by Eric Vall
“It might be a hard question,” Anna said, and she bit her lip, “but did you want to take the pills?”
“Part of me did,” Sophia said, “I didn’t want to have his baby. But… it was going to be my baby, too, you know?”
“It’s okay,” Tara told her. “You don’t have to explain, we just wanted to know if he forced you to take them.”
“He forced me to do a lot of stuff,” she said and she looked down.
I grew so heated then that I nearly hopped in the truck to find Brody and put a bullet in his head. He was raping these women then forcing them to have abortions. What kind of fucking monster was he?
“Were you on birth control?” Bailey asked.
“No,” Sophia said. “We ran out a long time ago, then he just started giving us the pills.”
“Had you taken them before?” Tara asked.
“No,” she said, “this was my first time. You won’t tell him, right? You said you wouldn’t? I can’t go back there, just tell him I died, that’s what he wanted anyway.”
“You’ll never have to see that sonofabitch again,” Tara said. “I promise.”
“Thanks,” Sophia said, and she sniffled a bit. “Is there any way I can get some water?”
“Of course,” Paige said. “Are you hungry?”
“Yeah,” she said.
“Alright,” Paige said, “let me get you some water, then we’ll make you something to eat. Why don’t you just rest for a while? You can lay down right there on the couch, I’ll get you a blanket.”
“Okay,” the young girl agreed. “Is it okay if your dog stays here with me?”
“Oh, yeah,” Bailey said with a soft smile as she watched Sophia reach down to pet Winchester, who still laid at her feet. “His name is Winchester.”
“Like the gun,” Sophia said with a small smile of her own.
“Yeah,” Bailey agreed.
“Let me get you that water,” Paige said, and she headed to the bathroom to fill up a glass for our new addition.
“Thanks,” Sophia said when Paige returned and handed her the water.
“I have one last question if you don’t mind,” I said with as gentle of a look as I could manage considering the rage that had built up inside of me.
“Okay,” the girl agreed, and she wiped water from her chin.
“How old are you, Sophia?” I asked.
“I’m nineteen,” she said and she looked down at the floor as if she was in trouble.
“Thank you,” I told her. “You were really brave to tell us all of that, and we promise you’ll never have to go back there. You can stay here for as long as you’d like.”
“Thank you,” she said.
“Go ahead and lay down,” Paige said, and she handed her the blanket she had retrieved. “We’ll make you something to eat and get you up when it’s ready.”
“Alright,” Sophia agreed, and she laid down on the couch and Paige covered her with the blanket.
“Winchester,” Bailey whispered, and she patted the couch, “come here, boy.”
The black headed dog hopped up onto the couch with Sophia and curled up at her feet, which seemed to calm the both of them down. Winchester had only known this woman for a matter of hours, but he could clearly tell that she was emotionally unstable, and if his presence helped calm her down, then I was happy to lend her the community dog whenever she needed him.
We left Sophia and Winchester on the couch, then we went outside and everyone walked quietly to the firepit and took a seat. Tara took a long pull off the whiskey bottle that we had before we went inside, then she passed it over to Bailey.
“Can I get a swig of that?” Marla asked.
“Of course,” Bailey said quickly, and she handed Marla the bottle.
“Thanks,” the dark haired woman said after she took a long pull and wiped her mouth on the back of her hand.
“Thank you for helping her,” Tara said.
“It’s my duty,” Marla told her with a sad smile.
“This is fucked up,” Anna growled. “And we’ve literally saved women from being slaves, but I’m somehow madder about this.”
“I mean, it seems like the women at the fort are basically slaves, too,” Paige said.
“Right,” Anna agreed. “And Brody’s raping them and then forcing them to have abortions. What in the fuck?”
The bottle of whiskey came to me, and I took a swig and a deep breath to calm myself. I wanted to scream or punch something, but part of me also wanted to cry for Sophia and all the other women who had suffered so badly since the EMP hit and the rapists and abusers were without law to fear.
“Marla,” I said, “the pills he gave her, do you know what they are?”
“Most likely mifepristone and misoprostol,” the dark haired woman said. “They’re drugs they give you at abortion clinics. They are designed for medical abortions, but something went wrong here.”
“So he wasn’t just giving them some cocktail of pills to try and make them have an abortion?” Anna asked.
“I don’t think so,” Marla said. “Without the right knowledge that would be incredibly difficult to accomplish.”
“But if the pills were designed to make her have an abortion, then why did they almost kill her?” Bailey asked.
“I can’t say for sure without the proper tests,” Marla sighed, “but if I had to guess I’d say that she was too far along and that complicated things. Sophia’s lucky, but if he’s continuously giving these women abortion pills then they’re in for some serious medical issues.”
“More serious than what we just saw?” Paige asked.
“In a different way,” Marla said, “but yes.”
“What’s going to happen to them?” Bailey asked, and her eyes widened with concern.
“Depending on the frequency at which he gives them the pills,” Marla explained, “they could eventually become infertile, or at least have difficulty conceiving.”
“I thought the abortion pills were supposed to be safe?” Bailey asked.
