he hit the ground and all but threw him into the back seat of the truck. He turned on me and I prepared for the same treatment but all the man did was blanch and said, “Just get in the damn truck.”

I hadn’t ridden in a motorized vehicle since I’d been taken and was already more than a little queasy from the boat ride. Suddenly the man slammed on the breaks and said, “Put this on.”

One look at his face and I didn’t argue. I took the strip of cloth from him and tried to decide what he wanted me to do with it.

“Across your eyes.”

I did it. You just don’t question a man that has that look on his face unless you are prepared to fight and I wasn’t in any condition to. I don’t know how long we drove, long enough for Alex to wake up mean and nasty. Long enough for the fighting between the two of them to make me puke at least twice as much as the actual driving did. Long enough for me to be as limp as a rag doll by the time they finally pulled off whatever roads they had been driving on.

“Dammit, she’s dead weight now,” Alex snarled. “And she’s puked all down the side of the truck.”

“Be glad she puked out the window. If she’d puked inside the truck you would have been the one cleaning it up.”

“Hell no I wouldn’t have. She can clean it up herself.” He poked me and couple of times roughly. “Thorn! Clean this crap up!”

Alex was pretty close to being in the same mood he’d been that night you were made so I treaded carefully. I asked carefully, “Can I take this blindfold off?”

“Hell no, just do it with your hands.”

I heard a bang and then something falling. Then I felt a hand on my arm and I jerked away, tripping in the process. “Easy. Easy there.”

I continued to crawl blindly backwards until I ran up against something cold and hard … a large rock. I tried to use it to stand but I couldn’t seem to find the strength or balance.

“Easy. It’s alright.”

I didn’t like how he sounded, like I was some wounded helpless thing. It made me think of Tim and how he used to bring home all of these injured animals and fix them up before either releasing them back into the wild or finding them good homes. That tone was like a slap.

“What planet do you live on? Nothing is all right these days. Stop touching me. I … I can …”

“You can fall flat on your face if you keep this up. That wouldn’t do you or the baby any good. And speaking of that, while Alex takes another little nap, we’re going to have a talk.”

 

[Kathy in FL]

Chapter Seven

“Yeah,” I told him. “I’ve heard that before.”

The other man was silent. “Think what you want but … I’m not like that.”

“Bull. Every man is like that.” But something whispered that maybe not, maybe I was wrong. Maybe if he reminded me of Tim in one way he was like Tim in other ways. Against my better judgment I added softly, “But maybe … maybe some men are less like that than others. Just … just keep your hands off me.”

Sounding like he was doing his best to control his emotions he said, “OK, so long as you don’t try and run off.”

“I don’t see why you care but … but I’ll make a deal with you. You let me have my bag. Let me take this blindfold off while we talk … and I won’t run.”

The man snorted, “Not a lot of chance that you’d get far anyway but ok, you have a deal.” He sighed as I blinked the grit out of my eyes. “I’m … my name is Roman Beauchamp. What’s yours? I heard Alex call you … er …”

“Thorn.”

“Yeah … right,” he said obviously not convinced.

Wondering what the heck the brothers seemed to have with names I told him, “Look, that’s the name I’ve had long enough it will take me a while to answer to any other but if you don’t like it pick something else. It doesn’t matter.”

He got quiet then said, “The baby.”

“What about it?”

“Is … is Alex the father?”

That struck me as almost hysterically funny but I tried to keep my response down to a chuckle. “Alex … he made me pregnant but he’ll never be the father. If you don’t know him better than that by now …” Suddenly I was puking again only there wasn’t anything left to come up.

I would have fallen in a pool of my own bile if Roman hadn’t stopped me from tipping forward. He handed me a wet bandana and for a moment I hesitated.

“It’s just water. Wash and wipe your face.” It was an obvious order but not the kind I normally hear. It was like he resented being forced to be … kind or whatever you want to call it. There was real anger and frustration as well that only increased as he demanded details of what connection Alex and I had. I told him as little as I dared. I didn’t lie, I’d already decided I needed to set a better example for you. Besides you only need to lie if you are weak and I avoid that position as much as I can. But I don’t consider holding things back lying, I just don’t think he is entitled to the whole story.

Finally he muttered in disgust, “You’re … you’re a prostitute.”

“Your tongue won’t fall off if you say the word. Besides that’s only one thing that people have called me.”

Ignoring my jab Roman growled, “Given all the money that Alex has been siphoning off the business you would figure you’d be able to pay for better housing that what I saw you in.”

I almost laughed in his face but instead decided to educate Mr. Roman Beauchamp on how things worked in the real world … or at least in my real world. When I finished he looked at me in shock and shook his head like he couldn’t … or maybe wouldn’t … believe it. Given the men I am used to Roman’s ignorance seemed hard to believe. This time it was me that shook my head and I told him, “Maybe you are as simple as Alex made you out to be. Everyone knows how things like this work.”

“Like hell they do. And that’s NOT how we do things at home. Dad really will kill Alex at this rate.”

I ignored his outrage because I wasn’t sure how real it was, but something he said caught my attention. “If they don’t … I mean how do they do them where you’re from?”

Rather than answering me he snapped, “We’re decent people!”

“Oh. You mean you don’t have any whores or loose women where you live.”

He opened his mouth like he was going to pop off again but then closed it real slow. “Things just aren’t handled so … so …”

“Out in the open? Publicly? You don’t have laws about this stuff where you live?”

“Not like in the city, no. People have some sha … uh …”

“Shame. You were going to say shame.”

“Yes.”

I nodded. “Fine.”

“What do you mean fine?”

“I mean that I know where I stand. Would … would your family take it out on a kid? I mean a kid doesn’t have a choice.”

“You’re a kid? How old are you?!”

“Not me and none of your business. I’m talking about the baby. I’m looking for a place where I can make sure the baby will be safe. If it isn’t around where you’re dragging me off to, I need to know. I’m never going back to the way things were but if I need to keep moving …”

With absolute intent he told me, “The only moving you’re doing is to my family. Dad will decide the rest of it.”

“You’re father doesn’t own me. We don’t have a contract or a deal or anything even approaching that. And I stole myself away from the ones that would have a right to tell me what I had to do back in the city … and with luck they’re all dead or they think I’m dead and I don’t have to worry about them sending runners after me or anything. Besides, aren’t you a little too old for … well …”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“Alex makes it seem like … well … your father …”

“Dad is the leader of our enclave. After him comes David and Saul. You’ll have to deal with them too and for that I almost feel as sorry for you as I do for Alex. They aren’t the easiest to deal with even on their good days.”

Thinking that was like the pot calling the kettle black if even half of what Alex had told me was true I did a little thinking and put two and two together. “David is the oldest brother. Saul is a cousin.”

Hearing me Roman growled, “What the hell has Alex been blabbing?”

I stepped back away from the menace. “Probably more than he realizes and a lot less than you think. Mostly all he did after a while was want someone to complain to that couldn’t talk back. He expected me to listen and agree with him or …”

“Or?”

Rolling my eyes at his continued refusal to see the obvious I answered, “You figure it out.”

I was getting tired and suddenly Roman became even more irritated. “We don’t have time for all this stupid drama. Stay here with Sleeping Beauty while I go get the horses. I won’t be long and then we ride. We’ve got a long way to go yet. And from here on out it is off road.”

 

[Kathy in FL]

Chapter Eight

The horses were a different kind of misery for me. There were only two of them which meant that I had to take turns riding behind the two men. I offered to walk but they both called me an idiot and to shut up. Maybe Roman said it a little different than Alex but it amounted to the same thing and neither one was the least happy when I started heaving and puking again, this time from horseback … and on the horses’ backs which pretty much irritated the horses too.

Eventually we stopped for the night in a place that gave us rock against our back on three sides. It made for a safe camp but not a particularly warm one and the fire that Roman built was barely enough to heat water on. The cold rain that started not long afterwards quickly put it out.

The lukewarm soup Roman made me eat was the first cooked food I’d eaten in almost a year and it was hard not to puke it up. The ceaseless verbal sparring between the two brothers only made things worse. Slowly I worked my way as far from the two of them as I could get without being growled at and drawn into their brangling. They reminded me of some of the girls at Mother Mary’s when they got their periods. When they devolved to the point of witching about the weather I knew they were just arguing to argue.

“You’ve gotten soft Alex. It’s just a little rain.”

“It’s a damn typhoon and you know it. And cold as hell on top of it. I told you we should have stopped before now and gotten a room for the night. We weren’t that far from Culverson’s.”

“With what? Our looks?! We saved the bulk of our goods but when we got cut off from the rest of the team, I had to use everything I had on me to pay Brewster so he could get gone with his crew. It was no small thing for him to risk his life to pick us up in the boat.”

“That wasn’t a boat, it was a canoe. And we could have used her to make a few bucks and been sleeping in comfort right now.”

Shocked Roman snapped, “Why you sick … I sure as hell am no pimp and I can’t believe you’d be willing to …” It was a good thing at that point that it was raining because Roman’s anger was a hot inferno. I snorted to myself that Alex was about due for another nap and sure enough Roman gave it to him after a brief tussle in the dark.

Silence followed until Roman said quietly, “That … what he said … it won’t happen.”

Just as quietly so not to set him off in my direction I told him, “No it won’t. I’m not going back to that life.”

“You sure?” he asked caught between derision, doubt, and curiosity.

“Yeah. You sure where you’re dragging me the people – the men – won’t try and make me?”

He was furious all over again at the implied insult for about five seconds then deflated and said, “Alex … no one else in the enclave would even think what he said. Don’t judge us by how he’s acting. He wasn’t always like this. We aren’t like this.”

I adjusted the old piece of plastic I had scavenged from the trash years earlier to keep as much rain off of me as possible. “So you say,” I told him. “And either way I really don’t care. I’ll fight if someone tries to do more than think it.”

“You’re in no shape to fight.”

“Don’t bet on it. Even if I lose, I won’t be going down alone.”

“Easy Thorn, already told you we aren’t like that.”

Shaking my head I said, “Alex is right, you need to get out more. Everyone is like that, some just hide it better than others. But the goody-two shoes crap is only for show or to gain them something even if it’s just a night out of the rain.”

Roman didn’t have much to say despite looking like he’d like to. Maybe he isn’t quite as lost in fantasyland as I thought. Only time will tell that … or maybe it won’t. I still don’t know where I am going to take you.

Things were finally quiet after that except for the sound of the rain falling and a snore that was occasionally louder than the latest deluge. Feeling oddly free I fell asleep only to be woken while it was still dark and raining by a swift kick to my backside.

“Here’s your chance,” Alex hissed.

“Huh?” I asked fighting another sudden round of nausea as I often did upon first waking up.

“Roman went to go check the trail ahead for washouts. So run. Go. Leave. You promised. No blackmail remember?”

“Of course I remember,” I told him between heaves. “And I’ve already told you you’re free and clear even though technically I could hold you to the remainder of the contract.”

“Then get out of here.”

“I would but I made a deal with your brother.”

“You what?!”

“Not that kind of deal,” I snapped. “I’m done doing that sort of thing. I just promised him I wouldn’t run off. He’s too angry for me to fight right now … and a deal is a deal.”

“Dammit. Of all the whores I coulda bought why did I have to get stuck with one with scruples?” He started trying to drag off my clothes. “Well if you won’t leave you might as well make it worth my while to put up with you.”

I didn’t have a lot of strength but I could still fight … and fight dirty. Alex drew back to slap me only something grabbed that arm and pulled him off me.

“What the hell Alex?!!”

“Oh get off your high horse Bro. She likes it rough,” Alex said with a grin. “You can have a turn next.”

I crawled away to the bushes with my stuff to puke and try and fix my clothes. I let them argue then used the dark to take off. I knew it was stupid, but I didn’t’ feel like I had any choice. I had to find someplace safe for you. About all I did was get away which was good, but everything else seemed to get worse.

The rain made it hard for me to see which made it hard for me to figure out which way to go. Every path I tried was full of wet leaves and slippery. If there weren’t wet leaves there was standing water and mud which was slick. I worried about falling and hurting you. The cold also seemed to get worse but that might have been because I was getting wetter. The cold I could have dealt with, it was the getting wet to go with the cold that became the problem. I fashioned a raincoat the best I could from my plastic but it only helped to keep the worst of the rain out of my eyes. I finally had to stop and regroup when I realized I was just going in circles.

The world is suddenly so much bigger than I am used to. I remember it being like this so I’m not completely helpless, but I’ve forgotten so much. One of the things that I have not forgotten is that Tim told me that to go straight instead of circles you find a point of reference and keep your eye on it. That wasn’t easy because of the dark but I did find the tippy top of a funny rock in the distance and I noticed when I tried to follow a trail down it stayed on my left and if I started going up it stayed generally on my right. I decided down would be better than up.

Stopping every so often to make sure the funny rock stayed where I expected it to be I slowly, slowly made my way down between trees and around rocks. The way was mostly covered in leaves so I knew that I wasn’t on the horse trail which had been mostly gravel and dirt and was probably mud from the rain. I got so tired and sick to my stomach after about an hour that I decided to take a break by wedging myself between a couple of trees only I must have fallen asleep.

The next thing I kind of remember is being lifted. There was some other noise but it didn’t register too much. I was dreaming that I was back at Mother Mary’s and Brian was hauling me back to the dorm where us sisters stayed between customers then I dreamed I was back on the boat but I was too empty to puke. Then I didn’t dream at all.

 

[Kathy in FL]

Chapter Nine

I was warm. Not the kind of warm you get in the summer when you can’t get cool; the warm you are when you are cold and there are finally enough sisters piled around you that the cold isn’t so bad anymore. I decided to take advantage of it as I knew Mother Mary would be calling my number soon enough.

“You’re an ass Alex. I had to undress her, she was soaking wet. You had to turn it into something sexual. No wonder she ran from you.”

“You think I’m the only one she was running from? You think she sees you as some kind of guardian angel or savior? Trust me, the last thing that Thorn thinks of men is as rescuers. And she can take care of herself.”

“God, that’s even worse. Do you hear yourself? And how the hell old is she?!”

