“What’s your plan?” Sharlotte asked.
“I will get us set up here, and then we will find a way to escape.” Micaiah paused. “But now for the bad news.”
I knew what it was immediately.
He touched the pocket of his jeans. “Aces took the chalkdrive. I tried to say it was useless now, wiped clean in the Juniper, but I do not think he believed me.”
“The cure for the Sterility Epidemic,” I whispered. “It’s gone.”
“Not gone,” Micaiah said, “it is just difficult to retrieve.”
The door was thrown open and Micaiah grabbed me, kissed me hard, then sauntered off with the guards. “All right, fellas. What does a guy have to do to get a drink around here?”
The door slammed shut. The lock clicked into place, leaving me and my sisters captives in a prison of men.
Chapter Fifteen
You were looking at my butt
Should’ve been looking at my boots
’Cause it’s almost closing—almost two
And my boots will either be under your bed
Or walking away from you
— LeAnna Wright
(i)
THE NEXT DAY, AFTER a breakfast of oatmeal and fresh milk, Wren was taken away. Not sure where, not sure why, only that in a few short hours she’d be fighting to save me from a fate worse than death.
Sharlotte and I waited in silence, her on the bed and me at the window with a view of the greenhouse and the corner of a street. I saw only men, no women.
Lunch was beef ribs and greens—delicious, but both Sharlotte and I had to struggle to eat. Too anxious.
In the late afternoon, smelly, dirty, hairy men led me out of our room. Sharlotte was forced to stay. I saw both fear and sorrow in her eyes, though she was putting up a brave front.
“You gonna be okay?” I asked.
“Buckhorn in my throat, choking me,” Sharlotte said. “But yeah, I’ll be okay. You tell Wren to kick the crapperjack out of these jackerdans.”
I nodded and gave her a smile, but Sharlotte couldn’t manage one.
The men slammed the door shut and pushed me up a set of stairs and out onto a balcony where Aces sat on another throne, this one made from deer and elk antlers. Micaiah stood next to him. The late afternoon might’ve felt warm in the sun, but it was chilly in the shade. Felt like autumn all right.
Micaiah didn’t even look at me when I came up. He chatted with Aces, who had a cheroot on his lips. Didn’t smoke it, only chewed it, like Pilate. “Hey, Michael,” I said, remembering his fake name.
He didn’t even say “hi.” Just kept on talking with Aces. Sure, ’cause I was only a girl, and he was a boy and all that stupidity. I took my place at the front of the balcony, not showing my disgust.
The Glenwood pool was a huge piece of concrete, and in better days, before the Yellowstone Knockout, it had been a favorite place for Coloradoans. The natural hot springs kept the water so hot, back in the day, they’d had to add cold water for people to swim there.
Now, boiling water covered half of the pool, the deep end. The stench of the sulfur and minerals hung in a fog. Neglect blacked and cracked the other half.
The smells and the sight of the boiling water brought back memories of the bus and Fish Springs Wildlife Refuge and what I’d done to Sharlotte. It nauseated me to think back on it, but she was alive.
Men gathered in the bleachers and packed the edges of the pool, making bets and drinking beer. Medics carried a man out of the pool on a stretcher, while the victor swaggered around, blood on his chin.
It was clear they’d been fighting all day, but the main event was my sister. I sensed they wanted to see a woman get hurt. Hateful thing to say, but the city seethed with hate. And fear.
Hate and fear, always such a dance.
Mr. Beard, whose real name was Myer, stood shirtless in the bottom of the pool, grinning and bragging that it would be a quick fight ’cause after all, he was fighting a girl.
Wren stood a few meters away from Myer. Her Green River thrift store clothes still covered her: jeans, tight green shirt, and her cowgirl boots. She’d taken off her leather vest and rolled up sleeves to show her thin, pale arms. She didn’t look like much, but Micaiah had been smart. If anyone could be his weapon, it was Wren. She’d come out of the womb looking for a fight.
Still, when I compared her to the big, bearded gorilla she was facing, I had my doubts. Wren had fought women, never men, never someone as big and testosterone-laden as Myer.