“Generally they are,” Marla said. “But as you saw today, there’s always the risk of complications, especially when the person delivering the medication isn’t a medical professional. There’s a risk of complication with literally any medicine, but some are far more serious than others, and some don’t show the effects immediately, so someone might think that they’re safe to administer when in fact they’re doing severe long term damage to the person internally.”
“Fuck,” Anna breathed, and she took a pull from the whiskey bottle.
“Is there anything you’d be able to do for them if they became infertile?” Bailey asked.
“No,” Marla sighed. “Without access to the right invitro therapy, that would be a pipe dream. Even with access to the stuff, it doesn’t always work out for everyone. Some women spend thousands of dollars and hours trying to gain the ability to get pregnant, but ultimately they find out that they never will be.”
“That’s terrible,” Bailey said.
“Yeah,” Anna agreed. “I mean, I haven’t really thought about having kids, but even still, it’s nice to know that I’d have a choice in the matter.”
“Sophia didn’t have a choice,” Tara said in a low voice before she took another swig of the whiskey.
“She’s stable now,” Marla told the platinum blonde. “You all saved her life by bringing her here. I know the whole situation is a big mess, but at least celebrate the fact that she’s still alive because of you.”
“I’ll celebrate when Brody’s got a bullet to the face,” Tara said, and she slammed the whiskey bottle onto the bench then stood up and stormed off toward the woods.
“Tara!” Bailey called, and she got up to go after her.
“Bail,” I said, “let her have a minute. I’ll go talk to her.”
“Are you sure?” Bailey asked, and her eyebrows pinched together as she watched her friend disappear behind the trees.
“It’s okay,” I said. “Sh
e needs a minute to calm down.”
“I can’t blame her,” Anna said, and she picked up the bottle of whiskey and handed it to Marla. “This is fucked up.”
“It is,” I agreed. “But like Marla said, we need to at least consider the fact that she’s still alive. That’s something.”
“Cheers,” Marla said and she took a pull from the bottle then handed it to me.
I took a long swig and realized that the bottle was half empty by then. The sun was still up, but it had gotten lower in the sky and the farmers and civilians would be back any minute from the farm.
I took a deep breath and thought about the small, frail girl that was on our couch at that moment. She was only nineteen years old and somehow she had ended up under Brody’s care, and he had betrayed that trust and raped her, abused her, and left her to die. Everyone was right to be pissed. I was mad as hell, but we needed to keep a level head. This was something that we had on Brody that he didn’t know about. We’d tell him that Sophia didn’t make it, then he’d have no reason to think that we knew about his fucked up habit of forcing the women at his camp to have sex with him and abort his babies.
I took another swig of whiskey, then I stood up and handed the bottle to Anna.
“Can you all make Sophia something to eat?” I asked.
“Oh, right,” Paige breathed. “I almost forgot about that.”
“We’ll get started on dinner for everyone,” Marla assured me, “now, go find Tara.”
“Thank you,” I said with a soft smile, and I turned and headed into the woods the way the platinum blonde had gone.
The whole situation had obviously hit Tara the hardest, and if her outburst was any indication, then it was clear that she wanted Brody’s head on a platter, and part of me wanted to deliver it to her. Still, we had to be smart about all of this. We promised Sophia that we would protect her, and that’s what we would do. We would protect her and save the other women under Brody’s care, then we’d let them exact their revenge on the sonofabitch.
I walked a ways out into the woods, and soon enough I saw Tara ahead of me. She stood in a wide stance and faced a large tree, then she pulled her hand back and let out a loud grunt as she hurled her knife at the eastern white pine in front of her. The knife stuck deep, but she didn’t retrieve it, instead she stood there and I watched her shoulders rise and fall with each breath.
After a moment I walked past her to the tree and pulled the blade out from the wood. There were a dozen or so more marks that indicated she had been busy in the few minutes since she stormed away from the fire pit.
“Here,” I told her as I handed her the knife.
“Thanks,” she said.
I stepped out of the way, and she took a deep breath before she hurled the blade again. It struck the tree with an audible thud and landed in the same general area that the other marks were.
“Do you want to talk about it?” I asked quietly.
“Nineteen,” Tara said after a few seconds of silence. “She’s nineteen years old.”
“I know,” I said softly.
“What the fuck?” the platinum blonde asked, and when she turned to look at me there were tears in her eyes. “He was supposed to protect her!”
“I know,” I said and I rushed toward her and pulled her into my arms. “I know, I know.”
“Why can’t more men be like you?” Tara sobbed into my chest, and I held her close to me and just let her cry.
“There are plenty of good men out there,” I sighed, and then I kissed her hair.
“I’m gonna kill him,” she said after a minute, and she pulled back to look up at me. Tears ran down her cheeks, and she sniffled, but her eyes were dead serious.
“He’ll get what’s coming to him,” I told her. “We’ll make sure of that. But for now we need to protect Sophia. And we need to save the other women that he has.”
“You’re right,” she breathed. “I know you’re right. I’m just so mad… I just want to shoot in him the fuckin’ dick.”
“You know I’m normally against that,” I said, “but I’d make an exception in this case.”
