by Megan Hart
Sophie shook her head. “Not with Kodak in charge. She’s wanted to come down here and kick ass for years.”
“What about the others?” Tobin asked. “Will they follow her?”
Sophie looked at him blankly. “Well, yeah. It’s what we’re supposed to do.”
“You didn’t.” Elanna spoke the words gently. Sophie continued to hold the backpack steady while Elanna worked the tiny boy free of his blankets. “You helped us.”
Sophie blushed. “You were nice to me. Kodak’s never nice to me.”
So loyalty was as easy as that, Elanna thought. She opened the baby’s diaper and began cleaning him. He fussed a little, waving his feet and fists. Sophie watched with big eyes.
“That’s Lansing’s baby, huh? The one that grew in her belly?”
Elanna nodded. Enoch and Abe exchanged glances again, this time including Samuel. Elanna wrapped the boy in some spare cloths and held him out to Sophie. “You want to hold him?”
“This baby a Gapper’s is?” Samuel asked. “And a boy child, at last?”
Elanna nodded again, avoiding their gaze. She settled the infant in Sophie’s arms and showed her how to prop the baby’s head. Sophie’s smile was precious.
“His mother died in birth,” Elanna said. “They…they were going to kill him. He’s mine now.” Now she looked up, determined. “He’s mine.”
“And a better life with you he will have,” Abe said.
Samuel grunted. “And after him they will come.”
“No,” Elanna said. “They don’t want him. I do.”
“Other people’s bread tastes better,” Samuel said. “They will want that child back.”
Sophie raised her face. “They don’t want him, just like Elanna said. They hate babies. They hate him for killing Lansing. Nobody there likes babies. They don’t love them, or play with them, or hold them at night when they’re scared! They don’t care if they’re too little and they fall behind in drill and scrape their knees! They call them mistakes…”
The girl was sobbing. In a few sentences she’d managed to paint a picture of how life had been for her, growing up. Elanna saw that the men had the good grace to look ashamed.
“Shh,” Elanna soothed. “It’s all right, Sophie. You’re with us now.”
“The women and children we have to make safe,” Samuel said roughly. “Quickly. Before they come.”
Tears glistened in the old man’s eyes, but whether he was crying for poor abused Sophie or for the terror that was coming, she didn’t know. She bent back to the crying girl in her arms, feeling her tears wet the front of Elanna’s shirt. The baby, squeezed between them, miraculously was silent. Elanna held them tightly, loving both children as best she could though they weren’t her own.
“Faster than that,” Tobin said from the barn’s doorway. He turned to look back at them, face bleak. “I hear the trucks. They’re almost here.”
−
51-
They didn’t have time to hide the women and the children. They didn’t have time even to warn them. Kodak led her soldiers with swift and lethal efficiency. The two trucks hadn’t even stopped rolling before the Gappers swung down from them, brandishing their weapons and hollering like demons.
“Line ‘em up!” Kodak barked out. “Get them out here and line them up!”
The women left their washing and their scrubbing; the children dropped their toys and left them in the dirt to obey. The men who’d already begun the day’s work in the fields began making their way back. They all began to form the lines that must have become so familiar after the years of abuse from the Gappers. They didn’t know, Tobin thought with sick horror as he watched from the barn, that this time it would be different.
“We can’t let them do it,” Elanna whispered. “She’s going to slaughter them!”
Tobin restrained her from leaping out through the door. “If we take them by surprise we might have a chance.”
Elanna leaned against him, trembling, for only a moment before pulling away. Worry lined her face, and he bent to kiss her quickly. She clutched at him, hard, and he squeezed her in return. He couldn’t shake the feeling that this might be the last time he’d ever have the chance to hold her.
The men huddled, muttering, searching the barn for the weapons Sophie had pointed out. Tobin smiled at Elanna, who returned it, before joining Abe, Enoch and Samuel. The old man shook his head slowly from side to side. Not in refusal, Tobin thought. In shame at what they had to do.
“I’m ready,” Sophie said, joining them. She’d relinquished the baby to Elanna, who tucked him back into the backpack.
Surprised, Tobin put his hand on her shoulder. “No, Sophie. We can’t ask you to do this.”
She scowled, her young face becoming old in an instant. “I can fight better than you. I know what to do.”
A sharp cry rose from outside the barn, turning his stomach over. They didn’t have time for arguing. He couldn’t send this girl, this child, out to fight for them. Not against her own people! But what choice did they have? Sophie was right. She’d been trained. They hadn’t.
“This is what we’ll do.” The girl bent to draw a line in the barn’s dirt floor. “Their trucks are here. They’ll be lining them up, just like they always do, but then Kodak will give the order. They only have three guns that work. I hid the ammunition so they only have what was already in the weapons.”
Tobin’s blood turned to ice at Sophie’s cold description. “They’re going to murder them all. Just like that?”
“Once the shooting starts, some may run,” Sophie’s voice shook, and he was glad to hear it. It meant she was human. “They’ll be chased by the others. The ones who don’t have guns will use their knives.”