“Huh?”

“All the make up is practically washed off and … dammit, how old is she?”

“How the hell am I supposed to know? It never came up. Does it matter? Obviously old enough.”

I finally realized I wasn’t at Mother Mary’s and while it was a welcome realization that didn’t mean I was much better off. It was dark and I could hear rain but I didn’t feel it anymore. I was also warm. The problem was that I was also nude and after what I’d heard I’d been fully on display at some point.

I rolled over and tried to … honestly looking back I wasn’t sure what I was grabbing for but Roman put something in my hands and it turned out to be my bag. I hugged it to me and I could literally hear him swallow. “You didn’t keep your promise. You ran off.”

“I told you I wouldn’t go back to that life. Ever. And that if someone tried to make me I’d fight.”

“I wasn’t trying …”

I glanced behind him and then pushed. I didn’t have much strength but I had enough to make him fall down where he’d been balancing on his heels as he squatted beside the cot I was on. He narrowly missed being knocked out by Alex’s fist that had been aimed at his head. Alex tried to follow through but Roman may not know much about people but he does know how to fight. He was on Alex in a second and it took no time for Roman to have Alex against the wall of the room and really pummel him. But he pulled back before he killed his brother and Alex slid to the floor.

Roman looked at him and sneered. “Ass.”

Roman turned around and I could see he was still furious and for a moment I thought Roman would take what Alex did out on me but instead he picked up another blanket and then looked at me. “Can you stand and get yourself dressed?”

“Think so,” I muttered unsure where he was going with this.

“All I can do is hold this blanket up. Not much privacy beyond that.”

From the floor Alex chuckled snidely and said, “Trust me, she doesn’t need it and wouldn’t know what to do with it anyway. C’mon Baby, give us a show.”

Roman just about took after again but I stopped him by saying, “Ignore it, I will. He was never this bad before. Not even when he was … bad. I think he is showing off for you. Maybe he wants you to beat on him. Will it garner him any sympathy with your father and brothers?”

Roman went still and then sent a furious glare at Alex. I’d guessed right when Alex’s face turned into a pout.

Roman sighed. “Pathetic. What the hell has happened to you Alex?”

“I was free in the city. Now you are dragging me back to that backwards hell on earth.”

“Yeah, you were free all right. Free to screw up over and over without immediate consequences. Fletcher has already reported what he found in the books. Why do you think I came to get you? Dad nixed David coming but he wasn’t against Saul coming after you. You know what Saul said he was going to do?”

I saw some fear on Alex’s face before Roman picked up the blanket and held it up. I did my best to dress quickly but I hurt, hurt like I’d been beat. I must have made some noise because Alex said, “Damn, you sound like a pig. If you’re this fat now ...”

A little sensitive when I shouldn’t have been I snapped, “I’m not any bigger than I’m supposed to be. Emerald said so.”

“F*** that b****. She’s another one that I hope burns in hell.”

I kept my mouth shut after that and just dressed the best way I could. My pants won’t zip and my shirt is all stretched out but at least all my skin in the middle where you are is covered. I tapped Roman’s shoulder and said, “I’m dressed.”

He’d had his eyes closed which almost made me smile. Almost. There was a retarded kid that would work for Mother Mary every once in a while and he was the same way in the beginning but after a while he was just as eager to see skin as any other guy and some of the girls were really bad about teasing him and making him crazy.

“What’s the look for?”

Realizing something must have shown on my face I said, “Nothing.”

“No it wasn’t but …”

“Damn Roman … you haven’t looked at a woman since Patty. Wait ‘til David hears you’re going soft for a whore.” He cackled like he was borderline crazy.

Whoever Patty was, it was a sore spot for Roman as he froze. When you are a whore you hear lots of stories from men, most of them sad or angry; you get to know what to say to keep them from getting mean. Calmly I told, “Ignore him. All you were doing is trying to prove your point about the men where you come from being different.”

Roman looked at me and then looked away. “You need to wash your face. You still have make up smeared all over it.”

Alex was determined to egg Roman on and the man didn’t seem to have enough sense to see it. “Oh, I forget you like ‘em young and innocent. But trust me Bro, she ain’t innocent.”

Roman’s arm bunched up and I could see the swing before it went in motion but I grabbed his bicep before it could move. He snapped his head around to look at me but I just stared calmly back. I don’t know why I was trying to help the big doofus. It’s not like he can’t take care of himself. But something about the way Alex was acting bothered me.

Doofus or not Roman seemed to finally get the message and he started ignoring Alex’s behavior. Then they started bickering about who would stay and who would go. It is too stupid to record in this story. They reminded me of when a couple of the girls would get going at one another and not be able to stop. Mother Mary would step in, or worse she would have Brian step in, and that would be the end of that. But I’m not her or him and right now I’m not able to fight them both at once. So I left them to it.

They finally stopped for the night, both determined to leave first thing in the morning so that they could have their side of the situation heard. But I wouldn’t be going. No way could I travel as fast as they wanted to go riding pillion on a horse.

Roman stretched out in front of the door and Alex got this nasty look on his face. When he turned that look on me I decided to keep an eye on him in case he decided to do something crazy. I out lasted him – and in the morning I saw his disgust as this fact – and he went to sleep first after staying awake a couple of hours. To make sure I levered myself up onto to discover that Roman had been keeping one eye open as well.

To cover up being afraid, using hand signals I asked to go to the bathroom. He escorted me outside after making sure Alex couldn’t wake up and lock us out. When I was finished I came out of the bushes to find he had his back to me. He turned like a snake though when he heard the twig I stepped on snap. For a moment I expected him to try something but it was a surprise when he didn’t. What he did do was a bigger surprise.

“I’ll leave you what I can. Alex and I can feed ourselves on the trail. Hopefully it will only be two, maybe three, days before someone comes back. It might not be me though. If I’m not with them make sure they tell you what the code is before opening the door. Hmmm … the code will be … three hippos with five o’clock shadows.”

I snorted an unexpected giggle. “Uh …”

A little chagrinned he said, “I know but … look it’s just a code, something not easily guessed.”

“Sure, if you say so.”

“I do. And look … don’t wander around. I don’t think Alex will … double back … well shit.”

“Yeah,” I told him having already thought the same thing myself. And feeling more than a little irritated I told him, “Geez, I don’t get Alex’s sudden damage. It’s almost like he is playacting being … whatever he’s being. On the other hand …watch your back.”

“He’s my brother.”

But I heard the doubt in his voice. “Like I said, something is up with him. I don’t know him well enough to figure it out, I just know he is different. Maybe he was like this before, but not when he was around me. He started off being such a … I don’t know … such a wannabe.”

“A wannabe?”

“Yeah. He had me for six months before … before …” I stopped and shook my head. It wouldn’t help my case to reveal too much. I decided to keep some things to myself because even though I had promised Alex not to blackmail him I will if he threatens you. I wouldn’t enjoy going back on my word but you come before anything else. So I’m holding some things back. “He had me for six months before I got this baby in me. Something happened that night. I know it had to do with you, with your family but that’s all I know. Then he … he broke some rules and Emerald took it out of his hide. From there he just got stupid and told you and your family that he got beat up by loan sharks but that’s not who beat him up.”

“Yeah it was. I stopped them from beating him a second time.”

I stopped and looked close to see it was the truth. “Then Alex has some other game going besides me. All I know is that … well he told me he told you that it was a loan shark to keep you from finding out … that … that …”

“That he was keeping you?”

“Yeah. Which I told him was stupid because you all are men and wouldn’t freak out about that but that you would over a loan shark and you proved me right. The pressure of being watched all the time … it made him … act …”

“He should have said something. And Dad is going to want to know about that. You can’t untell it now.”

My shoulders slumped. “Yeah. But … I … I thought … Look, I don’t know anything about a real loan shark. He never said a thing about it. He just always blamed me for his budget problems.”

“Then why didn’t you break it off?”

I shook my head. “You don’t listen too well do you? He bought me. Had me under contract. From the moment they locked the door on that condo you saw me in he owned me for the duration.”

“You were … locked in?”

“Yeah. That’s the way it is … was. Look, I’m tired and it’s cold out here …”

“You can’t get out of it that easy.”

“I’m not trying to get out of anything. I just don’t want to talk about it all night OK?”

“Don’t try that attitude with my Dad and David … especially not Saul. Saul is … he’s …”

“He’s your enforcer? Fine. Whatever. Thanks for the warning. But I’ll fight him too if he tries anything that will hurt the baby. It didn’t do anything wrong. I won’t just sit there and let …”

“Whoa, that’s not what I mean.”

“Maybe it isn’t what you mean but I’m not stupid. I’ve seen too many men say they are one thing until suddenly they are another. Alex is like that. He is just revealing more and more of himself. I thought I had seen the worst of him. Makes you wonder what else there is.” And it does make me wonder but it made Roman finally shut up and let me go back inside.

They didn’t leave until mid-morning because they had to wait for the trail to dry up some and because they were fighting over leaving me any supplies.

“Oh for gawd sake Roman! You know what those supplies could bring in the city?!”

“I’m not leaving a woman to possibly starve and that’s final. If you don’t shut up I’ll hog tie you and then throw you over the saddle and we’ll arrive in real style and damn the consequences. I don’t care if Mom and Gran do love you best. I don’t care if you were born fifteen minutes before I was. Frankly right now I don’t give too much of a damn about you at all. Now get on the damn horse and shut the hell up.”

Twins. I never would have known. And Alex is the older one. I realized right then that this whole situation was turning out to be way more complicated than necessary.

 

[Kathy in FL]

Chapter Ten

After the two men left, I closed and locked the door like Roman had said. I gotta tell you, it was the strangest feeling to hold the key to a lock. You’d think it would have made me feel powerful but it made me a little freaked out. I thought I would sit up to make sure no one tried to get in but I fell asleep. I woke up only because a big wind banged on the outside of the box and startled me.

It was definitely colder. The fire had gone out in the stove. I looked around and realized that there wasn’t any wood inside with me. I decided to take my first act of our self-preservation and unlocked the door and went outside and started bringing in wood. When I was out there the first snowflakes started to fall and I started getting concerned. I really got worried when I felt the muscles start pulling and my down there started cramping. I kept going for a few more minutes and then just knew I couldn’t do any more.

I came back inside and then locked the door after making sure that there was water in a water barrel near the stove. I’d seen Roman put something in it and realized from the smell that it must have been bleach or something that smelled just like it. I knew how to take care of that as we’d had to do it at Mother Mary’s and I also got a ration of bleach from Emerald once a week to put in the water barrel that I used. I poured the water back and forth and the smell wasn’t quite as strong and then after the stove heated back up I put what looked like a coffee pot on it to heat the water.

Then I looked in the bag that Roman had kicked under the cot. I bypassed the stuff that looked like coffee. For one it didn’t smell like I remembered coffee smelling and for another I would have been slapped silly had I ever dared to drink something so costly. Next I pulled out these little bags that looked at first like they had dirt and dried twigs in them until I recognize the “twigs” were actually dried up vegetables. I thought back to the few times that Mother Mary had assigned me to kitchen duty and those memories sent me back to my childhood.

“Daisy, why do the veggie tables look so funny?”

“Don’t talk like a baby Cissa, you are getting too old for that. And the vegetables don’t look funny, they’re just dried. We’re running out of jars and lids and new ones are too expensive. Gramps made this thing called a dehydrator and says that drying them will work just as well and we’ll be able to hide them better from the revenuers. It also takes a lot less space to store dried food than in those glass jars.”

“They aren’t as pretty.”

“So? We don’t eat food because it is pretty. You eat to fill your belly when you are hungry and to stay healthy.”

The memory faded out, but I knew what I was looking at. It was the stuff that Roman had made that soup the night we camped in the rain. I poured the dry stuff into a pot like I remember him doing and then when the water came to a boil I let it boil long enough to make sure it didn’t make us sick - I poured and stirred until I had a pot of soup for us to eat.

It didn’t taste like I remember from my childhood, but it was fancy eating for sure compared to what I’d gotten to eat for a long, long time. It was so rich it almost made me sick. I’ve thinned it out since then and that’s helped some. I also found little crackers that I could have eaten with the soup but I decided to be careful and save the crackers. Bread is expensive and people are funny. Roman said that I was to use the food but that doesn’t mean he wants me to use all of the food.

In the box with the food were these books with no printing in them. And some pencils. I carefully took one book and two pencils. I had just decided that I needed to do something for you and writing your story seemed like the right thing. I remember my real mother and my big sister Daisy who was my second real mother would always put down special things to remember in what they called my baby book. Well I don’t have a fancy baby book for you and I haven’t a clue where mine went so this is going to have to do. It is the best I can do for you right now.

I know about how much these books cost as I helped Mother Mary with her bookkeeping and she used something very similar to keep track of customer information, licensure payments, house expenses, and nightly receipts; she also kept track of who she paid bribes to, how much, and what she could use against them if need be. I don’t want to do that but maybe having some information on people will be useful to you so I’ll record what I can. I’ve counted out the right amount from my stash and I will pay for the book and pencils. I’ll pay for the food too if someone makes an issue of it. That’s what I saved up for, so that we can live without having to have a man – or another Mother Mary – give us everything we need in exchange for something we don’t want to give.

I’ve been sitting here off and on ever since except for when I sleep. I seem to want to sleep a lot which does worry me a little as I don’t know if it is normal or not. Then again I always learned to sleep when I could. You never know when your number is going to come up.

I still don’t know if Roman or anyone he sends will actually come for me. Alex can be slick when he wants something, and it sounds like he’s been giving me a real line about Roman from the start and I fell for it. Roman is no pushover but he sure isn’t the ogre Alex made him out to be. And he also made him seem older somehow only it turns out that Alex is the older one. And he sure as heck never said anything about them being twins. If I had Alex for a brother he’d irritate me too, I can’t imagine having him as a twin.

Maybe I shouldn’t talk about him like that. Alex put you in me. But whoever you come out to be, I promised you the truth and that’s the way things stand. Alex took part in making you but he’ll never be your father; at least not if I have anything to say about it. There’s something twisted inside him. Maybe it will untwist. Maybe his family can make it untwist. But I just don’t want you growing up with that hanging over you. I want you to know what safe is and I don’t think that Alex is strong enough to give it to you even if he was willing to try.

