by Tarah Benner
What followed was absolute animal madness. Men and women catcalled and jeered, shaking the fence and making obscene gestures. Sometimes the men took off their shirts to flex their muscles, and Lark had seen more than one woman toss her panties over the fence with a deranged, lusty cackle.
Lark was no prude, but she hated the march through the corridor. Something about the men’s ogling reminded her of the man she’d given up her life to kill, and thinking of him made Lark’s stomach turn.
But that day, Lark didn’t blush or avert her gaze. Instead, she kept her head up and scanned the crowd for a glimpse of the watcher.
She had no way of knowing what the note writer might look like, but the thought of seeing him face to face gave her a secret thrill.
Lark’s gaze flitted over the men calling to her from the other side of the fence and locked on a guy standing ten or twelve yards away. He was one of the few inmates who wasn’t crowding the corridor and waggling his tongue. He was standing out in the middle of the field, and he was staring right at her.
He was a few inches north of six feet with smooth coppery skin and a strong, wiry build. His hair was dark and shiny like crude oil, lying on top of his head in short, choppy locks.
Lark’s breath hitched in her chest. Her shock and fascination must have shown on her face, because the guy’s mouth cracked into a crooked smile.
Lark felt a rush of excitement deep in the pit of her stomach. She couldn’t explain how she knew he was the watcher; she just did. She wanted nothing more than to run up to the fence and talk to him, but she couldn’t very well strike up a conversation with two hundred men humping the fence.
Lark hadn’t realized she’d stopped until she heard Bernie’s voice. It sounded as though it were coming from very far off.
Tearing her eyes away from the fields, Lark opened her mouth to mumble some excuse, but her words were drowned out by an uproar of angry voices.
Lark looked up. The women in front of them had stopped dead, creating a bottleneck about a hundred yards ahead. Several people were craning their necks and mumbling angrily, but nobody seemed to know what to do.
“What is it?” asked Lark.
“Who fuckin’ knows,” said Rita.
Emboldened by the watcher, Lark latched on to Bernie’s arm with one hand and started pushing her way through the crowd with the other.
It was slow going. Most of the women stood like tanks blocking their path. Lark stuck out her elbows and caught several murderous looks as she pushed her way through the crowd, but few women were brave enough to challenge Lark directly.
As they drew closer to the front of the line, the crowd seemed to grow more dense. Women stood shoulder to shoulder, their voices rising in indignation. It was stiflingly hot in the middle of the corridor, and Lark thought she and Bernie might suffocate before they could escape.
But then the path in front of them cleared, and they found themselves standing at the head of the line. They gaped openmouthed at the large fenced-in dirt space where the supplies were normally piled, and everything became horribly clear.
There were no pomegranates. There were no blueberries, and there definitely wasn’t any chocolate. The patchy dirt pen where they usually found stacks of crates and giant bags of seed was completely empty.
All around them, inmates were yelling.
“What — the — hell?”
“This is bullshit!”
“Are they gonna let us starve?”
“They can’t do this!”
A handful of angry skinheads had pushed their way to the front of the crowd and were shaking the chain-link fence, yelling up at the camera positioned over the pen and trying to climb over to the other side.
Lark and Bernie exchanged a nervous glance. As long as she’d been at San Judas, the prison administrators had never missed a supply drop. Even the year Arroyo Verde got two feet of snow overnight, a small fleet of Bobcats had come rolling through the fresh powder to clear a path for prison faculty.
“I don’t know where they think they’re gonna go,” Bernie whispered, nervously eyeing the skinheads. “They’ll never get to the admin building.”
She was right. There were at least two armed guards sitting in the watchtowers with a clear shot at anybody who tried to climb over the fence, but Lark never had a chance to watch what happened.
Suddenly, a low, guttural shout rang out, and somebody barreled into her and Bernie. Lark stumbled, but Bernie crashed to the ground in a tangle of limbs.
“Hey!” Lark yelled, leaping forward to help Bernie, who was being crushed under the weight of a furious Latina and the horse-faced blond who’d made fun of her earlier.