“Adonai help us,” Elanna said. The color had drained from her cheeks. “What can we do?”
“We don’t have much time.” Sophie looked up at Elanna. “I’ll take you. I’ll tell Kodak I chased you here, and the General wounded Tobin, and we left him to die in the field. When Kodak comes over to us, you,” she pointed to the four men, “will jump on her and kill her. Without Kodak, the others may stop. But if they don’t, you’ll have to fight them. Without a leader they probably won’t keep on. Kodak’s the only one with a taste for blood.”
Sophie blinked, her eyes going blank for a moment. “It’s been ten years since any of us has been to war. I think Kodak’s the only one who really remembers how.”
Enoch held up the large pitchfork. “We will behind you be, child.”
“What about him?” Elanna asked, holding up the baby.
“Put him the hay into,” Samuel said gruffly. He was rubbing his hands as though they pained him. He took the long metal bar Abe held out to him, and hefted its weight. “The cows out in the field are. He safe will be.”
Elanna looked stricken but kissed the sleeping baby and went to the back of the barn to tuck him away there. Tobin grabbed a deadly looking farming tool from the hook on the wall. It was time. Before Kodak had a chance to start her slaughter.
“Just one more thing.” Sophie paused, her voice wobbling. She swallowed heavily and lifted her chin. “You might get the others to quit, but not Kodak. Don’t stop until she’s dead.”
-*-
Though Sophie only reached her shoulder, the girl was strong. Sophie shoved Elanna through the door so hard she went to her knees, shredding the skin. She didn’t have to fake her cry of pain.
“The fuck is this?” Kodak said, turning. “Dallas? The fuck you doing here?”
“I brought the prisoner, Sir!” Sophie said, snapping her hand against her head in that gesture they used. She forced Elanna to her feet. “Followed her here from base, Sir!”
Elanna didn’t imagine the gleam of pleasure in Kodak’s eyes. The older girl actually smiled. The grin made Elanna shudder.
“So you’re not a total loss after all,” Kodak said. “Bring her here.”
Elanna let Sophie push her toward Kodak, her resistance real. “Just let me go, Ko
dak. Let us all go.”
Kodak snorted, leaning in close. “Not a chance, bitch. This is my party, now.” Her attention snapped back to Sophie. “Where’s the dude?”
“He…he died, Sir. The General shot him, and --”
“Shit.” Kodak’s face darkened with displeasure. “Lovett!”
“Sir, yes, Sir!”
“Dallas, tell Lovett where to find the douchebag’s body. Bring it to me. Just because he’s dead doesn’t mean I can’t fuck him up a little.”
She turned back to Elanna. “Don’t worry, sweets. I’ll let you watch.”
Elanna spat in the Gapper’s face. Kodak’s eyes narrowed, but she didn’t pull away in disgust. She didn’t even bother to wipe away the glob of spittle clinging to her cheek. Instead, she turned to the rows of people standing silently and obediently, waiting for the Gappers to get what they wanted and leave them alone. Even though she knew Kodak’s intent, Elanna reeled with shock when the lead Gapper pointed to the end of the women’s line. At a child.
“Begin,” Kodak said to one of the Gappers Elanna didn’t recognize. She didn’t yell. If anything, her voice sounded disinterested and casual.
The soldier looked from Kodak to the child, who now clung to his mother’s skirts and looked up at the strangers with wide, frightened eyes. “Sir?”
“Didn’t you hear me, numbnuts?” Kodak asked, still in the same light conversational tone. “I said begin. Now. With that ankle biter there.”
The child’s mother looked alarmed and gathered the boy, just a toddler, into her arms. The men and women began murmuring, looking at each other with concern. This wasn’t what they were used to.
The soldier faltered, shaking her head. “Sir, I --”
“Didn’t I make the object of this mission clear?” Kodak screamed in the other girl’s face. “Weren’t you paying attention, Hadley? Or did you have your head up your ass?”
“No, Sir!” Hadley shouted. She looked back at the little boy again, biting her lip “Sir, I can’t. He’s just a kid.”
Kodak pulled a knife the length of her forearm from her side sheath and slit Hadley’s throat from ear to ear. Gouts of blood gushed forth, splattering the ground. Hadley fell without a sound. Kodak didn’t stop. She reached for the screaming child and pried him out of his mother’s arms. She gripped him by the hair and held the knife to his small throat.
“I said, ‘begin!’” She yelled to the other soldiers, who looked as stunned and sick as the People. “Or you’ll get the same as Hadley!”
The knife was huge, and the child small. His mother began to scream, and the blood and the sound of her terror spurred the soldiers into action.
Nobody had to push Elanna to bring her to her knees this time. Her legs buckled beneath her and she went down hard. Tasting dirt, she spat and spat again, imagining it was blood.
Everything was chaos. She couldn’t tell who was screaming and who was running. Elanna struggled up on numb legs, unable scream, or to run. Unable to think of anything but stopping Kodak.
“Sir!” Sophie screamed.