 

[Lake Lili]

Thanks Kathy!
Lili

 

[sssarawolf]

Thank you, been a while since I read some of this one.

 

[Kathy in FL]

Chapter Eleven (Part 1)

Hey you in there. I felt you move again today. It made me want to smile. It was the only thing that made me want to smile today. But at least I know where I stand though it is an awful strange place to be.

I’m sitting in this room. It’s still daylight and there’s a real window that the light comes in. There’s no bars over the glass and the window really opens and closes. I must have messed with it five minutes before Roman asked me if I wondered how it worked.

“No. I remember how windows work,” I told him. “It’s just been so long since I’d been in a place that the windows opened and closed that I guess I’m acting stupid over it.”

I heard someone gasp and I turned around too quick. I had thought it was just Roman there. It was that girl … woman … whatever she is. When Roman caught me before I could get face planted she made a huge fuss. I thought at first she was mad because Roman had helped me but it turns out – and this is the strange part – that she was upset that I had tripped and started fussing about me not eating properly and all sorts of other noise. It was bad enough that she started sounding like the chickens that seem to run all over around here.

Here. I guess I better explain. I should probably go back and erase this page and start over but I don’t want to waste the pencil to do it. And that’s another thing but I’ll get to it when I get to it. First though I need to find something to call you. You’re real and you deserve a name. The problem is I don’t know what flavor you are yet so whatever I call you it can’t be something that says that you’re definitely one thing or the other because what if I call you one flavor in this book only to have you turn out to be the other flavor? No, that wouldn’t be good. I know, I’ll call you Bean. That’s about what you started off being though you are bigger than that now. Plus that is what Tim used to call me when I was very little because he had a lisp and couldn’t say Narcissa until the doctor’s fixed the thing that was wrong with his tongue.

So Bean, how do you like it in there? Nice and cozy? I hope so. I’m feeling a little cozy out here. Let me tell you how I got here.

The snow piled really deep for two days. I had had to go back out in it even though it hadn’t been easy. I tried to be careful for your sake but it wasn’t easy. It was too cold in the box, there was frost on the walls and not even using all of the covers that Roman had left kept my feet and hands from hurting. So out I went and sure enough I fell a couple of times but not on my fat belly. When I felt myself falling I made sure to fall on my behind. That wasn’t great either but at least you didn’t get squashed.

On the third day I ate some of the crackers. I wasn’t happy about it. I kept thinking about our money getting all used up too fast. But you were making me hungry and not in a good way. I’m not complaining. It isn’t your fault. That’s just the way things happen so that you can grow and be healthy. When you come out you’ll cry to let me know when you need to be fed. Right now all you can do is make me hungry to let me know. That’s ok. I can deal with it. It lets me know you are still ok in there, especially when you don’t wiggle around for a while.

I had one more bag of soup that I put a lot of water in to make it go as far as possible. That’s what I had that night and then the box was empty except for the books and pencils that I hadn’t touched. I knew that I couldn’t stay anymore and planned to try and follow the trail out the next day.

The problem is that on the fourth day a wind began to blow and by mid-morning it was blowing so hard I wasn’t sure if I could walk straight in it. I’ve seen bad wind living down on the docks but I’d never seen one like this. Plus it was blowing the snow all around. I drank some warm water and saw that the water barrel was almost empty too. I knew one way or the other I would definitely have to do something soon. I didn’t think much about Roman not coming back at that point. I just figured that Alex had had his way. I wasn’t surprised by it. Well maybe a little but I figured that Roman had just overestimated his Dad wanting to talk to me and get whatever answers he thought he would want. Roman is a strange duck as Mother Mary would say. That’s what she called people that are different in a way that goes counter to what we know to be normal for how people act in the city.

Day five I wake up and though I’m hungry enough to be sick I hold it in. No use in making it worse on ourselves; and puking never solved anything. But the wind did do one thing and that was to blow away all of the snow and to dry everything up. That was fine by me. I gathered up what I could and put it in my bag. I also borrowed one of the blankets, the one that Roman left from his pack. I folded the others neatly and left them in the trunk where they’d been. I also tore a page out of the back of this book and left a note explaining that just in case Roman ever came that way again that I wanted to apologize to him for taking his blanket and the book and pencils and eating the rest of the food and not paying for any of it but that I hadn’t liked to just leave money laying around as that wasn’t very smart. And that if we ever did run into each other again that he wouldn’t even have to show an IOU, that I would pay him what I owed as I would forever set that money aside to make sure that I could. I also explained that I would pay for the food too only I’d probably have to save up for that since I wasn’t sure what prices were in the area and that I trusted him not to rip me off down the road. I thanked him for getting me away from the city and that I couldn’t have gotten this far on my own this fast. I put the note in the food box and just relied on someone finding it and passing it along as I gathered it was some kind of way station his family used. Then I started walking.

It was cold. In fact it was so cold I got off the path and stuck to the trees. That wasn’t any better temperature wise but it did keep the wind from whipping around me too much. I still had to try and deal with the blanket and I did that by making a hole that I had found in the center of the blanket big enough so that I could stick my head through. Not great but better than I had been. It was slow going trying to make my way through trees and bushes though.

Crossing nearly frozen streams was not fun either. I almost got wet more times than I want to admit and then the rock I was using to cross the last stream tilted and one of my feet slid all the way in. Talk about cold. It was just about as bad as the baths that Mother Mary would make us take in winter right before the doctor would come for the monthly physical. Like ice cubes mixed up with melted snowman. It didn’t take me long to realize I needed to find some place and try and dry off; my foot was actually not just numb but hurt deep inside.

It was late afternoon and I was tired so I also figured it was as good a time as any to find a place to stop for the night. I hadn’t seen a building or even a piece of a building so I knew it would be another camp in the open kind of night. The one thing I hadn’t thought of was how to make a fire. I mean I had no food so it isn’t like I was going to cook plus I hated to take more after I’d eaten all the food and even taken the book and pencil without paying for it. Alex’s comment about me being a whore with scruples popped into my head. Not that I would have done it any different but at the time, being cold and wet made me a little irritated at my scruples too.

I found a strangely clean area off the trail and crawled under what looked like an oversized Christmas tree. I worried about animals but then decided no self-respecting animal would be out on a night like it was looking to be and even if they were there wasn’t much I could do about it so I used my hand to clean an area off and then using little rocks that I found I made what looked like a miniature fire ring. Then I decided to try something that I had read in one of the magazines that Alex had left. I made a little teepee out of tinder – that’s really what they called it in the article – and then took two rocks and tried to strike them together to make a spark.

I must have been at it a while when I finally threw the rocks down and said aloud, “That is a whole lot harder than they make it sound.”

I heard a snort and a man’s voice say, “It sure is.”

I jumped up and nearly knocked myself out on the limb that I had hung my piece of plastic on. The man gave a whistle and despite the stars swimming in my eyes, grabbed my bag and tried to take off. I got three steps before I went down again and this time I knocked the wind out of me. I still tried to get up and get going but they reached me before I could.

“Whoa there. Easy. Three hippos with five o’clock shadows. Remember?”

I turned and still trying to scoot back and suddenly I recognized Roman. It still took me a bit because his face was definitely messed up.

“Holy cow! You and Alex must have really got into it,” was all I could think to say.

His voice was a little nasally when he answered, “It was something like that. I found your note.”

He was being so reasonable that I was confused. “Oh. Uh, hang on. I’ve got it here in an envelope.”

“You’ve got what in an envelope.”

“The money I owe you. I told you that you’d …”

“Oh. Don’t worry about it. I probably owe you for not getting back before the food ran out.”

“Uh … well … I … look I ate it all. I didn’t mean to. I meant to save at least the crackers but Bean kept saying …”

One of the men growled, “Who’s Bean?”

I definitely knew that tone. I tried to get up and run but Roman was on me before I could even get up good and he said, “Stop Thorn. Saul always sounds like that. Stop I said. He’s promised to hear you out.”

“Bull. More than likely Alex has already given his version and if I know him he’s turned it so it makes him sound like the victim in all this.” I saw Roman blanch and I nodded. “Let me guess, he got the drop on you and got to your family first. I figured that was his plan … you would have thought you would have seen it too after he tried to deck you from behind that first night in that box.”

I heard some muttering from the other men that had come to stand around and I got real quiet. To Roman I said, “I’ll fight. You tell them I’ll fight. If Alex was smart he would have at least warned them that I fight dirty.”

“Thorn I already told you my family isn’t like that.”

“Alex …”

“OK, so Alex has gone off the deep end but don’t judge the rest of us by the way he’s acted lately. You have to remember that people are in shock over this whole thing. They sent Alex away acting one way and now … it’s hard for them to believe.”

“What about that guy … the one named Fletcher … that was watching Alex? What does he say?”

“Fletcher … wait … how do you know about Fletcher?”

I rolled my eyes and snapped, “Don’t you listen to nothing? I told you that Alex spent more time complaining than anything else … and I mean after a while totally anything else and don’t expect me to explain that to a man, you should know what I mean. He didn’t say much in total – it was always the same old thing over and over – but he did mention a few names and apparently this guy Fletcher gave him the green willies.”

“The what? Green willies?”

“You know … he was sick and jealous at the same time with a side order of heebie jeebies. In addition to Fletcher watching him all the time he said something about Fletcher always being able to draw women when he didn’t deserve to and never having to pay for them or something like that.”

I heard one of the mean say quietly, “Dammit. Ain’t that some shit.”

Roman snapped, “Hey!”

And all I could do is roll my eyes again and say, “You have got to be the strangest man I have ever met on this side of Mother Mary’s house. My ears are not going to fall off just ‘cause some guy cusses. Not to mention you did a fair share of it yourself … and so did Alex. Anyone with sense knows that it’s better to let men blow off some steam with a curse than it is to have them hold it in and eventually pop you instead.”

 

[Kathy in FL]

Chapter 11 (Part 2)

Roman made another face and said, “Will you stop saying things like that? You make all men sound … sound …”

“Like men?”

The man named Saul snorted and said, “Get up off the ground Roman; this is going nowhere with the tramp. And neither are we, at least tonight. We’ll camp here; it’s as good a place as any.”

Well, for men they do all right for themselves when it comes to setting up their beds and cooking. I was still suspicious that they’d ask for something as payment. I also wondered where Alex was. It also didn’t help that the men kept looking at me and sneering. That didn’t really bother me but I was pretty sure that most of them were thinking that I should provide the entertainment and I wasn’t having any of that.

I kept trying to scoot back real slow and not get noticed but the men kept looking at Roman with one of those looks that are supposed to say something but mostly look irritated. He finally sighed and said, “Thorn, who’s Bean?”

“What?”

“You said that there was some guy named Bean and …”

“Oh. Bean isn’t a guy … well Bean might be a guy eventually but maybe not. I don’t know what flavor Bean is yet. I just didn’t want to go around calling Bean ‘it’ or ‘you’ or whatever. I want them to know that I think they’re a real person and take them seriously right for the get go.”

“Huh?”

The guy that had cussed said, “She’s talking about it … the … the … uh …”

“Baby,” I said hugging my middle where you’re all nice and safe. “Bean is going to know …”

Saul snapped, “Are you playing a game?”

The tone was still gruff and scary but had lost its nasty edge. “One, I don’t know what game you think I’m playing and two, from my side of things it would be awful stupid to play any kind of game. You don’t strike me as the sort that puts up with that much.”

He snorted again. Roman said, “Saul isn’t so no stories. If he asks you something just tell him. Even if the truth gets you in trouble it’s better to be honest in trouble that lie and get in worse trouble.”

“Oh please, like I don’t know that. Did Alex ever come clean about the loan shark thing? I still don’t know how he could fool me like that when he liked to complain so much. I caught him in a couple of fibs but they seemed pretty tame compared to the story he made up to avoid having your family find out that he got beat up by Emerald’s enforcers for beating me … uh …”

I slipped. I didn’t mean to. It’s just when you start telling the truth it’s hard to not tell all of the truth.

Quietly Roman said, “Yeah. And you can stop covering for him. That’s one of the things that Fletcher found out about that he didn’t tell me.”

He looked really upset by that so I said, “Well, I knew you two were brothers but I didn’t know you were twins until y’all started going on and on about Alex being fifteen minutes older. There were a couple of twins at Mother Mary’s and they had this thing …”

One of the men snickered.

“Not that kind of thing though as a man that would be the first to enter your mind. No, it’s that … well … it was weird. They knew when the other was in trouble and how they were feeling and stuff like that. I guess it’s just like that for twins so the Fletcher guy didn’t tell you because he didn’t want you hurting any more than you already were.”

“Who said I was hurting?” Roman snapped.

“Oh Brother. If you hadn’t cared you wouldn’t have bothered trying to save Alex in the first place. Then you would have let him run off all those times he threatened to. You also wouldn’t have gotten so silly and offended when … when he said some of the things he did.” I shook my head. “I just thought it was brother stuff but …”

“Will you stop that? Everyone always makes such a big deal about us being twins. We’re nothing alike. We’ve never been anything alike.”

“Well pardon me. So you’re fraternal or whatever. You’re still brothers. Don’t be a dork and try and deny that.”

Saul growled, “Will you two shut up? There’s been enough arguing over the last couple of days to last a lifetime.”

“You think this is something? You should have heard him and Alex go at it. It was enough to give a stone wall a headache.”

Saul growled. Seriously. He did it so good that I looked around because I thought there was a wild animal out in the woods. I’m not one for comedy routines. In fact if you had told some of the sisters or Mother Mary that I made someone laugh they would have probably gone into shock but somehow or other the look on my face must have done it for Roman because he made some weird noise and I could tell he was trying not to laugh. I looked at him and then at Saul and I decided to scoot back a little ways out of the blast zone. But then I heard a wheezy sort of noise from Saul and knew for sure that while I had thought I knew everything there is about men, this family was going to teach me something about crazy men.