Horse Face was trying to strangle the Latina, whose eyes were bulged in a crazed expression. They hardly seemed to notice Lark as she dragged Bernie out from under them, but Horse Face noticed Bernie when she grabbed Horse Face by her stringy blond hair and tugged.
“Bernie, don’t!” cried Lark.
But it was too late. In the few short seconds it had taken Lark to observe that Bernie’s temper had shot from zero to sixty, Bernie had pulled back her arm and decked the blond.
Horse Face blinked stupidly, looking stunned, but her surprise didn’t last long. Before Lark could formulate a plan, Horse Face threw out a vicious uppercut and a hook that caught Bernie squarely in the jaw.
Bernie stumbled, but then she let out a shrill battle cry and launched herself at the girl.
The crowd abruptly descended into chaos. Bernie and Horse Face catapulted themselves into the dirt, and Lark dived down to wrestle Bernie away.
She got a boot to the face almost immediately, and within seconds, a dozen more girls had joined the fray. They were throwing blind punches and pulling each other’s hair — each unsure of whose side they were on but determined not to be on the losing end of the fight.
Off in the distance, Lark heard a flurry of catcalls and roars of approval from the men’s colony. Bernie had disappeared under a pile of limbs, and by the time Lark found her, she had Horse Face squirming in a rear-naked choke.
“Bernie!” Lark yelled, her voice immediately drowned out by the crowd.
Horse Face was about two seconds from blacking out, so Lark scooted toward Bernie’s shoulder and pried her arm loose.
Bernie let go with a “What the fuck?” sort of expression, and Horse Face grabbed a fistful of Lark’s hair.
“Mother — fucker!” Lark yelled, twisting around to punch Horse Face in the throat.
The girl made a sick gurgling sound and fell back. Lark tried to stand, but a sudden jolt in the crowd sent another girl tumbling, and she found herself being crushed under an enormous backside.
She jerked around violently — trying to get a breath of fresh air — and a hand locked around her wrist. Lark’s rescuer tugged, and Bernie’s face appeared above the pile of bodies.
Bernie looked crazier than ever with her hair sticking out in every direction. She had a cut lip and a bloody nose but seemed otherwise unharmed.
Lark let out a grateful sigh, but before they could fully disentangle themselves, a pair of evil eyes appeared in the crowd.
Portia was standing behind Bernie, her arms folded over her chest in a gesture of superiority. She was flanked by a couple of tough-looking girls with arms like tree trunks, and they were looking at Bernie with unmistakable delight.
Before Lark could stand or yell out in protest, Mercy’s daughters had grabbed Bernie by the arms. Bernie’s look of confusion was quickly replaced by panic, and Lark watched them yank her away from the crowd.
Lark swore loudly and got to her feet, but the crowd had transformed itself into an impenetrable wall. Bernie’s cries of protest were quickly drowned out by the stomp of feet and the smack of knuckles on noses.
Lark yelled after her, but she couldn’t even hear her own voice. The crowd had morphed into a violent mob, and there was no one around who could stop it.
four
Lark
By the
time Mercy’s daughters broke up the riot, the sun had already risen halfway in the sky.
Lark couldn’t find Bernie anywhere. She’d gone by Mercy’s compound and found the entrance blocked by six ferocious-looking women armed with spiked clubs.
Mercy, Portia, and the others must have been inside, because twenty minutes later, a svelte black girl with long silky braids came out to announce that Mercy would be holding a meeting in the square.
Lark’s heart beat a little faster. She tried to distract herself by pacing the length of the square, avoiding the crowd that had gathered around the platform to hear Mother Mercy’s announcement. Lark expanded her search to look for Rita and Shay, but she couldn’t find them either.
By the time Mercy emerged from her compound, the sun was blazing directly overhead. Sweat was pouring off Lark in fat drips, drenching her shirt and causing the little hairs that had escaped her braid to stick to the back of her neck.