Aces stood up, and the crowd grew quiet.
“I am being very lenient, I know. Many of you disagree with this fight today, but keep in mind: if we are to be the men we want to be, we have to keep an open mind. And so, there will be a battle for the young female on my right. Michael, do you agree to the terms?”
Micaiah answered, “Yes. I have chosen my weapon. She fights for me, and I will agree to give up Cathy if my weapon fails.”
Cathy. I hated his new name for me, but that was just silliness. He could call me whatever he wanted as long as we could get the chalkdrive back and get the heck out of there.
“All right,” Aces called out. “Fight until the victor is clear.”
Wren didn’t hesitate. A half-second after the words left Aces’s mouth, she sped over to Myer, kneed him in the groin, and he dropped to the concrete floor of the pool.
Grimacing, he let out a roar, and Wren drove a fist in his face. Blood splattered the concrete. Did Wren let up? Not a bit. He reached for her, and she danced back. He fell forward onto his hands. She smashed the heel of her boot into his mouth. Teeth clattered across the bottom of the pool.
Myer slumped onto his stomach, knocked cold.
Wren laughed at Aces. “You still think you men are better than me? Why, I bet you think God’s a man. If that’s true, why did that stupid jackerdan put your junk on the outside? Makes you all so vulnerable.”
Micaiah shrugged. “Well, Aces, did I choose my weapon well?”
Aces didn’t respond. He scratched a match on his leg and lit his cheroot, as if he didn’t have a care in the world.
Wren wasn’t done with her taunting. “See, Aces, see? Ain’t about gender, ain’t about muscle, it’s about the fight. And I got the fight in me. More than any of you johnsons.” She slapped her chest. “Now get your ass down here so I can kick it. I ain’t done. I want more. I want more!”
The men hushed. Mouths gaped. I doubt they’d ever seen a fight like what they’d just seen. Over in seconds. With the victor hungry for more.
Ace stood up and breathed out smoke. He flicked his ashes over the edge of the balcony. “Myer was a good man, but he ain’t our best fighter. Not by far. Michael, you’ve earned your Cathy. But now we have the eldest of Michael’s wives. Walter, do you want Shannon?”
I had to think for a minute, then I remembered Shannon was Sharlotte.
A lean man with piercings on his eyebrow, ears, and nose walked forward to the edge of the pool. “No, but I don’t like seeing this skank walking around like she owns the place.” He paused to think. “Tell you what, I’ll fight her, but I get all of Michael’s girls. All three of them.”
“This skinny son-of-a-kutia?” Wren pointed at Walter. “Really? He’s the best?”
Walter ignored her.
All eyes were on Aces. “No, Michael has earned the little one. The pretty one I’m going to fight for. So you get the oldest one. The gimp.”
“Fine,” Walter said.
Aces snapped his fingers, and we waited until Sharlotte was brought out to stand on the balcony with us.
Walter sighed. “Not much to look at, is she?”
Aces smiled. “She’s homely, but at least she has good hips. For babies. Just do her with your eyes closed.”
Sharlotte looked like she’d been struck, but only for a second. Then she found her mask and put it on. This was the Sharlotte I’d grown up with, cold and distant. All of her recent changes seemed to disappear right before my eyes
.
You don’t know a person is wearing a mask until they take it off, and I’d watched Sharlotte remove her mask months before in a field of dandelions. That she was putting it back on ’cause of these jackerdans drove me into a fury.
I went for Aces, to put that cigar out in his eye. “She ain’t ugly. My sister ain’t ...”
Micaiah grabbed me, hard, and shook me. “You will show Aces some respect.”
It didn’t hurt ’cause it was for show, but Lord, it stung. ’Cause the men around me thought it was perfectly okay for a man to hurt a woman like that.
“Now, what do you say?” Micaiah asked me.
I felt hot, sweaty, on fire, and then I saw Micaiah’s eyes begging me to play along.
“Sorry,” I muttered. Yeah, sorry my sister Wren is going to kill Aces and every one of his ignorant apes.
Actually, no, not sorry about that at all.
I moved next to Sharlotte and held her hand.