All I could do was shake my head and get quiet. Trusting a man’s good nature too far is a recipe for disaster. Slowly, trying not to draw attention to myself I moved as far away as I could without them getting hacked off. Roman came to sit beside me again and I told him, “Stop that.”

“Stop what?”

I whispered, “This … whatever you are doing. Look, maybe your family is different but that doesn’t mean that they are just going to look the other way. You’ll … you’ll get a reputation.”

Roman looked surprised and then looked like he wanted to laugh again. “I’ll get a reputation?”

“Don’t be stupid. We both know what I am … or at least what I used to be. They know it too but they may not know I never mean to go back to that life. I don’t blame them for thinking what they think, they just don’t know how determined I am to change things for Bean’s sake. But I am not crazy enough to think that I’ll ever completely shed the reputation of that old life. I’m going to find a safe place for Bean and I’m going to do whatever it takes to make sure that Bean is safe for life … Bean isn’t going to have to live through what I have. I’ll put up with whatever I have to for Bean’s sake. But … but Bean won’t have a choice but to be with me until they are old enough to look after themselves. But you do so just … just stop it. I’m going to make Bean strong enough so that what people call me won’t bother them. There’s no need for you to have to be that kind of strong. So just … stop.”

“Stop what?”

“Being … weird … nice … you know what I mean. It isn’t natural for men. You could hurt yourself straining like that. And stop sitting by me like I need someone to protect me. I’ve looked after me for a long time now. And I’ll look after Bean too. I’m not looking to make any contract ever again. I don’t need you turning yourself into some kind of stupid sacrificial lamb or whatever. They’re your family. Don’t make me pay for your pain on top of all the other pain that I know is coming and what has already passed. I’m … I’m sorry … about Alex I mean. But the way he is isn’t my fault … and I can’t fix him either. I’ve got as much as I can handle just fixing things for Bean.”

Roman got serious. “Thorn, you have to be the only person in the world that thinks I give a rip about anything, least of all Alex. And that includes my family. There’s things you don’t know … all …” He stopped and sighed deeply. “Look, I know it is asking a lot for you to trust me but something has to be done. I don’t know how old you are and I don’t care what Alex says, it does matter. And that … that kid you’re carrying. They are family … my niece or nephew. That matters too. And it is going to matter to Dad and Mom and the rest of them as soon as they get over their shock and accept it.”

I shook my head. “But they won’t accept it. Even you asked if Bean was really put there by Alex.”

He sighed. “It’s going to take a while. Let them get to know you …”

“No.”

“Huh?”

“I said no. That would just make it worse. I’m sorry I have to do this Roman because even though you are a man I don’t want to hurt you; I guess I believe that you’re different but this only makes things harder so here it is … Alex wasn’t the first, he was just the last and I didn’t have any illusions about him either. He was just a customer and that is all. I’ve been a whore for … for a long time … too long. No, it wasn’t my choice and no I’m not going to explain it to you so don’t bother asking. Sometimes the only thing that you can do with the bad stuff is to throw it away and not go digging it back out. Stop thinking about yesterday. Don’t worry about a tomorrow that may not come. Survive today, it’s all you’ve got. And that’s what I’m trying to do for me.”

“I thought you were trying to find a safe place.”

“I am. For Bean. But there’s nothing like that out there for me. Too much … look, this is about Bean. That’s all. You can’t make it right and you can’t fix me. I’m … I’m like that woman in that book … Scarlet Letter. Only this isn’t some story that tells a moral, it’s just life and life sucks for 99.9% of the world’s population. I just want to give Bean a chance to beat the odds. And I can’t do it if I have to worry about you screwing up your life trying to play … whatever loopy part you’re trying to play. I’m not Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella, Snow White or anyone else that needs rescuing. And this isn’t a fairy tale. I’m a whore and that is all anyone is ever going to see me as. So back off. Go back to your family where you belong. I’ll … do whatever this thing is that you think your family needs but … but then it is going to be time for me to … to leave.”

“But you said …”

“I know what I said. But I’m seeing it isn’t possible. Alex has made it impossible. My past makes it impossible. I need to learn stuff so that I can take care of Bean right and then …”

“Then what?”

“I don’t know. I just know that whatever it is I can’t just sit around waiting for someone else to find it for me. I’ve got to do this for myself … and for Bean. And you need to go back to whatever your life was before you found out about Bean. It’s just no good for you to do anything else.”

 

[sssarawolf]

Thank you, I haven't read these chapters in a while.

 

[Kathy in FL]

Chapter Twelve

Bean, I honestly thought I’d convinced him when he moved to go back to where his family were. I got back under the tree, put rocks on the ends of the plastic to keep it from blowing around and then curled up the best I could to go to sleep. I was so tired that I did, and it wasn’t no catnap either.

I heard muttering and grumbling and snapped awake to find that while it was still dark there was enough light that I could clearly see that the men had crawled under the same tree as I had at some point and made their beds. I felt like panicking and got so sick but before I could do much more than move Roman was handing me a mug of something that smelled … it smelled like Christmas. Isn’t that crazy?

But I was so hungry and sick to my stomach that I figured what the heck that I would just owe him a little more. “Missy says this should help.”

Not trusting someone I didn’t know I asked, “Who’s Missy?”

One of the men snorted and said, “Jealous?”

“Of what?” I snapped back not using good sense. “I don’t even know who or what Missy is. I’m just not going to be knocked out and hauled off to some stable. Not after I just escaped one.”

Roman was obviously trying to figure out what I had said. He really is simple at times even though I know there isn’t anything wrong with his brain. For some reason though he just keeps reminding me a bit of Tim which is irritating. It was the cussing man who came over and said quietly, “It’s just ginger tea with some honey in it. That’s it. No one is going to do what you think. And Missy is my sister … and Saul’s wife … so you need to watch it. You don’t need to insult someone just because you don’t know them.”

“Uh …”

“I know you were just stating a fact from what your life is …”

“Was,” I snapped.

“Ok … what your life was like. You still need to be careful.”

“Fine. Who are you?”

“I’m Fletcher.”

“Oh.”

“And yeah, I was more than happy to give Alex a hard time and I’m glad I gave him the … er … green willies. And no I didn’t whore around so I don’t know why he would say such a thing.”

“’Cause he was jealous. And I don’t want to hear about Alex anymore.”

Saul had come around and growled, “Drink the tea. We’re wasting time. Uncle Shad and David are already going to wonder where we are and not happy.”

Just then I heard a gun go off. I spilled some stuff in the mug but I didn’t feel the heat and I started shaking so bad that I almost dropped it. I looked at Roman and whispered, “Don’t let them hurt Bean. Don’t …”

He got a ferocious look on his face and snapped at Saul, “Did you do that on purpose?”

“Don’t be an idiot Roman. The boys saw a herd and decided to do some hunting. Who would have thought it, a tramp with sensibilities? While they field dress their kills you can pour her into something that she won’t freeze to death in. I don’t want to have gone to all this trouble only to have her get sick or die on the trail.”

My fight was coming to the surface and I said, “I don’t have sensibilities. That’s as crazy as when Alex accused me of having scruples just ‘cause I wouldn’t whore for him so he could have a room for the night instead of camping out. I’m just trying to make things safe for Bean. That’s all. That’s all that matters.”

Alex warned, “Thorn … don’t talk to Saul like that. You need to be respectful.”

“I’m a whore Roman, remember? There is no such thing as respect in my world. There is only bigger, stronger, meaner … and fighting to stay alive when faced with it. If anyone tries to hurt Bean I will fight otherwise I’ll keep to myself.”

Saul squatted down. I tried to scoot back and got blocked from escaping when Roman and Fletcher got in the way. Saul snorted and said, “Take it easy before you hurt yourself. Let’s get one thing straight. I don’t like this. I don’t like this at all. I sure as hell don’t like … what you do.”

“I don’t do that anymore and I’ll fight …”

“Yeah, yeah. Enough of that crap already. No one is out to hurt that baby, especially if it belongs to the family. But I’m not convinced that it is no matter what anyone else thinks. Roman has obviously gone soft in the head and Fletcher … well what Fletcher says carries weight but there are still a lot of holes where there should be facts. I want those facts.”

“Yeah and your belly wants sweets all the time but that doesn’t mean you’re rich enough to have them.”

I felt hands on my arm and I shook them off. “Easy Thorn, it’s ok. This is Saul’s job.”

“Will you stop talking to me like I am some hurt animal you’ve found and feel like you gotta fix up?! It’s too late for that! Just leave me alone! Don’t touch me! Get away!!”

Saul said quietly, “Roman, deal with her. We don’t need a hysterical female on the trail.”

“Don’t go scaring her on purpose then. She’s not … I don’t think she’ll back down. And even if you don’t believe the baby is Alex’s …”

I snapped, “And that’s another thing. Just because Alex put Bean inside me doesn’t mean he owns Bean. No one is going to own Bean. I won’t let that happen. And Alex …”

“Thorn, you need to stop. Now. I don’t know what kind of crazy you are thinking but it is probably wrong. I told you not to judge me or any of the rest of us based on how Alex acted. We don’t buy and sell people. All I meant … ok … probably from your perspective it sounded …” He stopped and shook his head. “Look, if Saul is willing to give you a chance the least you can do is give him and the rest of us a chance. And if you can’t do it for us at least do it for my mother. She’s in a bad way. This has been … she’s having a real hard time with it. Alex … Alex was her baby, was supposed to be the best …”

“Boy I sure hope that isn’t true if you expect me to trust you.”

He sighed. “Ok, so it’s hard for you to understand but I told you Alex wasn’t always like he was in the city.”

“Maybe not but he’s always resented you for some reason. And always been mad that people won’t let him be free to do what he wants all the time. If I got nothing else out of all his complaining that came through loud and clear.”

Saul asked, “He said that? That he’d always felt that way?”

“Yeah and more than once,” I answered putting my back against the tree so no one could sneak up on me. “And yeah I know he changed. The first couple of times … geez it was awful, he tried to be nice. Then when he figured out he didn’t need to be he stopped and started being like men normally are.” Saul got an uncomfortable look on his face but it was only there for a brief second, but I’d seen it. “You people … I don’t know what your damage is, but Alex is right, the city would have eaten you up. He said that is why he was a better choice for his job than any of the rest of you. He said you all would have hated it but that he loved what the city had to offer. He felt free living there for the first time in his life. One of the reasons he fought Roman almost every step of the way is because he didn’t want to go back to wherever it is you all are from, he didn’t want his life to go back to what it used to be.”

Saul sighed then looked at Roman and said, “Get her ready to ride. We’ll need the extra horse to carry the carcasses, so you’ll have to carry her.”

 

[Kathy in FL]

Chapter Thirteen

“You feel sick?”

“No.”

“Then stop squirming.”

“Why can’t I ride behind like before?”

“Because you puked the entire time and … you’re belly gets in the way.”

“People are going to talk.”

“Stop worrying about it.”

“Of course I’m going to worry about it. I can only take care of me and Bean, I can’t take care of you too.”

“Who said anything about me needing being taken care of?”

“Well you’re obviously crazy. That’s the only explanation for it. So someone needs to make sure you don’t fall into trouble like hanging around the wrong kind of woman.”

Fletcher rode back beside us and said, “Keep her quiet Roman. Jeremy said there is sign on the trail ahead but it’s not from a horse he recognizes.”

I was still trying to figure out how you could tell one horse from another from a trail when a shot rang out and things went a little crazy. I held onto Roman to keep from being thrown off but it didn’t take the men long to realize they were surrounded by men in uniforms. I recognized the insignia right away. Revenuers.

Being angry doesn’t change that the men had too many guns. They forced Roman’s family to get off their horses and then took their guns and knives away from them but I pick pocketed one of the revenuers when he brushed against me and took a knife off of him. He had so many in his hand at the time he never noticed. I palmed it under my sleeve and since they had already frisked me they didn’t bother checking again.

They were going through all of the men’s gear and doing it fast like they had a lot of practice. They left the three deer on the horse but pulled the horse off the trail and tied it off to a tree. Then they started going over the men more closely, looking for other stuff besides weapons and I knew that I wouldn’t have much more time. Sure enough a man got a smirky, greedy grin on his face and came towards me and pulled me off into the bushes. I didn’t give him any trouble so he was able to pull me off trail pretty far before running out of patience.

I won’t record what he had to say. For one thing I don’t want you growing up hearing that kind of talk and for another, it was pretty boring and typical; I’d heard it all before. He pushed me down and all the noise he was making gave me the cover to palm the knife and then shove it in his throat. The little bit of kicking and other noise he made the men took to be more or less him getting what he’d dragged me off to do. He hadn’t even gotten his own zipper down much less mine.

I grabbed the two guns he had carried into the bushes with him right as two other men showed up and said, “Damn you’re quick Charlie. Get off so I can have a turn.”

One of the things I did under the watchful eye of Mother Mary was to clean her guns. I never had anything to do with them when they were loaded but I did know how they operated. So while I’d never shot a gun before it was something that I knew how to do. I rolled “Charlie” off of me and point blank shot both men.

“What the hell are you all doing in there?!” came a shout and I could hear feet coming my way. I didn’t kill them outright. Shooting accurately takes practice that I’d never had. But I did hit what I was aiming at … right in the gut. Then there was all sorts of noise on the trail and I stood up, swayed a bit, then went to join the fight.

By the time I got out there it was almost all done except for one guy that didn’t want to give up. I walked up to him, stuck the barrel of the gun in his ear and pulled the trigger. The guy I shot wasn’t the only man to jump. Then I went around putting the rest of the dying out of their misery too.

The last one looked at me holding his belly and crying saying, “No. No … don’t kill me. I don’t want to die.”

I told him, “You should of thought of that before you became a revenuer. The day you did is the day you signed your own death warrant.” He was still crying when I pulled the trigger.

I turned to find Saul looking at me, but it wasn’t with anger or disgust or anything else but curiosity. He held out his hand and I handed him both guns and then looked around for Roman who was helping Fletcher. “Oh don’t do that. You’re getting germs in it.”

I walked over to clean up the cut on Fletcher’s arm and Roman looked at me without saying anything but wanting to. I sighed. “Which is it? That I know first aid or that I shot all those men?”