Dread smoldered in her gut. Bernie being detained by Mercy’s crew would be enough to worry her under normal circumstances, but that morning’s events had turned the restless crowd into a powder keg that could erupt with the slightest provocation.
Plus there was the obvious question: What were they going to do for food? She knew Kira had enough root vegetables and grains to last them through the spring, but if they didn’t get the first crops in the ground soon, they were all going to starve come summer.
San Judas wasn’t run by the state or federal government. It was managed by GreenSeed, and as a private institution, it wasn’t subjected to the same inspections that a public prison would be. How long would it be until somebody discovered that San Judas was starving its prisoners?
Lark felt a warm bristly coat brush up against her leg and looked down to see Denali stuck to her side. She couldn’t quite muster the cheer Denali usually brought her, but she reached down and stroked his back anyway.
Suddenly, a familiar pink-and-green headscarf appeared a few feet in front of her, and she reached out to touch Kira’s arm.
Kira whipped around in an instant, muscles tensed for a fight, but as soon as she saw Lark, her body relaxed.
“Oh . . . It’s you.” Kira’s voice was low and controlled, but there was a look of deep concern simmering in her eyes.
“Have you seen Bernie?” Lark asked.
Kira shook her head, but Lark sensed there was something she wanted to tell her.
“Where is she?” Lark asked, gripping Kira’s arm more tightly. “Please.”
Kira wasn’t one of Mercy’s daughters, but her position in the kitchen gave her access to information that no one else had. Kira probably overheard more whispered conversations than anyone else in the colony, and while she rarely shared what she knew, Lark had heard people joke that Kira’s headscarf was full of secrets.
Before Lark had a chance to test this theory, Mother Mercy held out a hand, and one of the daughters helped her step up onto the wooden platform in the middle of the square. Mercy wobbled slowly toward the center, leaning heavily on her cane.
A surge of whispers whipped through the crowd like a sudden wind, but the voices died down just as quickly when Mercy opened her mouth to speak.
“Good afternoon,” she said, looking around with a grim expression. “I am sure by now you have heard that this month’s supply drop will be delayed.”
There was a rumble of distress in the crowd.
“I am working to get a meeting with the administrators,” she continued. “I know you all have questions. So do I.”
There was a long pause. “I can’t tell you when our supplies will get here, but I promise you that I will do everything in my power to ensure this delay does not affect spring planting.”
“But how can she?” whispered a redhead in front of Lark. “The early crops were supposed to go in this week.”
“We will continue as planned,” said Mercy. “That means working harder than ever — preparing the soil, cleaning out the acequias . . . Business will continue as usual.”
“Business as usual?” scoffed the redhead. “What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”
“Yeah!” yelled a gray-haired woman to Kira’s left.
Lark swallowed and glared up at the platform. Mercy Peters may have had incalculable influence in San Judas, but Lark doubted that influence extended beyond the walls.
Mercy didn’t have any idea why the supplies hadn’t come, and she had about as good a chance of talking to the administrators as Lark had of walking out the front gates.
“What if the seed never comes?” yelled a tall black girl near the front.
Mercy bristled. She hated being publicly challenged.
“Yeah!” shouted a curvy woman behind the black girl. “Why should we work when this might be the end?”
There was a flurry of agreement in the crowd, and Mercy’s eyes flashed with anger.
“Right now, we must operate as if things will proceed according to plan. We must do whatever we can to be ready.” She combed the restless crowd for any sign of trouble. “We have no other choice.”
But the women still weren’t satisfied. A clump of people toward the front were still muttering loudly, and Lark could see that Mercy was losing the crowd.
“I will happily entertain all of your questions at a later time,” said Mercy loudly. “But at the moment, we have other matters to contend with.”
The crowd fell silent, and Lark sensed that Mercy was about to try another tack.
“In these uncertain times, we cannot allow our community to disintegrate,” she said. “We cannot behave like heathens — fighting each other like a pack of wild dogs.”
There was a flurry of uneasy muttering, and Lark’s sense of foreboding grew.