Tara smiled at me, and then she leaned against my chest once more and just breathed deeply. After several minutes I pulled back and kissed her on the forehead.
“Come on,” I said. “Get your knife and let’s go.”
“Alright,” she agreed, and she let out a long breath.
“I left the other girls in charge of dinner,” I said. “We better hurry.”
Tara let out a small chuckle, and it was incredibly good to hear her laugh. I hated the fact that she was so torn up by this, but I understood completely. I knew what had happened to her friends back home, and how hard it had been for her. I wasn’t sure if the other girls knew or not, and I wouldn’t betray her trust and tell them, she could do that herself whenever she was ready, but I took comfort in knowing that the other girls would do whatever they could to let her know that they cared.
The sun had begun to set by the time we got back to campus, and I heard the familiar sound of a mix of voices just before we broke the tree line.
Rolly, Betty, and the other civilians had arrived back home. It looked like everyone had found a spot to sit on the grass, so I figured that Marla and Anna had let them know that Sophia was on the couch. I knew the nurse wouldn’t tell them the details, but we also didn’t want to startle Sophia by having a bunch of strangers come through the living room where she was sleeping.
I smelled something good, so I made my way to the fire pit to see that Marla, Betty, Rolly, and the girls had something cooking. I wasn’t sure what it was since there was a lid on the pan, but I could still smell a faint but pleasant scent.
“Hey,” I said as I took a seat on one of the benches. “Thanks for letting everyone know not to go inside.”
“Of course,” Anna said. “We didn’t want to wake up Sophia.”
“She’s asleep?” I asked.
“Yeah,” Paige answered. “I checked in on her a little bit ago.”
“Alright,” I said. “We’ll wake her up whenever dinner’s ready, then everyone can head in. But it’s a nice night out, for now I think everyone will be alright out here.”
“Yeah,” Paige agreed. “And I went ahead and got Kimmy and the kids and brought them down so they could play outside while we were cooking.”
“Good call,” I told the brunette.
“I’m sorry you all had to deal with this today,” Betty said with a frown. “Of course, we didn’t pry about everything that happened, but Marla said the poor girl nearly bled to death.”
“I’m not sorry,” Rolly said. “I’m glad y’all were there to help her out.”
“Thanks, old timer,” I told him, “and thanks, Betty. There is something unpleasant that still needs handling, though.”
“Would you like us to leave?” Betty asked.
“No, it’s alright,” I said.
“What needs to be done?” Anna asked.
“I just wanted to let you know that we’re still heading to Lebanon in the morning,” I said.
“What?” Anna asked.
“Are you serious?” Paige asked at the same time.
“I know,” I told them with a nod. “I’m not happy about it, either, but we do need to take these druggies out before we deal with Brody.”
“I don’t want to work with him,” Tara scoffed. “I can’t be trusted not to put a bullet in his head.”
“Right now we have to think of Sophia,” I said. “Sophia and all the other women that are stuck at the fort. We need to get them out of there, and if Brody thinks that there’s something wrong because we took Sophia and she told us everything, then it’s possible he’d go so far as to kill the women at the fort and take off.”
“Fuck,” Anna spat. “You’re right, we have to play this carefully.”
“Can’t we just show up and take him out at Lebanon?” Tara asked.
“It will be easier to take out the outpost with m
ore manpower,” Bailey said, and she bit her lip.
“Based on the reconnaissance we did, I don’t think we could take the post out all by ourselves,” I said with a shake of my head. “At least not without taking huge risks, and I won’t put our team into danger like that, not if we can help it. Even if it means working with an asshole again.”
“Besides,” Paige said, “we don’t know how Stockholm Syndrome these guys are. His guards could try to protect him if we attack.”
“We can take those assholes,” Tara sneered.
“We could,” Bailey agreed, “but they’re probably not bad people, they’ve just been convinced to do bad things.”
“I think Bailey’s right,” I said. “Everyone at that fort is terrified of Brody. I don’t even think the guards have been convinced to do anything, they’re scared of what will happen if they disobey him.”
“This is some Game of Thrones shit right here,” Tara said with a shake of her head.
“It is,” Anna agreed. “And we can’t be Ned Stark, we have to be Littlefinger.”
“Can you guys talk normal, please?” Bailey asked.
“We can’t do what is technically right here,” Anna explained.
“Meaning we can’t just cut Brody’s balls off and feed them to him,” Tara added.
“Right,” the redhead agreed. “We have to be sneaky about this. If we don’t show up to Lebanon tomorrow, then he’ll know that Sophia told us what he did, and if he knows that we know, then he’ll know that we’re coming for him.”
“How will he know that?” Paige asked.
“He got out of getting shot in the head once,” Tara said, “he knows he won’t get out of it again.”
“Exactly,” Anna said, “and if he knows that we’re coming for him, then Tav’s right, he could just kill the women and dip out or even worse, set an ambush up for us.”
“So we have to act like we don’t know anything,” Bailey said. “And wait for the right moment to strike.”
“Right,” Paige said. “And we need to figure out more about the guards and the civilians at the fort and what they’re willing to do for Brody.”