After a moment of trying to decide he said, “Both.”

“We got beat up pretty regular at Mother Mary’s; even those of us that didn’t fight like I did. We had to learn to take care of ourselves because Mother Mary would beat us if she had to send for the doc. As for those men? I told you I would fight anyone that tried to hurt Bean or make me go back to whoring.”

“You knew what they were.”

“Revenuers? Yeah. Scum of the earth. People like them …”

Saul walked over and asked, “People like them what?”

“People like them is how I wound up … I don’t want to talk about it. I won’t talk about it. If you can’t deal with that then I’ll leave.”

“Hmmm,” was all the sound that Saul made which surprised the heck out of Roman and Fletcher but I don’t care. Maybe someone used to own us Bean, but I’m done with that life and that means I’ve got some rights. Maybe not a lot of them but I won’t talk about that part just so people will feel sorry for me. Besides, it’s private.

I would have helped to get rid of the bodies but the muscles across my belly started to get tight and I wasn’t feeling too good. Mother Mary wouldn’t have cared and made me work anyway but Roman and the other men did care which only means they are as crazy as I am beginning to suspect they are. They made some noise and for a while all I had to do was sit under a tree wrapped up in a couple of blankets. I closed my eyes and then suddenly I was being picked up.

“Hey!”

Saul said, “Hush and be still so I can hand you up to Roman. If you wiggle and fall on your head, it will be your own fault.”

And it seemed that I must have fallen asleep again because I don’t remember too much for what seems a long while. Then I tried to wake up when we stopped. I grabbed at Roman when I thought I was falling but it was Saul getting me off the horse.

“Wha …?”

“Roman take her … aw hell. Where the hell are we going to put her?”

Then an angry voice said, “Take her over to the meeting house. Dad and the others are waiting. What the hell took you so long?”

“Cool your jets David,” I heard Saul say. “We had a situation. That report comes first before the other.”

A little more calmly the one called David asked, “What kind of situation?”

“Revenuers.”

“Aw shit. Do we need to go into lock down?”

“No although I’m putting extra guards out on patrol. And the girl needs to be looked at. Send Missy … dammit …”

“I’m taking her to my place,” Roman said refusing to put me down even though I pushed at him. To me he said, “Stop wiggling or I’ll dump you in the trough and trust me you wouldn’t like it.”

“You … are … crazy.”

“Certifiable,” he agreed easily. “Now be still.”

 

[Kathy in FL]

Chapter Fourteen

Two women were waiting when Roman hauled me over to this little place that sat back from some of the other houses on an old style cul de sac. “Roman?” the younger of the two asked.

“Can you get the door open Missy? If I put her down I’m not sure if she’ll run or fall down.”

I pinched him and he snapped, “Ow! Stop that!”

“I told you I’ll fight.”

“Well you don’t have any reason to so knock it off. I’ve got enough bruises to last me for a while. And you are going to mind me one way or the other. I won’t like it, but I will tie you down so Missy and Regina can look you over. You … you don’t look good.”

“What business is it of yours?”

Carefully carrying me in he said, “OK, if you won’t do it for yourself then do it for … do it for Bean.”

That stopped me. “What do you mean?”

“I mean you don’t look good. Missy and Regina know what they are doing. And you’re going to have a baby but it is too soon for the baby to come and … and you don’t look good.”

“Oh. They won’t … won’t …”

“Won’t what?”

“Give me something to make Bean go away or something like that to make things easy on your family.”

The older woman hoarsely whispered, “Dear God in Heaven of course not.”

Roman looked at her and said, “She’s … she’s had it rough and some of it at Alex’s hands. Just cut her some slack. I’ll be right outside.” He turned to me and growled, “Do not give them problems. If you do I’ll come right in and tie you down like I said. Understand?”

The younger woman snapped, “Roman!”

“Honestly Missy … just … just …”

I said quietly, “I’ll make a deal … I’ll … I’ll be still if they promise not to hurt Bean.”

All the anger drained out of Roman and he said, “Deal. But just understand this, the idea has never been to hurt Bean. OK?”

I shrugged. “You just make sure they stick to the deal.”

The older woman – Regina – asked, “Who … uh …”

“It’s what she calls the baby so don’t call it an ‘it’ or anything like that, she gets fussy and uncooperative. And don’t bring up Alex. That is for Dad and Saul to deal with. It’ll get hashed out as soon as Saul makes his report. Where is Alex? I need to talk to him.”

“You … you better talk to David about that first. Your mother is terribly upset.”

“Mother is always upset. But fine, I will … just as soon as I make sure Thorn is going to behave.”

I am not easily embarrassed but having those two women undress me and check me out like a couple of doctors did. I’m not sure why but it did. To cover my feelings I said, “So you’re Missy, Saul’s wife.”

“Well yes, how did you know?”

“Roman and Fletcher said I needed to watch my mouth around you.”

From outside the door Roman said, “About her … but around her applies too.”

I rolled my eyes. “About. Around. It’s the same thing. Watch my p’s and q’s.”

Missy said, “You can talk freely around me.”

I looked at her and said, “No I can’t. You want me to but … but there’s stuff I could say you don’t need to hear. You look too new.”

“What does that mean?”

“Something you probably wouldn’t understand and I don’t want to explain. It just basically means that … that you … don’t really know the way life really works. And besides, I’m not fool enough to get in that guy Saul’s way. He wouldn’t like what I could tell you and that’s enough for me.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. How far along did you say you were?”

“Far along? Oh, you mean how long I’ve had Bean inside me? About six months. I can give you the exact day it happened if you hand me my bag. I worked a calendar out so I could keep track.”

Regina, the older woman, gingerly handed my bag to me. “It’s ok,” I told her. “It’s clean. Or mostly clean. My mother made …”

I could have kicked myself all over again but I didn’t think anyone was paying attention so I shut up and opened up my bag and was just about to pull out the scrap pieces of paper I had cut out of a magazine when there was a knock on the door. “They done with her? Uncle Shad is chewing horseshoes and spitting nails.”

Missy complained, “No we aren’t finished.”

Someone else said, “Too bad. Uncle Shad says now.”

“This is …”

I saw the older woman glance at Missy in a silent warning and being more than ready to be done with their brand of doctoring I said, “No sense in putting it off. Better to know sooner rather than later how fast I’m going to have to hit the road.”

I was up and out of there before the two women could stop gobbling in protest. My fight carried me into the outer room and down the steps of the little house and out into the dark yard. But then I felt something pull and I stumbled. Roman was there but I tried to make him let go of my arm. “You will either let me hold your arm or I will carry you. That’s the only two options you have.”

“Oh don’t start that again.”

Missy had followed us out and I explained, “There is something wrong with him. I think he got dropped on his head or something. He’s being … nice.”

“Roman … is being nice.”

“Yes! And it is going to get him into trouble and while he is just a man, I guess I don’t want him to get into trouble so tell him to knock it off. Maybe he’ll listen to you.”

From the dark someone said, “Roman rarely listens to anyone so don’t bother wasting your breath or my time.”

Missy was shocked. “Saul!”

I told her, “You do that a lot. You must not have a lot of experience with men. They always go their own way. All you can do is kinda guide them ever so often.”

Roman snorted but didn’t slow down. “You don’t need to tell Missy that. She guides the whole enclave 24/7.”

“Well if she can then more power to her. But from my experience it doesn’t do a whole lot of good and is a waste of energy most of the time. Men do what men do and that’s all there is to it.”

That’s when Saul took my other arm and I got scared. It felt like when Brian would grab me and march me to Mother Mary’s office. I leaned away from him and he said, “Relax Kid. No one is going to eat you.”

“I’m not a kid!”

“Uh huh,” he said on a sigh. “Roman find a chair and stick her in it and keep an eye on her before she falls flat or starts puking again. And Missy,” he stopped and changed his tone. “Maybe some of that tea?”

“Of course Darling.”

I couldn’t help it. “Ew.”

Roman said quietly, “Yeah it do get a little nauseating ever so often. Just ignore it, the rest of us do.”

I looked at him to let him know that his crazy was showing again but all he did was what Saul told him to … put me in a chair and watch me.

 

[Lake Lili]

Thanks Kathy!
Lili

 

[Mr Bill]

Thanks for the update.

 

[sssarawolf]

Big thank you .

 

[teedee]

thanks once again dear lady!

 

[Kathy in FL]

Chapter Fifteen

A couple of older men stomped into the room and they almost took my breath. Right away I knew those men had my life in their hands. One walked right up to me and I expected to be slapped. Roman must have thought the same thing because he moved to stand in front of me. The older man growled, “You’ve already proven to be a disappointment. Don’t make things worse.”

“Dad, you don’t know what you look like when you get like this. I know you’d never hit a woman, but Thorn doesn’t. That’s what she is waiting for. Waiting for me to be wrong about us being different from the other men she’s known.”

It was the older man’s head that rocked back like he’d been slapped, and I watched him ball his fist up and couldn’t stand it. My fight came back. “I swear you really are crazy Roman. I told you to stop doing this. It isn’t worth it. Is this how you got all beat up? Was it not Alex after all? Fighting with your brother is one thing, but … but this is another. Learn to pick your battles or you are going to get stomped to smithereens. Now knock it off.”

Roman turned to stare at me then said, “I told you we are different.”

“You told me Alex used to be different too but now he’s not. You told me not to judge you or the others by Alex … and I’m trying. But you’re forgetting that people change from one day to the next; sometimes from one moment to the next. Just accept it Roman and stop sticking your chin out for someone to hit. One of these days someone is going to hit you so hard you aren’t going to get back up.”

It was a face off. I wouldn’t give and neither would he. I don’t know what would have happened but Saul growled, “Are you two finished dancing yet? You argue more than anything I’ve ever seen. Listen kid …”

“I told you I’m not a kid.”

“You are if I say you are and right now, until you prove otherwise, you are a kid no matter what your current condition is. Unless of course you want to tell me how old you really are.”

“To quote something Alex said, it doesn’t matter and I’m obviously old enough.”

Saul snorted and said, “Less I hear about Alex the better. This isn’t about him.”

“Huh?” I asked. “Wait, I thought … well … Roman said his dad would want answers and that is why I came. I mean …”

I looked around confused and Roman looked confused too. “Yeah, where is Alex?”

Saul sighed and looked to Roman’s father who just stood there looking like a piece of mossy granite. Then he looked at another man and he stepped forward. Roman looked at the man and asked, “David, what’s going on?”

“Alex got caught cooking some … some stuff up in his bedroom.”

“Cooking what up? What’s going on?”

I looked at the man called David and all the rest of them and then looked at Roman who still looked confused. I put my hand on his arm. “It seems they might have found a reason why Alex wasn’t being like you remember him being.”

“What are you talking about?”

I looked at Saul and realized I’d have to be the one to tell Roman. “Alex must have gotten hooked on something. He never did it around me though he did act a little crazy every once in a while so he probably hasn’t been hooked for long. It would explain why he lost interest … uh … why he … hmmm … I thought it was because he was just in a pout about getting beat up by Emerald’s enforcers. Maybe there is more to it. And if you said that there was a lot of money missing it would explain that too.”

“No.”

I just shrugged. I’ve forgotten more about how real family works than I now remember Bean. I hope to relearn what I forgot with you but what I do remember is that people want to think the best things about their family. And I know that Roman is kinda different and crazy so maybe he’d want to think the best of his family even more than most. That’s one of the reasons why I take the things he says with a grain of salt. Not because I think he is lying on purpose but because he wants what he says to be the truth so much he might miss that it isn’t.

“No. Not Alex. Not after Patty …”

There was that name again. I saw a couple of people look everywhere but at Roman, but it didn’t tell me much more than I already knew which is that Patty was someone important to Roman.

He looked at Saul then at David then at his Dad who was looking at him like he was a piece of puzzle that had maybe gotten stuck in the wrong slot. Roman said, “Dad?”

Gruffly Roman’s father said, “It’s true. Happened after you left to go get … her. Claimed at first he was going to commit suicide because no one believed his side of things, that your mother and Patty were breaking his heart, choosing to believe some dock prostitute instead of him. He wasn’t … rational. Then Terry took a look at what he’d been cooking and said there wasn’t enough there to OD on, barely enough there to do much more than take the edge off for a new addict. That’s when …”

“No. No way. Where is he? This is just another one of his games.”

“Son, this is not a game. Terry said that he got a look at him real good this time and under the bruising of where you two fought there’s … there’s evidence that this has been going on for a while. Maybe not a long while but … but long enough.”

Roman moaned. “No. No he wouldn’t do that. No, not with Patty …”

“Who’s Patty?” I asked.

Just about everyone in the room jumped. Most of them looked like I’d spit on Jesus or something. “Uh … never mind.”

Roman looked at me and said, “It’s ok. Patty is Alex’s wife.”

My mouth must have fallen open because Saul chuckled sadly. “Kid …”

“Stop calling me that. It sounds dumb. It’s not so much that a guy who had a wife would have a side woman, that’s pretty common. It’s … well … it’s that Alex in particular is married. I never would have guessed. He never said nothing about any other female but his momma. I actually thought there weren’t any out here except for her and all the rest of you men. I didn’t even know about Missy until Roman and Fletcher got onto me for not talking nice enough. It makes me wonder what else he’s been not saying. Not telling you all about me after he got beat up – which I still say is stupid and got him in more trouble than he needed to get in although that was before I found out about Bean. Then me not knowing about the loan shark that Roman says you all found out about. The drug that none of us knew about … and now he’s got a wife on top of it? Geez, how many different lives does Alex have and who all did he live them with? Oh and just to notch the weird up a bit I didn’t know about Roman and Alex being twins until they started fighting about who was born first. I mean how can you not mention that you’re a twin? Well …,” I said turning to Roman. “At least you aren’t identical twins. That would be completely freaky. I’m not sure I could even imagine some of the things you’ve said coming out of a head that looked like Alex.” I shuddered then had to slap a hand over my mouth and run out the door and puke in the bushes.