The men below us looked on. I knew they were expecting either Michael or Aces to shake me again. To put me in my place.
Damn them. Damn them all.
Walter slipped down into the pool. “Let’s get this party started.” He peeled off his shirt to reveal more piercings. Where I won’t say. But his skin was a mass of metal and tattoos. He prowled over to Wren.
She grinned. “Now, you ain’t big, but you got a fight in you. Oh, yeah, I can see it.”
Aces dropped his hand. “Fight until the victor is clear.”
Neither Wren nor Walter moved, just stood eyeing each other. They weren’t even circling like boxers. Just stood there. The crowd disappeared into quiet.
Wren smiled. “You were thinking I’d try and get the jump on you. Expected it. And so here we are.”
Walter didn’t speak. Didn’t even look too interested in Wren at all at that moment.
“Quiet one, huh?” Wren took a step forwards. Walter turned a little, but that was it.
Anxiety choked me. Wren had taken down Myer in seconds. With Walter, it felt worse, more dangerous, unbearable. I felt Sharlotte trembling, or it might have been me.
“I like to talk when I fight,” Wren said with a little laugh. “Not you, though, huh?”
Walter shrugged.
The men around the pool muttered. A few called out for the two to fight, but in half-hearted voices. The two were fighting, playing a quiet kind of chicken.
Wren shifted her gaze to Aces. “Your boy don’t talk. Don’t think he fights either. So I’m gonna say I win. Might as ...”
She didn’t finish the sentence.
Walter struck.
He seized Wren by the hair, socking her, but my sister made sure he hit her forehead, protecting her face and her new teeth. Walter stomped her foot and went to pull her into him. If he got a hold of Wren and wrestled her down, she would be in trouble. He outweighed her and was stronger by far. Wren couldn’t let that happen.
She slammed her palm into Walter’s face, then ripped a piercing off his chest. It hurt him enough for Wren to get away.
She moved back, breathing hard.
Walter charged ahead, feinted with his right, then punched her with his left. Wren turned her face at the last second, took it on the side of her head, but it dazed her.
I left Sharlotte and rushed to the balcony railing, wanting to yell out for her, but I’d forgotten the name Micaiah had called her. I didn’t want to give the wrong one. Instead I hollered, “Come on! Get him! Get him!”
The men matched my yelling, but they weren’t yelling for Wren; no, they were yelling for Walter.
Blood covered his chest—either from his nose or from his ripped-out piercing.
Wren’s face was bright red and bound to bruise up like storm clouds. She stood, eyes wide, sweating, trying to catch her breath.
Walter moved in, Wren went to hit him, but it was a trap. He struck her, again and again, but she blocked most of the blows. However, in the assault, he had backed her up to the edge of the pool, opposite from where I stood on the balcony.
She couldn’t get away. He grabbed her wrist, spun her, and then wrenched her right arm up her back, and pushed her up against the wall. With her shoulder straining near to snapping, she growled.
Then she yelped as he yanked on her arm.
“Surrender, kutia,” he barked. “I gotcha. All your lip and talk was for nothing. Nothing.”
But he didn’t know my sister. Any sane person would give up to save their shoulder, but not Wren. Never Wren.
She’d kill herself to kill him.
Screaming, she jumped and sank her feet into the wall and pushed them both back onto the concrete and went over the top of him. Such a move must’ve snapped her shoulder out of its socket; her right arm hung limp.
Walter didn’t stop. He brutalized her face with his fists, kicked her legs out from under her, and when she went down, he went for her.
She rolled away to the edge of the boiling water and stood up.
He marched forward. She had no place to run. She edged back into the scalding-hot water, shrieking as it burned her. She snarled at him, “Come and get me, Mr. Tough-Guy. The water is fine. Just fine.”
Walter walked to the water and waited as Wren huffed against the pain. Her right arm was useless, her shoulder ruined. Her legs blistered as they cooked.
Walter’s eyes remained mild. Even as blood dripped down his chest.
Aces let out a breath. “She’s not right.”
“Get out of there,” I yelled at Wren. Yeah, maybe she could heal the burns, but the pain would sap her strength. Might even send her into shock. And her right arm, already so tortured. How much torment could she stand?