Kodak turned from the slaughter, a hot and gleeful grin on her face. Elanna tried to reach her, wanting to rip out the eyes twinkling so madly with good humor. A body fell on her, nearly knocking her over again. It was one of the Gappers, a long knitting needle protruding from one eye. Elanna begged Ha-Shem for forgiveness at her joy.
“Sir!” Sophie said. “You can see much better from up here, Sir!”
The girl gestured up the short ramp leading to the barn doors. Her eyes met Elanna’s over Kodak’s shoulder, and Elanna instantly knew what the girl was planning. Sophie smiled, a strained grin that only tweaked the corners of her lips, but Kodak didn’t seem to notice. She crossed to Sophie, moving closer to the barn doors.
“Dallas, get your sorry little punk rear down there,” Kodak said, but without malice.
Sophie had no time to reply. One of the barn doors flew open, knocking her off the ramp and down to the ground. The men leaped from inside. Tobin fell on Kodak first, taking her to the ground with him and smashing her face with his fist. Enoch, Abe and Samuel watched for a moment, then ran to help their families.
“You!” Kodak screamed through a mouthful of teeth and blood. “Dallas said you were dead!”
“I guess I just got lucky,” Tobin said, just before Kodak heaved him off herself with a practiced twist of her hips.
Elanna stepped over the body, meaning to head toward Kodak again. The children, a boy and two little girls, stopped her. Screaming and bloodied, they clung to her legs. Without thinking Elanna scooped them into her arms and ran.
Staggering, she nearly dropped them, but desperation drove her on. With every step she waited for a blow to take her down, but miraculously nobody came after her. She hitched the children higher on her hips and felt the one clinging to her chest wrap its arms around her neck nearly to the point of suffocation. Dangerous red spots began blinking in front of her eyes and her breath wheezed in and out of her lungs, and still she ran on.
She misjudged the porch height and hit the first step with her shin instead of her foot. Elanna fell forward, the children falling from her arms to land on the wooden porch. The one she’d been carrying on her front rolled away, crying, but, Baruch Ha-Shem, she hadn’t landed on the girl.
“Up, up!” She cried to them, getting up herself and limping up the second stair. The children ran to her and she gathered them in her arms, stumbling toward the front door. The screen door stuck, refused to open. Elanna yanked it so hard it sagged on its hinges. She and the children fell through the doorway and into the small living room.
She hadn’t been in this house before, and didn’t know where these babies would be safe. Upstairs? They’d have no way of escape up there. She looked back over her shoulder, expecting to see the Gappers hot in pursuit, but again they’d been blessed. Nobody seemed to notice they were gone.
“Through here.” She tugged two of the little ones by the hand and managing to lift the littlest one onto her hip again. She pushed them and herself through the kitchen into a small back bedroom, where she found a large wardrobe. “Inside!”
She put the children into the large cupboard and kissed them all. “No more tears,” she said, putting on a smile she didn’t feel. “You’ll be all right here. I promise. Stay quiet, do you understand?”
The boy, the oldest, nodded. His chubby cheeks were streaked with dirt and tears, but he put his arms protectively around the smaller girls. “Ve vill twiet be.”
Elanna’s throat closed at the child’s bravery. “I know you will, honey. And I’ll be back for you soon, okay?”
The children nodded, huddling together. Elanna kissed them all again, fighting back tears she didn’t want them to see. With another bright smile she closed the wardrobe door and slipped out toward the front door again.
She paused, looking out to the field beyond, where the fighting continued. She couldn’t see who was fighting whom, so much dirt and blood had covered all the men and women both. Her heart lurched as she scanned the battle. There were more children out there. One behind a large rock, face down in the grass. Another two huddled beneath one of the large wagons, only inches away from a Gapper who was beating a man with a stick.
She had to help the children. Without another thought, Elanna ran into the fray.
−
52-
Kodak’s mouth hurt, but not as much as that bastard would hurt when she was through with him. Already she was on her feet, spitting out the teeth the punk had managed to loosen in her mouth. She advanced on him, laughing at the puny little rake he had.
Tobin swung at her, and she ducked. The force of his swing shifted him off balance, and she used that. Kicking up and out, like the General had taught her, Kodak struck the back of one of Tobin’s knees. He went down like a stone, grinding into the dirt.
“Come on,” she taunted. “You can do better than that.”
He got to his feet with a swiftness that surp
rised her. Maybe this dude wasn’t such a punk, after all. The glitter of fury in his eyes made her falter for just one second.
“Anger can make even the weak strong,” she whispered to herself. One of the General’s teachings. She looked around at the melee, and for the first time began to wonder if she’d made a mistake.
The people were fighting back. Without their guns, the Gappers had little advantage against men and women fighting to save their children. Kodak cursed as she saw Gourley and Chestnut each raise their weapons and pull triggers that did nothing more than click dryly. The women dropped the guns to the ground as two of the Plain men tackled them. Who had the third gun?
“Not what you expected?” Tobin dropped the useless rake.