When I finally stopped heaving I muttered, “Don’t think about that no more ever Bean. It’s like having a twister in my head. End of story.”

I almost fell off the porch when Roman handed me a bandana. “It’s clean.”

“Uh …”

“C’mon. Dad wants to ask you some stuff. He’s confused and he doesn’t like that. But they aren’t going to hit you Thorn. They’re just shook up.”

“Fine, but you know the deal.”

“I know. If you think someone is going to hurt Bean you’ll fight.”

“And I won’t go back to that life. I mean it Roman. I won’t. I’m going to take care of Bean and I’m going to teach them what safe means.”

“I know that too. C’mon and sit down, you’ve got that nasty pasty color look again.”

“So? It’s not like I’m out looking for a customer.”

Roman sighed. “Do you really have to say things like that?”

“Do you really have to act so weird and care what I say?”

Saul stuck his head out and said, “You two. In. Now. Or I’ll put you in separate corners. Dammit Roman, act your age. You’re twenty-two for God’s sake, not twelve with the hots for the new girl on the block.”

I looked at Roman and started backing up. “Thorn …”

“You … no … you said you … not like … you …”

“Thorn! Listen to me. I won’t hurt Bean. I won’t. Didn’t I say that? Didn’t I say this was a safe place? Isn’t this the safe you want?”

It was over as quick as it started and I felt really, really stupid Bean. I did. But then I was seeing spots and the spots turned to stars and then …

 

[Kathy in FL]

Chapter Sixteen

“Dammit Saul! Why do you have to make it your mission in life to scare the crap out of people?”

“What the hell did I say?!”

I was being carried again. “What do you mean what the hell did you say? Damn, and you people call me dense and out of touch.”

“Stop that or I’m going to puke again,” I groaned. “I’m not a dolly you can just tote anywhere you feel like dumping me.”

“I’m going to dump you on your head if you don’t stop wiggling. Now hold still. Regina is coming and bringing Mom.”

“No! No, no, no, no!”

“Oh yes. And you will sit and you will let her take a look at you. End … of … discussion.”

“She won’t like it.”

“She may not, and you may not, but Mom is the best there is about this stuff. She used to be a nurse and she’ll know why you keep going tip over tea kettle.”

“It’s just Bean letting me know stuff.”

“Well tell Bean to settle down because you are going to get looked at.”

“No!”

“Yes!”

“No!”

He was looking around the little house wondering where to set me. “I do not want to traumatize you Thorn, but I don’t see anything else for it. I’m going to take you to the bedroom.”

“No!”

“Dammit …”

“Roman Douglas Beauchamp.”

Bean, I’m not lying when I say that Roman jumped and turned so fast it made me even dizzier than I already was. “Sit her down now. Go stand outside. Now.”

“Mom …”

“What?” she said with an irritated snap in her voice.

“Don’t scare her.”

“I’m not scared!”

He looked at me and said, “Remember. I promised you that no one around here would send you back, make you go back, or anything else like that. And no one is going to hurt Bean. Mom is just upset too.”

“I’m not upset. Stop acting like I have … like I have sensibilities. I don’t. And I can take care of myself and Bean too!”

It was irritating to realize no one was listening to me. At Mother Mary’s someone would have aimed a slap at me or thrown something in my general direction to shut me up but these people … they act like you aren’t even in the room and just go about what they intend to do. In no time flat Roman’s mother was barking out orders and Missy and Regina and another woman were moving faster than the girls at Mother Mary’s ever had, myself included. I’d like to know how she pulled it off because she looks like a little puff ball but when she says jump no one even bothers to ask how high they just start jumping until she tells them to stop.

I was stripped, washed, shampooed, dried, examined, measured, bandaged and taped, and then redressed in a nightgown I’d never seen before and on top of it ordered into the bed before I could even find enough fight to put up a fuss. As a matter of fact I was all wore out.

Breathlessly, when Missus Beauchamp put a tray in front of me and told me to eat, I told her, “But … but I can’t pay for this. Please don’t …”

That’s when Roman had to put his big mouth in and came through the door. “This is for Bean, remember?”

“You’re just trying to fool me.”

“Nope. Ask Mom. This is all about Bean. Isn’t that right Mom?”

She crossed her arms and arched an eyebrow really good but Roman didn’t back down. Finally she nodded and said, “Yes. It is.” To me she said, “And I expect you to eat all of that and not throw it away.”

I’d had enough of being treated like a little kid and I told her, “I’m not stupid. You don’t waste food because if you waste what you have today there might not be more tomorrow. God’s like that.”

“I beg your pardon? Are you making fun of God?!” she asked in outrage.

“Do I look like I want to go to hellfire and damnation? God can squash you like a bug for doing that sort of thing; heck He can squash you for no reason. But a good way to bump up the odds of getting squashed is by being wasteful. Everybody knows that. Stupid revenuers, hope all of them go to hellfire and damnation,” I muttered still angry even after all these years.

Roman drug a chair over and said, “About that, how did you know who those men were?”

“Everybody knows who the revenuers are. They steal things from the country and give it to the city to shut people up. Hate them. Hate them long and hard and forever.”

“Why?”

“Huh?”

“Why do you hate the revenuers so much? Seems personal.”

“None of your business. Besides everyone knows revenuers are evil … revenuers and dust bunnies are the two most evil things on the planet.”

“Thorn?”

“What?”

“Are you feeling ok?”

“Why do you keep asking stupid questions?”

“Because I’m not sure I understand what revenuers and dust bunnies have in common.”

“Then you don’t know as much as you think you do. They both have dust for brains. And they multiply in the dark and make things nasty if you don’t keep them cleaned out. Everyone knows that.”

“Uh huh. Who told you about the evils of revenuers and dust bunnies?”

“Stop asking because I’m not going to tell you. It isn’t any of your business.”

“You sure are contrary.”

“Anybody would be if they kept being asked questions they have no business being asked. If you want to know about the other stuff fine. I figure you’ve got good reason to ask me that … but nothing else.”

The man I knew was Roman’s father walked into the room and patted his wife who left, shooing the other three women out ahead of her. The only reason I didn’t puke again was because they left the door open … and because Roman moved his chair closer after putting another chair by the bed for his father. I gotta tell you Bean, I’m not too sure that we’ll be staying here. These men are strange, and I don’t understand them. After looking like he wanted to bash me Mr. Beauchamp was acting like I was a bug that needed to be examined.

“I’m beginning to see where you get the name Thorn from. Though I think Narcissa is far prettier.”

Roman and Alex had obviously been talking about stuff they had no business talking about and I gave Roman a dirty look since Alex wasn’t around. I told Mr. Beauchamp, “Narcissa is from before. It was taken from me so I don’t use it anymore.”

“No one can take your name away … well … I suppose they can under certain circumstances, but you can take it back. If you want to.”

“What … what do you mean?”

“Roman says you are determined to never go back to … back to the way you were living.”

I told him, “Didn’t want to live like that to begin with. It just sort of happened. Is this where you ask how Alex wound up owning me?”

The older man winced and Roman sighed before saying, “Thorn, take the edge off. I know you are having a hard time trusting us but …”

“But you’re having the same trouble too.”

“Yeah, pretty much.”

“OK. I suppose I owe you some answers. Ask … but if I don’t want to answer …”

“You won’t. Kinda have that figured out. Is there anything you want to ask?”

“Uh … wha?” It had never even entered my mind. Like I said Bean, the men here are strange.

“Well we’re going to ask you questions so don’t you think you should ask us questions to get to know us?”

“No.”

“No?”

“No.”

“Why forever not?”

“Well duh, that’s obvious. You people are having a hard enough time knowing me. There’s no way that you want me to know you.”

“I give up,” Roman said in a peeve. “Dad … she’s hardheaded. I don’t know how much good it is going to do for you to question her.”

I was tempted to spill my life story just to spite Roman but decided that I still wasn’t completely crazy. Still, it was with no small amount of satisfaction that I answered Mr. Beauchamp’s questions as pretty as I had been taught a long time ago in how you speak to your elders. By the time he was done hearing as much as he could stand to hear Roman’s eyeballs were about to pop out of his head.

“Why you little … you did that on purpose.”

I looked at him and asked, “And what if I did?”

He got up in a huff and stomped out of the room. I regretted running him off when I found myself alone with his father but really, it is for Roman’s own good and I told Mr. Beauchamp so when he remarked on it.

“He’s too nice. He’s going to stick that chin out once too often and there will be a little less nice in the world and there’s hardly any of it left as it is.”

“Hmmm. You consider Roman nice?”

“Yeah although maybe not nice exactly … but he cares about things that aren’t his business to care about and that’s going to get him in trouble. Look at the grief he is taking because of me. First from Alex then from everyone else. He doesn’t look like the kind that deals with that kind of grief very well. It makes him cranky. It would be better if he stopped going around looking for it.”

Mr. Beauchamp ordered me to finish the soup and then to go to sleep. Which was fine by me. It’s a good thing I got some rest when I did because I needed it.

 

[sssarawolf]

You know there is no way I can not read the new chapters I have been waiting for . In form chores again and everyone out there is happy. Well almost everyone. One of the mules walked through the pond and scared the ducks out of it lol.

 

[Kathy in FL]

Chapter Seventeen

I was dreaming. It was like that night that woman took me from the re-education center before I even had a chance to enter it. I couldn’t breathe, was suffocating. Then I woke up and found out it was for real. I scratched and fought but I was losing. The only thing that kept me fighting Bean was you because if it had just been me I would have given up I’m so tired of it all. Then I heard a woman scream and something crashing and then the bed shook and I could breathe again only not real good.

“Dear God, send for Regina and Missy. Now! Move Roman, I need to see …”

“I promised her! Get away!”

“Roman, stop it. She’s not Patty. Now back up.”

“Go to hell David. You too Saul. You said you had him under control … locked up … for his own good until the family could decide what to do!”

The room was coming back into focus but I couldn’t stop shivering. I remember looking for a way out. I remember Roman yelling, “Thorn … Thorn! Look at me. Thorn … Narcissa. Narcissa look at me! You’re safe. But you need to … to calm down. Think about Bean. C’mon … that’s right think about Bean.”

“Someone was trying to take Bean away,” I cried.

“He’s gone. C’mon it’s ok … you’re safe. Bean is safe too. Hey, look what I have … you said your mother made it for you.”

He held my bag and I grabbed it. “It’s mine! Mom made it out of my wubbie.”

“Out of your … ?”

A woman said, “That’s what we used to call this blanket Susan had. It looks like it is made out of some kind of quilted material. There’s nothing sharp in there is it? The way she is hugging it something could poke through it.”

I don’t remember much beyond that. They kept telling me to just stay calm, to think of you Bean and to stay calm for you. I tried but I kept hurting and then they made me drink something and I fell asleep.

I must have slept for a long time because I woke up and needed to go to the bathroom fast. I moved and the woman Regina noticed. She wasn’t happy about me getting up but it was only for a moment and then she made me get back in bed and then she stepped outside and must have told someone something because before I could decide what to do next Mr. Beauchamp and Saul came in the room.

“Easy kid.”

“I’m not a kid.”

“OK, so maybe you aren’t but you’re still some younger than me so I get to call you what I feel like.”

Mr. Beauchamp interrupted Saul and asked seriously, “How are you feeling?”

“Stupid. You never turn your back on a man when he is acting crazy. It was real stupid of me to forget that. He could have taken Bean away from me. That’s what he wanted to do. Is … is Bean … ok?”

Mrs. Beauchamp stepped into the room and she shooed all the men out. I was scared Bean but then she stuck this thing on my belly where you are and … I heard you. I always knew you were real and in there but I heard you. Or at least I heard some noise she said was your heart beating and you wiggling around and that you sounded just fine and dandy. I didn’t mean to cry but I was really relieved. I just hugged you and hugged you. Mrs. Beauchamp got a funny look on her face, a little green around the edges, and she told me to go back to sleep, that the men had no business talking to me until she said so. I gotta say, she sounded like Mother Mary when she said it and if I hadn’t been so relieved, I think I would have been scared whether I wanted to be or not.

I slept for a while, woke up, Regina told me to eat some soup and then I fell back to sleep again without being told to. I figure that’s when they dosed me. I’d seen Mother Mary do the same thing when a girl would get hysterical, particularly if she was new and had had her first rough customer.

I woke up needing the bathroom again but as soon as I opened my eyes I could tell I was in a different room. The walls where I woke up were paneled and darker and the bed was completely different, for one thing it was bigger. And then I felt the shackle on my leg. I jerked it hard trying to see what the rope was attached to and if I could get away.

“Ow! Ow! Don’t pull so hard! Give me a chance to … stop it or you’re going to break my leg ok?!”

I looked over the edge of the bed and Roman was on the floor trying to untie something from his ankle. He asked, “You aren’t going to puke on me are you? ‘Cause if you are I’d like to move.”

“I ought to,” I told him.

“You sound like a feral kitten and there’s no need to hiss like that. I was just so tired I worried about not hearing you get up and not realize where you were.”

“Am I in jail?”

“Huh? No! Just let me … dammit how did this get so tight …”

Finally he had to take out a pocket knife and cut the rope off his ankle. “Er … is it tight on your end?”

“Yeah, but I can wiggle out of it. See?”

But then he freaked out and was even weirder. “Dammit, you’re bruised. How the hell did this rope get so tight?! And you’re scratched! Hang on, I’ve got something here … it’ll clean it out …” He ran out of the room almost taking the doorframe with him then yelped, “Missy!”

He was so upset that Missy ran in the room thinking who knows what and I told her, “He’s acting drain bamaged again. All it is is a little scrape.”

“And a bruise,” he huffed coming back with what turned out to be enough ointment and bandages to turn me into an old Egyptian mummy.

“Roman?”

“Just give me a sec … dammit … I need to find the end … how the hell does this stuff always get tangled up?!”

“Roman!”

“What?! Does it hurt? I’ll get Mom …”

“Roman you are running around like your hair is on fire. Go soak your head or something.”

Missy looked at me in surprise then tried to hide a smile. “How are we feeling today?”