Walter smiled a self-satisfied smirk ’cause he knew he’d won.
“Not right at all,” Aces whispered.
“Which makes her the perfect weapon,” Micaiah answered.
That was Wren, my sister, the perfect weapon ’cause of her pain. All her life Wren had been standing in boiling water. Which is why she fought and hated and scrapped and cussed. ’Cause she was like Micaiah—for whatever reason, she hadn’t had a childhood. She’d only had pain.
I remembered again how she’d cut off all of her hair instead of letting Sharlotte brush it—cut if off with a Betty knife, down to her bleeding scalp.
’Cause at least physical pain made sense. It was something she could understand. But emotional pain? How do you heal a wound you can’t see?
Wouldn’t matter in a minute.
Walter had her.
“Okay, tough guy,” Wren said as she sucked in breath. “You can’t stomach a little hot water, well, I’ll come to you then.” Wren moved through the water toward him, cradling her right arm, until she could run.
She sprinted, coming closer.
He went low, waiting. He had every advantage.
At the last minute, Wren’s right arm came up. She’d been playing ’possum. She leapt into the air, spun, and right-crossed him in the center of his nose. All of her pain, all of her fear, all of her shakti was focused in that punch. It was perfect.
The punch spun him around, his eyes rolled back, but Wren wasn’t done. No. For her, things were just getting good.
In a flurry, she drove her fists, again and again, into his breadbasket. She was going for his diaphragm, and she hit it.
He went to his knees, breath gone. Hard to fight when you can’t breathe. Like with Myer, Wren slammed her boot heel into his face, except between his eyes.
He fell onto his back. He rolled over, trying to get up. Wren straddled him, took a fistful of hair, and commenced to smash his face into the concrete, over and over and over.
Men jumped down and tried to pull her off. The first two to reach her went down. Then the next bunch as well. Aces was on his feet, shouting something, but I couldn’t hear. The place roared with rage and terror. Their best had gone down under the boots of a woman warrior.
Micaiah had lost his grin; he was himself again, and worry painted his fac
e. Would they kill Wren? What would happen to us if they did?
Aces finally pulled a Smith and Wesson .357 Magnum out of his holster and fired into the air. Still my sister fought on, throwing men, kicking them, bashing in their noses, over and over as they came, until their sheer numbers overwhelmed her.
Aces finally had to fire into the pool. The whine of the ricochet scattered the men.
Wren stood up, blood masking her face. I couldn’t imagine what her burned legs looked like, the pus and blisters. Or what shape her right shoulder was in.
She pointed at Aces. “You ready for our dance, lover?”
She was surrounded by Aces’s men, and if they hit her all at once, she’d be taken down and killed.
Finally, my sister had found a fight she had no chance of ever winning. And she loved it, but at the same time, at that moment, I saw her insanity and hurt. You don’t fight like that unless your soul is wounded, maybe beyond repair.
“No!” I screamed. I went to say more, but Micaiah pulled me back. Sharlotte stood frozen, her face washed in pain.
“Aces!” Micaiah shouted. “And you men down there! All of you! My champion has defeated two of your men. I’ve earned two of my wives. If you continue to force my weapon to fight, she might break. Enough for today. Enough!”
Aces turned. “You’re right, Michael. You’ve earned Cathy and Shannon.” He turned to the men. “In two weeks, we’ll have more fighting, but for now, Michael has earned his place among us, not with raw strength, but with his cunning.”
One of the men muttered up at Aces. “This is bullcrap, Aces. He didn’t fight. What would stop us from doing the same thing?”
Wren answered. “You find another skank who can fight like me, you can use her. Or if you can come up with a plan like my Michael up there, well, I’m sure Aces would be more than happy to let you do most anything. But you, you look like a stupid son of a kutia, so you best stick with your fists.”
Aces couldn’t let her have the last word. “All of you, what Michael has done today is prove a man is more than his physical skills in battle. If you haven’t read your Machiavelli or Sun Tzu’s Art of War, we have copies in the library. That’s all for today. See you in two weeks.”
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