“As I’m sure you know . . . several of your sisters lost control today.” Mercy’s eyes narrowed into slits, and Lark could have sworn her gaze was directed at her. “But my sources tell me that one woman in particular was the source of this mayhem . . .”
A jolt of panic shot up Lark’s spine. Mother Mercy was standing directly in front of the whipping post, an ominous fixture that served as a constant reminder of her intolerance.
There was a scuffle just behind the platform, and Lark saw two familiar heads bobbing above the crowd. They belonged to Mercy’s daughters, and they were dragging a third person between them.
Mercy glanced down at the struggling figure, her mouth wrinkled in disgust. Whoever it was was too short to see, but Mercy’s next words chilled Lark to the bone.
“Sister Bernadette . . . Is there anything you wish to say in your defense?”
At the sound of Bernie’s name, the bottom dropped out of Lark’s stomach. Without thinking, she started pushing her way through the crowd, elbowing anyone who stood in her way and stomping on several feet.
“Move!” she growled, shoving aside a hostile-looking woman with greasy brown hair.
Denali let out a distressed sort of whine and barked so loudly that several heads turned to look in their direction. When they saw Denali stalking through the crowd with Lark, people stumbled out of the way to give them both a wide berth.
By the time Lark reached the middle of the crowd, Bernie was lying in a heap on the platform. Her hands were bound, her hair was mussed, and she had a painful-looking skid mark running down one cheek.
Denali let out another whine of despair, and Lark had to grab him by the scruff of the neck to keep him from leaping onto the platform. At that moment, she caught sight of Rita, who was standing just a few feet from the platform.
“Hey!” Lark panted, struggling to clear a path through the women between them.
The sound of Lark’s voice made Rita turn, and Lark caught her look of grim resignation.
“Do something!” she cried.
“I can’t do nothin’, kid,” said Rita, a note of regret in her voice. “She’s made her bed.”
“What?” Lark’s heart was hammering in her chest, and she could feel heavy beads of sweat dripping d
own her face.
Rita wasn’t a part of Mercy’s inner circle, but she wielded enormous influence in the prison. If she couldn’t do anything for Bernie, no one could.
“Sister Bernadette,” Mercy boomed, stepping forward so that the hem of her skirts brushed Bernie’s face. “I asked you a question.”
To Bernie’s credit, she didn’t cry or cower at Mercy’s feet. She just stared straight ahead with a furious expression.
“Sister Bernadette —”
“I have nothing to say,” Bernie growled, her jaw locked to keep her bottom lip from trembling.
Lark shook her head in disbelief, floored that Mercy would drag Bernie up to the platform to make an example out of her. Everyone knew that Bernie was a hothead, but she’d never seriously hurt anyone. Lark doubted that Horse Face had gotten so much as a fat lip. Bernie was too small to do any real damage.
A sudden wave of darkness rose up inside Lark. It was a poisonous mixture of hatred and bitterness drenched in a cold, paralyzing fear.
She’d only witnessed half a dozen public floggings, but each one was seared into her brain for eternity. Mercy chose her victims carefully — inmates she knew would make an impression on her audience and act as deterrents to anyone tempted to break the rules.
That day she’d singled out Bernie to distract the colony from the real disaster. She knew Bernie would put on a terrifying show and quell any unrest.
Before she had a chance to reconsider, Lark was pushing her way toward the platform.
“Stop!” she yelled, glaring up at Mercy.
A chilling silence fanned out across the square, and Lark imagined everyone behind her taking an enormous step back. There was a very pregnant pause, and then Mercy’s predatory eyes locked onto her.
“Don’t do this,” Lark choked, her gaze flickering to Bernie.
“Excuse me?” Mercy hissed.
“Take — Take me instead.”
The crowd sucked in a collective gasp, and a surge of whispers fanned out from where she stood.
Mercy took a long, thoughtful breath, savoring her moment of power over Lark. She knew how much Bernie meant to her, but she also knew the effect it would have on the colony to see Lark reduced to a moaning puddle of flesh.