“I don’t know who this ‘we’ is you are asking about but Roman looks like he could use some of whatever you people dosed me with. Someone needs to explain that he’s going to lose his man card if he don’t stop acting like that.”

Roman squawked. I mean he absolutely sounded like a bird that had its tail stepped on. Missy walked out of the room with her hand over her mouth.

Roman growled and said, “Now look here you …”

“Kiss my left big toe.”

Saul walked in scratching his head. “Roman, you’re letting her get to you. Go take a walk while I explain things to her.”

“No way. I’ll tell her. I want my side of the story …”

Saul stood to his full height and I could tell all over again why he was an enforcer. “This isn’t just about you. There’s bigger issues here.”

“Are you turning me off?”

Saul looked at me and said, “Roman ain’t the only one that leads with his chin apparently.” He pulled up a chair that Missy brought in the room before she left again and then sat and looked at me. “We aren’t sending you away but not everyone is all together happy about it. As such we’ve moved you out to a less central location. Roman will be your … hmmm.”

“You better not be looking for a polite word for pimp,” I told him.

Roman started pacing and said, “See?! I told you that would be the first thing she thought. Now how am I supposed to talk her around?!”

“Talk me around to what?” I asked suspiciously.

Saul said, “It has to do with the rules of our enclave.”

I just sat there and waited. Roman tried to start the explanation but Saul interrupted him and said, “You’ll get your turn.”

Saul then turned to me and got very serious. “You are not fit to run around on your own. I don’t know what your back story is but … basically even if I think it matters personally, I still have to deal with the rules of the enclave and the ruling of our leaders.”

He reminded me of something. “You are part of something bigger.”

Saul asked sharply, “Just how much has Alex been talking?”

“Not him. Just something I remembered … from a long time ago.”

“That’s not going to cut it Kid. There’s too much at stake. I need to know how much of a danger you are to the enclave.”

“No one gives a crap about me. Mother Mary is dead. Emerald … I don’t know but she probably thinks I am. Alex wants me dead. There isn’t anyone else that cares one way or the other.”

Roman said, “You shouldn’t say things like that. What about Bean?”

“Oh … well that’s different. I care about Bean and although I think you are demented I guess you care about Bean too because you said the baby would be your niece or nephew and you’ve got this thing about family. You said that once the shock wore off your parents would care too but even though I think that is a long shot I’m willing to go with the possibility because it means that Bean could have safe.”

Saul said, “Here’s the first demand of our leadership. They want to know your history and your real name.”

“I already told you.”

“And some are satisfied with not hearing anymore because they don’t want to know the details but you’ve opened up a can of worms with that little statement you just made.”

“What statement?”

“About the enclave being part of something bigger.”

“Oh.”

Bean, I really debated with myself. I don’t like to think about that stuff because it makes everything else seem so much worse. Don’t think about yesterday. Don’t worry about tomorrow. Focus on surviving today. But I decided maybe I could work a deal.

“OK, how’s this. I’ll tell you. You can … you can tell Mr. Beauchamp and maybe a couple of others that just have to absolutely know so I don’t get kicked down the road. But … that’s as far as it goes. It’s my business and I’m only telling you because … because for Bean. AND,” I said interrupting him before he could say anything. “If I tell you then you have to at least let me hang around long enough for Bean to come out and for me to learn how to do stuff so that I can take Bean someplace and teach them about being safe and stuff like that.”

“That’s a lot to ask without me knowing the facts.”

“Well you ain’t exactly asking for no small thing yourself.” I told him right back. “I’ve tried not to think about it for so long it’s going to hurt to remember it. I wouldn’t even think about telling you at all if it wasn’t for Bean and because Roman reminds me of Tim.”

“Who’s Tim?”

“My brother. He was always bringing home strays too. It drove Mom crazy.”

 

[Hickory7]

Thank You!!!!

 

[sssarawolf]

Wonderful, thank you.

 

[Lake Lili]

Thanks Kathy!
Lili

 

[teedee]

this is a great story dear lady!!!

 

[Kathy in FL]

Chapter Eighteen​

The deal was struck and I started.

“My name is Narcissa Helene Cassidy. That’s my whole, real name. I would have preferred something different but Mom’s family named all the girls after flowers; it was like a tradition or something. Rose, Daisy, Geranium, Violet … stuff like that. Not only do I have a weird name I was born in Africa. My parents and uncle were missionaries there. Then my uncle got killed in some kind of fighting and the mission board recalled all of us in that part of the world back to the US because they didn’t want the responsibility of other people dying just because they were missionaries. By that time though my oldest sister had married and he was a missionary too and instead of coming home with us they went someplace else for a bit. I can’t remember where, it was a long time ago. That was also the year that the UN got blown up. I remember that day at school, everyone was scared and trying not to show it. I went home on the bus with the big kids and my brother Tim was there and then we ran home. My other sister that was in middle school was already home but so was my big sister who was grown and married which really freaked me out because I hadn’t seen her for a while. The way Mom – my real mother not Mother Mary – was acting I thought something had happened to Daddy but then I found out he was just getting together with some other family. We were all moving to my grandparents’ farm which was out in the country until things calmed down. Don’t ask me where it was because I can’t remember. I don’t know why I can’t but I’m not lying so don’t ask. I just know it was a big farm and for a long while, long enough for me to have two birthdays, we lived there and grew everything ourselves. At least the stuff that the government didn’t come and take because they said other people needed it more and that we had to be fair and all that crap.”

“Narcissa …”

“Call me Thorn. It doesn’t matter how I got the name or who gave it to me. That’s just who I am now. Narcissa is dead. She’s been dead too long to come back. You need to get that straight.”

Saul nodded. “If that’s the way you want it.”

“It’s not a matter of want or don’t want. It’s just the way it is.” I picked up where I had left off. “Then came the election and the people in the city won. And they were greedy and were too stupid to take care of themselves. They expected the people in the country to do all the work and for the government to take it and make everything fair … only their definition of fair wasn’t; they wanted the stuff without paying for it. Well the people in the country got tired of having their hard work taken for granted and stuff stolen from them so they started playing hardball. That made the government mad and they started up this bunch that went around taking bank accounts and things like that because the country people wouldn’t cooperate anymore. Only then the country people decided they wouldn’t have bank accounts or use money for things. That’s when the government started playing hardball and they would send people to the farms to just take stuff directly. They were like the old-time people that went after corn liquor makers so people started calling them the same thing … revenuers.”

I came to the part of the story that I didn’t like to remember at all. “This next part I am going to say once and not anymore so you better listen and I mean it.” They both nodded and I turned my face away from them because I didn’t want to see them as I remembered. “The revenuers did more than take stuff. If they found what they called troublemakers they would … they would hurt them. I … I tried to figure out what happened and I think … I think that my family were troublemakers because Tim used to tell us we were part of something bigger. The revenuers liked to make examples of people that were part of something bigger. I don’t know what happened to my family, I think they are all dead. I’m pretty sure they are. Something happened during the fighting and it’s all black in my head and when I woke up, they made me pack a few clothes and get on a bus. They were not nice people. There were other kids on the bus too, so I don’t think it was just my family that was made an example of either. We drove for a long, long time and it was way passed dark when we pulled up to this place that I don’t know the name of. It was something something re-education center. Only I never even went through the doors because one of them mean ladies on the bus hauled me off and sold me and that’s how I wound up at Mother Mary’s Home for Wayward Girls. And you know the rest so I’m done.”

I turned around and Roman and Saul were angry. “I’m telling the truth! You said if I told you … you made a deal!”

Missy came in – I thought she had left – and sat on the side of the bed and put an arm around me and I’m not sure I like that even after I figured out she was trying to be nice. “They aren’t mad at you.” She sighed and then asked, “Thorn? How old were you when the UN blew up?”

“Eight.”

Roman jumped up and kicked the chair he had been sitting in and barreled out of the room. Saul shook his head. “I better go catch him. Although right now I’m inclined to let him do what I think he wants to do.”

After both men left I looked at Missy and she finally figured out I didn’t like her arm on me. Once she gave me some space I asked, “Why did Roman act like that? We … we made a deal.”

“Because Roman has a problem. Not too many people know about it … or let’s put it this way, they think they know about it, but they really don’t.”

“There isn’t a man on the planet that doesn’t have problems. What makes his so special?”

“All of his brothers are extraordinary.”

“Extraordinarily what?”

Missy smiled only I didn’t find a thing funny about it Bean. It was just more proof that the people around here are strange.

“Well David is … he’s a born leader and all that that means. Just like his father. Then there is Andrew. Right away the family knew he was meant for the church, and he’s led us through some very difficult trials. Peter … Peter is a bit of a hot head but he means well and he … he is David’s right hand man. Alex, from the time he was a little boy showed extraordinary perception in how to expand our markets and work people so that they would make contracts with us.”

“Let me get this straight … David is bossy, Andrew is preachy, Peter has a nasty temper and Alex is a suck up and knows how to gamble. And they’re considered extraordinary? What’s wrong with Roman?”

Missy opened her mouth and then closed it. “You … you definitely look at it different than everyone else. And Roman doesn’t have a problem problem exactly … he’s just … ordinary and his feelings run deeper about that than most people know. He’s tried a bunch of different things but … he hasn’t excelled at anything.”

“He hasn’t found his niche you mean.”

“Exactly. And there’s nothing wrong with that. It’s just compared to the others …”

“And he’s the baby of the family too right?”

“Yes.”

“Boy, no wonder he is crabby. And no wonder Alex always acted like he hated Roman. The rest of the family taught him to.”

“What?! No!”

“Well, it sure sounds like it. All the other brothers were treated like they were hot snot and Roman got the shaft because he wasn’t special enough to suit his parents. I even heard his dad call him a disappointment. If Roman is a disappointment what do they consider Alex?”

“Well … hmmm …”

She was kind of shame-faced so I figured it out with her explaining. “Let me guess. He is still golden boy only he’s been led astray by a whore and all the temptations of the city. I can see it now. The guy called David is going to lead him back. The one called Andrew is going to counsel him and pray him healed. Peter is too mad right now, but they figure he’ll help David keep Alex in line until Andrew’s stuff works. How close did I get?”

A voice from the door said, “Pretty damn close.”

Missy sighed, “Saul …”

“He’s alright. Fletcher is with him. They’re outside so maybe you can get them something warm to drink. Temperature is dropping again.”

Missy left and that left me facing Saul alone. I just sat there. When you are in a bed and you don’t have all your clothes and you’re facing a man it’s better to use caution.

“You really want to be called Thorn?”

“Yeah.”

“Narcissa is nicer.”

“Of course it is, but I’m not nice so Thorn suits me better.”

Saul snorted. “Have it your way. We need to finish this up before Roman comes uncorked again. For the record, you’re sure you were eight when the UN was bombed?”

“Yeah.”

“Uncle Shad is going to shit kittens. I don’t know what Aunt Margaret or the rest of them are going to think.”

“What’s the big deal?”

“The big deal is that you were ten when you were first abused and maybe fourteen when Alex … when he started …”

“I’m fifteen now. And old enough. If it is going to create so much trouble don’t say anything. Why do you think I kept telling Roman it was none of his business when I figured out he was loopy like my brother?”

“Because it has bearing on things. It makes what Alex did … even … it makes what he did even worse.”

“Well, technically speaking I don’t know for absolutely sure that Alex knows how old I am. It never came up. I know he wanted someone young and ‘fresh’ according to Mother Mary but he picked me not realizing I’d already been a whore for as long as I had. I think he just picked me because he thought I was someone special but I wasn’t anybody. I was just a fighter because I was unwilling. But Mother Mary made me decide and it made me mad that I had to be willing for her to sell me to Alex but I wanted out of her stable bad enough that I became willing. I wanted a chance to get away. I didn’t know they were going to lock me up even worse like they did. That was a shock I gotta tell you. It was like going from the frying pan into the fire.”

“I can see it would be. Now look Kid … pardon me … Thorn …” He scratched the stubble on his face. “I don’t suppose I need to explain to you that this has been damn difficult for everyone. And for the record, I don’t blame you for it, but the fact is some do. When they find out your age some might change but … but I know the ones that likely will and those that likely won’t and there’s not many that will.”

“So you’re saying that I need to get on down the road.”

“I would be easier if that was an option but unfortunately that can’t happen. You’ve seen where we live and … knock it off Kid. No wonder you’ve got Roman wound tighter than a top. You do look like a stray that expects to get kicked.”

“Then what’s the problem with me leaving? I don’t really know where here is anyway.”

“I agree but the others don’t and right now, in this circumstance, majority rules.”

“So I’m a prisoner.”

“Not … exactly. We’ve hashed it out. And Uncle Shad and I will stick with our deal.”

Surprised I asked, “You will?”

“Yeah we will. Think of it as a … as an act of good faith on our part. In return we expect you to behave with a certain decorum.”

“What exactly does that mean?”

“It means you have to behave around the men.”

“Oh. You mean you don’t want me acting like a whore. Well that should be easy enough because I don’t want to be around the men. I saw how some of them looked at me. I gotta be smart so Bean doesn’t get hurt.”

“You got some looks? From who?”

“A couple from the group that you were with when you found me. A couple that were in that place you called the meeting room. It doesn’t matter who, that’s just men for you. But I’m not stupid to make it easy on them. I’ll just find a place and hole up for a while. I’ll stay there and you can even check on me. Hmmm …”

“Figured out it ain’t so easy have you?”

“I’m just trying to think what job I could do that stays away from men but that could earn me food and lodging and stuff for Bean. I know how to clean. I can do math and read and stuff … I had to help Mother Mary in the office. I can sew …”

“You can sew?”

“What do you think? It’s not like we were ever allowed to go to the store or nothing. Mother Mary would toss boxes of old clothes the charities didn’t want and we’d piece them out the best we could. And I got an allotment of stuff from Emerald because it came with the cost of the contract but I still had to fix it up so it would fit. I’ve also had to fix things so that they would cover my belly. Alex …”

“Alex bought you stuff?”

I laughed. “Are you kidding? Emerald said he complained about every penny. At least he remembered to bring me food that usually lasted between his visits. Sometimes he forgot but I had emergency rations that lasted most of the time.”

“Dear God …”

“What?”

“Uh … nothing. So you can sew. That actually might come in handy.”

“So I can have a job?”

“You’ll have a … yeah, a job. You’ll be helping Roman.”

I sighed. “Oh man … what has Roman got to do with this?”

“He’s going to be your caretaker.”

“Not my pimp?”

“No. Definitely not.”

“OK. Just wanted to make sure. How long do I have to be locked up?”

“Who said anything about locking you up?”

“Isn’t that what we’re talking about?”

“No.

Then from the doorway Roman said, “No. If the door gets locked for some reason I’ll make sure that you have a way out.”

Saul looked at Roman. Roman looked at Saul. Saul shook his head and said, “Fine. Just make sure she understands … and what could happen if she doesn’t.”

 

[sssarawolf]

Another thank you.

 

[teedee]

thank you!

 

[Sammy55]

While I really dislike - no, hate - the circumstances that brought Thorn to this point in her life, I really admire her spunk and her "fight" for her little Bean. I admire the family, too, for not only looking out for themselves, but also for being willing to take a chance on Thorn.

Thanks for another story, Kathy. Can't wait to see where you go with this one! (Thought I have a sneaky suspicion that Roman will prove a big part of the story.

 

[Kathy in FL]

Chapter Nineteen​

After Saul left Roman got angry and said, “This is messed up.”

“If you don’t want to be the enforcer …”

Roman shook his head and sat in the chair that Sault had been sitting in. “First things first. I’m not your pimp. I’m not an enforcer. I’m … I’m not your jailor either though you’ll probably think so when you hear everything.”

“Roman so long as you aren’t pimping me out I’m pretty ok with whatever it is.”

“How can you be?”

“Because it is still better than where I was at and what I was doing.”

That stopped him for a minute and then he slouched in the chair. “Ok, you like deals right?”

“I don’t know about like them – or not like them – just I’ve found them useful on occasion.”

“Well, you’re honest which might be part of the problem. You’ve given the family so much honesty that some of them can’t handle it. It messed up how they saw themselves.”

“Not sure I follow.”

“I love my family but … but they aren’t … they have a certain way of looking at things that is really black and white. Right off the bat they wanted to believe you were some hard woman with a track record a mile long that must have drug Alex down into the gutter. Then when some of them got their first look at you they went squirrely in the head.”

“Why? Mother Mary said I looked ok … I mean I wasn’t special or anything, but I didn’t make men run from the room screaming for their mommies.”

Roman shook his head. “That’s only sorta what I mean. You don’t … well you don’t now I mean … you did when I first saw you all painted up.”

“You mean I don’t look like a whore?”

“Yeah, that’s what I mean. And I’m sorry if I have to explain things and they hurt your feelings but …”

“Roman, you must be thinking of someone else because I don’t have feelings that can be hurt. I got rid of them. They are a waste of time and cause problems. Just spit it out and don’t worry about it. I want to know what the sitch is. The sooner the better. I need to pay my way and try and set things aside for when Bean comes.”

Roman scrubbed his face. “I guess I don’t have any choice, not if I’m going to live with myself. Because there is Bean to think of. And … and I have to do what is right even if no one can see it or understand it.”

“You’re getting grief again?”

I saw him hesitate a second and then he said, “Yeah. And people are going to talk.”

“They are going to say that you are keeping me for your own use. Are you?”

“No. But …”

“But what?” I asked suspiciously.

“Some of the people in the family … in the enclave … look one of the hard and fast rules is that people aren’t supposed to fool around. Even if we skip Andrew’s sermonizing the problem to death, the truth is that with a group our size it just causes problems if you … have relations with someone you aren’t married to. We’ve seen it happen in other enclaves. People get jealous, there are fights, misunderstandings, yada, yada. Sometimes people will look the other way or sometimes it can be hid really well – I mean people do try and get away with it – but then when a couple gets serious and they do get married and things come out there can be even bigger problem. Then you have nature and sometimes people are just going to do what they want to do. But the thing is … if a … if a woman gets … pregnant … there’s an expectation that … that someone is supposed to … to make an honest woman out of her.”

“And how in the heck are they supposed to do that?”

“Someone is expected to step forward and take responsibility for her and the baby. Our enclave looks at it as a … uh … as a survival issue. Someone has to make sure the woman and baby don’t starve or get … abused and that sort of thing. Andrew would say it is a moral obligation or something along those lines. I’m not so sure he is right anymore but … I do agree that it is an issue of survival and safety for all of us.”

“You … you’ve got to be … No freaking way. You’re saying your dad is making you … making me … ?!”

“No! No. Just … just settle down. Dad is … I swear I don’t know what Dad is. Mom is righteously hacked off too. But mostly they’re both broken hearted. And … and the people see that and they’re wondering if Dad is going to make an exception to the rules and … and we can’t risk a bunch of exceptions. So … so I said that I’d … well … take care of you and Bean.”

“You … you volunteered? Have you gone completely to the crazy side?!”

“Look I know … wait … you aren’t going to puke again are you?”

“No, you aren’t like Alex so you don’t make me puke. But back up and tell me again … you really volunteered?”

“Yeah. Yeah I did. Why? Don’t think I’m good enough?”

“It’s not that so don’t be stupid. I just think you’re crazy. Doggone Roman, what did I say about sticking your chin out?! Now how am I supposed to deal us out of this? Your life is ruined. I told you I didn’t want to carry around any more pain than I had to and now look at this mess!”

“My life isn’t ruined.”

“Oh yes it is. Your family …”

“Already doesn’t think much of me. I only hang around still because … well … because I believe in what we are doing but I don’t usually have as much to do with the family as I have the last little bit. They usually don’t have much to do with me either. Trust me. If it wasn’t this, they’d find something else to talk about.”

“Missy tried to tell me about your brothers but they sound like a bunch of … well … they sound like people that are good at making other people miserable.”

“What? No. No, definitely not. You must have gotten the wrong idea. Missy can be a little … uh …”

“No, she knew what I was saying and apparently she thinks you get a raw deal just because people think they’re extraordinarily arrogant and you’re just ordinarily arrogant.”

“She did not say that.”

“Not in those words but women know a lot more than men give us credit for knowing. And don’t think I don’t see the Bible story type stuff that your parents had going on. Honestly … David, Andrew, Peter … could you be more obvious? What did they do, get tired of Bible names and switch to history names? Alexander … the great … and Roman? Your parents have a complex. Just be glad they didn’t call you Romulus and Remus.”

At least he had the sense not to deny it. “My sisters’ names are just as bad. Esther, Elizabeth, Catherine and Victoria.”

“You have sisters?”

“Yeah. I’m not sure if you remember her or not. Vicki was the other woman in here besides Missy and Regina.”

“I remember her. She was the quiet one and doesn’t look anything like your mother.”

“Nope, none of the others do either. All of us took after Dad’s side of the family … well, except for me. I take after Mom’s father and … and the less said about him the better. I remember him … he … he wasn’t a strong person.”

“But you liked him anyway.”

“What?! How did you …?”

“I didn’t like being a whore, but I learned a few things from it like things about human nature. You have to to survive. I learned to read expressions when men talked … if they were in the mood for talking. And you tried to hide a smile. It wasn’t much of one, but it still means that your grandfather meant something nice to you.”

After a moment he nodded. “He wasn’t very successful in life. Tried a bunch of times and a bunch of ways but just never could quite make things work out. My grandmother divorced him and started her own business because she was tired of waiting around for him to make something of himself. I guess he started drinking at some point and … and one winter he got so drunk he fell asleep outside in bad weather and got sick … and then he died. This was all before things went bad. I didn’t get to see him much but … but he’d come to the ballpark once in a while and throw some balls with me sometimes. When he threw them I always caught them.”

“So who gives a hoot if he was a drunk? Apparently he cared about you and you cared about him. Shouldn’t that be all that matters?”

“I wish life was like that Thorn. But it isn’t.”

“I guess you’re right. It just seems kinda stupid that it isn’t for the people that need that.”

“That mean you don’t need it?”

“It means that I’ve learned to live without it. I just don’t want Bean to live without it. I want Bean to be safe. I … I want to find someplace Bean doesn’t have to learn all the things I’ve had to learn. I thought at first this might be the place but … I don’t know … the more I hear about it the less I’m thinking it is. I sure as heck …”

“What?”

“Roman? Are they making you be my … whatever you call it? I know you said you volunteered but … it don’t sound like you felt like you had much choice. That just don’t seem the right way to start off a deal.”

“Are you willing to make a deal? Or are you thinking of how you can make a deal for long enough then run away.”

“Let’s just say if the deal is worth it for Bean’s sake – and to have some place safe that no one has to be miserable – I might consider it.”

“Really.”

“I know how it sounds. Um … mercenary or something like that. But … I mean it when I say I’ll keep to a deal so long as I know Bean gets taken care of right. And maybe I can’t make them safe by myself. But I won’t ever go back to that other life so that’s off the table. So you might as well get on with the conditions your family is putting on things so we can see if we can work a deal.”

“You aren’t going to like the conditions. I know I wouldn’t but … but there’s not much leeway in their give right now. First, you can’t leave the enclave, not until … they want to make sure that you won’t betray us to the revenuers or anyone else for that matter.”

“Ok, I can see where they might be concerned with that.”

“Not if they knew your story.”

“No. I don’t want people feeling sorry for me.”

“It isn’t feeling sorry for you by understanding where you are coming from.”

“Bull. Besides, from the looks I saw they want to think the worst.”

“Well I can’t deny that some of them are … are determined to think the worst.”

“Well like I said to Saul I don’t have a problem hanging around and staying away from the other men. In fact I really don’t want to be around them at all.”

“What about me?”

“You’re ok I guess.”

“Ringing endorsement.”

“Considering everything? Yeah, it’s more than I would give any other man and that’s a fact. You’re just too weird not to be kinda sorta ok. Just don’t go changing and turning out like …”

“I won’t turn out like Alex.”

“I can’t make you promise but … but I figure you really mean what you say.”

“I do.”

“Ok, so what else?”

“You have to participate in helping the enclave.”

“How do I do that? I told Saul I can work for my keep … mine and Bean’s. I told him I could clean and read and do math and that I can sew.”

“Sewing could be helpful.”

“That’s what Saul said.”

“I can’t.”

“Can’t what?”

“Can’t … can’t read and do math.”

“Why?”

“Because I can’t!”

“Geez, don’t yell. It was just a question; and it’s not like you are the only one on the planet that can’t. Missy mentioned you had challenges learning stuff.”

“She had no business …”

“Can you see pictures?”

“What?”

“Pictures … like a map. Can you understand maps and stuff?”

“Yeah.”

“Well I can show you how Tim learned to read some words. I guess you’ve got like dyslexia.”

“How the hell did you figure that out?”

“Because you’re as sensitive – strike that as rude and nasty about it as Tim was. God he was so sensitive about it. It was ok when we were in Africa, I remember that much, but when we came back to the states the other kids made him miserable. But to make up for not being able to read God seemed to make Tim a whiz at some things … they just weren’t school things. He was good with animals. And when we lived on the farm he taught me lots of stuff … I wish I could remember them all, they’d probably come in handy right about now. And Tim used to make my shoes.”

“Huh?”

“Yeah, when I was little and living in Africa I got sick with polio when I was a baby. It got me before I could get all my vaccinations. My legs were ok but my feet were froze up. I hated to wear shoes, they hurt really bad. Tim and Daisy had to carry me everywhere only when I got too big it was too hard for them to carry me and all I could do was sit in the hut and watch people go by. Then Tim learned something new. The people over in this village taught Tim how to make shoes and … well he just made my shoes from then on out. My feet unfroze after a little while but I still hated any other shoes except the ones that Tim made for me so when we moved back to the states Tim learned to make shoes that I could wear to school here. And then it was even better when we moved to the farm because he would make these really comfy shoes. All the other kids at school were jealous because Tim always made them real nice and I could sneak up on people and stuff because my shoes didn’t crunch.”

“There’s no way I’ll ever learn to read. I’ve tried … lots of stuff. I just can’t.”

Bean, I’m hardheaded and contrary. You’ll have to learn that about me if you don’t already realize it by the time you read this. When someone says I can’t or they can’t it makes me itch to prove the exact opposite. I tore a sheet of paper out of the back of this book and tore it in half. On one piece I drew a cow and on the other piece I wrote the word cow.

I asked him, “What’s this?”

“Dammit …”

“This is part of the deal so pay attention. What’s this?”

“It’s a damn cow.”

“Leave the damn out of it. Just say it’s a cow.”

“It’s a cow.”

He wasn’t exactly into it, but I told him I wouldn’t broker a deal with him if he didn’t at least try my experiment. “Ok … this is a cow too.”

“It is not. It’s … it’s a word.”

“It’s a picture just like the picture of the cow. This is a picture of a cow and this is a picture of a cow,” I told him pointing to the drawing of the cow and then the word cow.

“This is stupid.”

“Pay attention. What’s this?”

“A cow.”

“What’s this?”

“A bunch of lines.”

“I’m going to slug you with my bag if you don’t stop. Now play along. Remember, this is part of the deal.”

We went back and forth just like I had seen Tim do until he got mad. I asked, “What’s this?”

“A cow.”

“What’s this?

“A cow.”

“What this again?”

“A cow.”

“And what’s this?”

“It’s a picture of a damn cow!”

“Yep. That’s right. I bet if you practice, next time you see this picture you’ll know it’s a cow. C – O – W. Cow.”

“Wait … whut?”

I handed him the two pieces of paper. And he looked at the two of them and then at me. He looked like Emerald’s enforcer had knocked him upside his head.

“You aren’t going to puke are you? You look kinda funny.”

“No,” he said quietly before getting up and walking around the room. He kept looking at those two pieces of paper and then he walked out of the room and I heard a door close some place.

I was thinking about getting up and looking for the bathroom when I heard the door open and thought it was Roman coming back but it wasn’t. A young, pretty woman walked into the room and just stood looking at me.

“Uh …”

“My name is Patty.”

Crap is exactly what I thought Bean. I was looking at a major mess on my hands.